e wall beside it.
She set the child down, and getting up walked slowly over to it and ran
one trembling finger down the dates. Each one from December, when they
had first hung it up, had a heavy black line against it, where she had
scratched it out with eager fingers; only the last days had no mark
against them. She had been too weary, too heart sick, to note them any
longer. What did it matter to her when the Spring came? the almanac for
her would have come to an end before that. But now a fresh gleam of
hope seemed to have entered her heart, and with a feverish movement she
drew the old stump of pencil from her pocket and scratched off the
unmarked days, and then stood gazing at the date of that day; they were
still far, far from the Spring--too far. Oh, to go back in the Spring,
to escape from this prison of darkness, this country of horror and
starvation and misery, to be back once more in her home in the Spring!
Her mind fled away from the dreary interior of the darkening cabin. She
stood once more in the rich grassy meadow with the golden sunlight of an
evening summer sky warm around her, the song of the birds in her ears,
the hot scent of the meadow-sweet in her nostrils, before her the little
narrow path leading to the cottage that seemed to bask sleepily in the
yellow glow. She made a step forward with dilated eyes, then the cough
seized her, the vision dissolved and fled. Again the cabin with its
blackened rafters enclosed her. She turned from the calendar. What was
the Spring's coming? It might come, but they would not go back. What
right had she to think of it? They had made no strike, and had not Will
sworn he would never go back without the gold? This accursed gold! If
they could but have found it as others had! She put her hands to her
head to drive away the thoughts, they were familiar and so useless. She
had thought them over and over again so often. As she went back to the
fire she noticed one of Will's woollen shirts lying on a chair. Why,
that was the one she had meant to wash that morning! How could she have
forgotten it? And now perhaps she would not get it done before he
returned. Her heart began to beat, her limbs trembled. How weak and
queer she felt this afternoon! Still, she would do it somehow. There was
hot water on the fire that Katrine had put there. She lifted with an
effort the great iron kettle from the fire, and with that in one hand
and the shirt in the other she went into the adjoining