274 Hans Brinker

How loud the moans were behind the darkened window !
What if those strange men were really killing her father !

The thought made her spring to her feet with a cry of
horror.

« Ah, no!” she sobbed, sinking upon the frozen mound of
earth where she had been sitting, “ mother is there, and Hans.
They will care for him. But how pale they were! And
even Hans was crying.

“Why did the cross old meester ess him, and send me

away?” shethought. “TI could have clung to the mother, and
kissed her. That always makes her stroke my hair, and peik
gently, even after she has scolded me. How quiet it is now!
Oh if the father should die, and Hans, and the mother! what
would 1 do?” And Gretel, shivering with cold, buried her
face in her arms, and cried as if her heart would break.

The poor child had been tasked beyond her strength during
the past four days. Through all, she had been her mother’s
willing little handmaiden, soothing, helping and cheering the
half-widowed woman by day, and watching and praying beside
her all the long night. She_knew that something terrible and
mysterious was taking place at this moment, — something that
had been too terrible and mysterious for even kind, good Hans
to tell.

Then new thoughts came. Why had not Hans told her?
It was ashame! It was her father as well as his. She was
no baby. She had once taken a sharp knife from the father’s
hand. She had even drawn him away from the mother on
that awful night when Hans, big as he was, could not help
her. Why, then, must she be treated like one who could do
nothing? Oh, how very still it ;was, how bitter, bitter cold !
If Annie Bouman had only stayed home, instead of going to