es, so rudely moulded that his face
seemed, somehow, unfinished; Otto with his half-ear and the savage scar
that made his upper lip curl so ferociously under his twisted mustache. As
I remember them, what unprotected faces they were; their very roughness
and violence made them defenseless. These boys had no practiced manner
behind which they could retreat and hold people at a distance. They had
only their hard fists to batter at the world with. Otto was already one of
those drifting, case-hardened laborers who never marry or have children of
their own. Yet he was so fond of children!

XII

ON Christmas morning, when I got down to the kitchen, the men were just
coming in from their morning chores--the horses and pigs always had their
breakfast before we did. Jake and Otto shouted "Merry Christmas"! to me,
and winked at each other when they saw the waffle-irons on the stove.
Grandfather came down, wearing a white shirt and his Sunday coat. Morning
prayers were longer than usual. He read the chapters from St. Matthew
about the birth of Christ, and as we listened it all seemed like something
that had happened lately, and near at hand. In his prayer he thanked the
Lord for the first Christmas, and for all that it had meant to the world
ever since. He gave thanks for our food and comfort, and prayed for the
poor and destitute in great cities, where the struggle for life was harder
than it was here with us. Grandfather's prayers were often very
interesting. He had the gift of simple and moving expression. Because he
talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull
from constant use. His prayers reflected what he was thinking about at the
time, and it was chiefly through them that we got to know his feelings and
his views about things.

After we sat down to our waffles and sausage, Jake told us how pleased the
Shimerdas had been with their presents; even Ambrosch was friendly and
went to the creek with him to cut the Christmas tree. It was a soft gray
day outside, with heavy clouds working across the sky, and occasional
squalls of snow. There were always odd jobs to be done about the barn on
holidays, and the men were busy until afternoon. Then Jake and I played
dominoes, while Otto wrote a long letter home to his mother. He always
wrote to her on Christmas Day, he said, no matter where he was, and no
matter how long it had been since his last letter. All afternoon he sat in
the dining-room. H