CHAPTER I.

Hansei was looking out of the window, holding his pipe with both hands
and smoking away, while the morning passed. Near by, a day-laborer was
cutting a load of wood. Hansei looked on, calmly nodding approval when
the woodcutter made a clever stroke and, like a true judge, smiling at
the awkward fellow when an obstinate branch would oblige him to turn it
again and again before he succeeded in chopping it up. The grandmother
was carrying the chopped wood into the shed at the gable end of the
house and was there piling it up. Every time she passed, she would look
at Hansei, who did not stir. At last, with an armful of wood, she
stopped before him and said: "Well?"

"Of course," he replied and puffed on. The grandmother's exclamation
had meant: "What's this? Are you only here to look on? Can't you, at
least, pile up the cut wood?"

Hansei had fully understood her and had answered as if to say: "Of
course I shan't help; I don't feel a mind to."

The grandmother was about to throw down the armful of wood before his
very face, but she reflected that the day-laborer outside need not see
that. She carried the wood into the shed and then went into the room
and said:

"Look here, Hansei! I've got something to tell you."

"I can hear you," he replied, still looking out of the window.

"I don't know what to make of you. What's got into you?"

Hansei did not deem it necessary to make any reply, but went on smoking
while the grandmother continued:

"It's shame enough that you have the wood brought to the house, instead
of going and getting it yourself. You're a woodcutter, and yet you must
have another come and cut your wood for you. Such a thing never
happened before. As long as this house stands, the axe-handle has never
grown warm in the hands of a stranger. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"There's no need of my doing it," replied Hansei.

"Very well, I suppose you know your needs, better than I do," cried the
old woman, angrily; "but I'll not scold. Do just as you please; let
yourself and everything else go to ruin. As you make your bed, so
you'll have to lie on it. Oh, if Walpurga knew of this! She's gone away
among strangers, for our sake, while you--"

"There! I've had enough of it," said Hansei, closing the window and
turning round. "Mother-in-law, I don't interfere in anything; I let you
manage just as you please, and so I don't mean to let anybody interfere
with