t breath of the
steaming earth.

From the chimneys of the empty cottages no smoke was curling; today
nobody came home to dinner, today nobody rested until evening, when the
last load of grain should have been housed. Carefully the housewives
had put out the fire on the hearth before they went to the fields, even
pouring water on any embers that might still contain life.

There was smoke only at Widow Driesch's. She was the only woman at
home, and she had a fire on her hearth, as always. A big fire. Was she
baking cakes? Had her son come home and was that why there was such a
cloud of smoke in her flue? Dense gray clouds poured from the chimney
and settled heavily upon the roof. And now she opened the door, the
back door by the side of which was the brush pile; Widow Driesch came
out, in one hand a box of matches and in the other an oil can.
Carefully she poured the last drop over the dry pile of brush, she
scratched a match--hi, the whole box caught fire, she dropped it and a
swift flame greedily lapped up the oil-soaked twigs.

With wide-open eyes the old woman stood by and saw them burn. The flame
quickly climbed up the wall of the house--crash!--the back window burst
from the heat. Miauing, the black cat jumped out and with singed fur
sought safety in flight.

She too now went away, slowly, one step at a time, often stopping and
looking back: would not the fire go out again? She began to feel
anxious. Had she perhaps not carefully enough raked the great fire in
the hearth out into the room and spread it about the floor? And covered
it with straw and oil-soaked rags? All her woolen things, her black
Sunday gown and the kerchief--a gift from her deceased husband--she had
torn to bits for the purpose. Had she perhaps not put sufficient
burning chips into the bed, among the feathers of the pillows that she
had ripped open? Oh, yes! The bed was already burning like a torch when
she had tottered out of the back door, half smothered, with eyes
blinded by smoke. Oh, yes, she could rest easy on that score, the house
would burn surely enough, there would be a flame that all the village
could see!

Somewhat more rapidly she walked on. She intended to go up to the
pasture. Up on the hill top she could best see how the fire rose higher
and higher, how it caught the roof, which her late husband had thatched
anew for the wedding; how it consumed the house that her grandfather in
paradise had built in days of yore!

She only