d dry. Now, for all
she cared, the heavens might have yawned wide and belched water without
end, till everything had been beaten down as with sledge hammers! She
had used every morning to go to mass and had diligently prayed for
divine protection against flood. Now the thunder might crash and the
lightning strike and hailstones come rattling down as big as hen's
eggs--why did not William come?

There was this year a blessed harvest. The people of the Eifel had
never before had such a quantity of dead-ripe grain dry in their barns.
If the good weather would only hold out a little longer! In two days
the last load would be safely garnered.

The village was glad, all of the two hundred souls rejoiced, man and
woman, boy and girl. Even the little children cooed with pleasure on
the turf by the side of the grain fields where their mothers had left
them in the shade of a chance bush, along with the jug and the tin
dinner pail, while they industriously helped their husbands. Even in
the weary evening the harmonica resounded and maidens laughed around
the well.

Everywhere Widow Driesch heard people talking about the good season.
She was now impelled to go out on the street. Where two or three were
gathered together she drew near--were they talking of William? Oh, no!
Disappointed she retreated, only to continue, passing restlessly along
the row of cottages and pricking up her ears in the direction of the
little windows. Laughter within and the rattle of dishes, the deep
voices of men, chatter of women, and the cries of children. But about
William she heard nothing. Her eyes, which found no more sleep, were
growing dull and red and beclouded. The neighbors and the village and
all familiar things seemed removed to a great distance from her. The
only thing that she clearly perceived was the road along which her son
would soon be coming--yes, must certainly come!

The women followed her with sympathetic eyes when she carried her
bucket to the well, her spare form bent, her gray hair protruding in
disorder from under her cap. But she now shyly avoided the half
curious, half compassionate greetings--what did these women mean by
their stupid peeping? No, she needed now no human companion, she did
not ask for a word from anybody--she wanted her son to come back, she
craved to have him with her again. Defiantly and painfully she closed
her lips tight and kept back the question that in spite of her
continually demanded utterance. W