boots on the
table, she sobbed more than ever, saying: "Alas! how proud he was of
them, and now his dear little feet are frozen--cold--dead!"

The women round Martina tried to comfort her, and one of them said,
with the kindest intentions, that to be frozen to death was the easiest
of all deaths; it was simply falling asleep, and never awaking.

"He would fall asleep on earth, to awake in Heaven," said the poor
mother, weeping bitterly. "My Joseph prophesied it himself; he was too
wise, too good, and went to meet his father. No, I will not die! when
Adam goes to church with his bride, he shall hear my Joseph cry out
from above, 'No!' and--he called 'father! father!' his father did not
answer him; he did not know his voice--but day and night he will know
it now. So long as he lives it will sound in his ears, that his child
was frozen to death in his own wood; he need not go out and try to wrap
him up now--too late--too late! his heart must be as hard as a stone!
and there is the wooden horse my boy played with; it looks pitifully at
me, though only wood; but the father is of wood too, he has no pity, he
has killed his child. How often have I seen him holding out bread to
his wooden horse! Oh! he had such a kind heart! oh! Joseph, Joseph!"

One of the women whispered to the other: "It would be a happy thing if
he were only frozen to death, for a huge wolf is prowling about in the
wood, and who knows if it has not torn the child to pieces." Though
this was said in so low a voice, the ears of those who grieve are
wonderfully acute; in the midst of her loud lamentations, Martina
caught the words, and suddenly screamed out "The wolf, the wolf!" she
clenched her hands and said, convulsively, "Oh! that I could strangle
it with my own hands!" and looking at Leegart, she said, sobbing, "Oh!
Leegart! Leegart! why do you sit sewing there at the darling's jacket,
when the child is dead?"

"I did not hear a syllable; don't blame me; I heard nothing; you would
not say a word; I asked three times, and no one answered. You know I
have no superstition--nothing is so silly as to be superstitious; still
there is no doubt of the fact, that so long as you go on either sewing
or spinning for any one, that person cannot die. There was once a
king----" and in the midst of all the distress and confusion, Leegart
coolly related the story of Penelope and Ulysses, with some singular
additions of her own; saying that Penelope had worked indefati