r eyes still have so much enjoyment.

During the summer, the spinner, as had been her wont every year, would
scrape off the bark from the branches of the elderberry tree, and
afterward tie up the branches in bundles. Annette did great damage by
explaining to her--she had only learned it herself the day before--that
they would be used to make gunpowder. When the old woman heard that,
she felt as if she could not bear to touch the wood; but, as she had
undertaken the task, she was obliged to finish it, and so went on with
her work, although it was not without murmuring.

Through Annette's insinuating herself into the intimacy of others, much
that happened in our village acquired clearer colors, and greater
importance in my eyes.

I told her the history of the spinner. She had had a husband, a tall,
handsome man. He had been employed as a laborer on the road, but had
wasted all his earnings at the tavern.

Besides that, he had been a sportsman, and had loved, above all things,
to roam through the woods with the forester and his attendants, in
search of game.

While these things were going on, the wife had, with her own earnings,
reared four children, who were always among the tidiest in the village.
Whenever anyone expressed pity that she had so thoughtless and
inconsiderate a husband, she would say, "Oh, that's all right. If he
were not so shiftless a fellow, he would never have married me; he
would have gone and married some woman better, handsomer, and richer
than I was."

When the building of the railway was begun, he gave up his situation
and went to work in the valley; but he would never bring home a
groschen of money. Indeed, on one occasion, when he received a larger
sum than usual, he drove up in a carriage with two comrades, and the
three were not content until the last kreutzer had been spent.

But yet with all this no word of complaint ever fell from the lips of
his wife; and when, at last, her husband lost his life while blasting a
rock, she bewailed his death, saying that he was the best man in the
world.

Two of her sons and one daughter were employed at Mulhausen; but they
would not help the mother. Carl, who had been Joseph's servant, and was
now with the troops, gave all his earnings to her, and would not suffer
her to accept a gift from any one.

When Annette knew this, she was all attention to the spinner; but it
required much clever management to be able to do her a service. Besides
that, i