Ay, a long way farther."

Fear sprang into her soft eyes. Bobruisk was eighty-nine versts away,
yet Ivan said they were going farther.

"We--we are not going to Minsk?" she cried.

"Ay, and beyond Minsk!"

"Ivan, tell me!" she grasped. "Tell me where we are going!"

"We are going to America."

"_To America?_"

"Yes, to America!"

Big Ivan of the Bridge lifted up his voice when he cried out the words
"To America," and then a sudden fear sprang upon him as those words
dashed through the little window out into the darkness of the village
street. Was he mad? America was 8,000 versts away! It was far across
the ocean, a place that was only a name to him, a place where he knew
no one. He wondered in the strange little silence that followed his
words if the crippled son of Poborino, the smith, had heard him. The
cripple would jeer at him if the night wind had carried the words to
his ear.

Anna remained staring at her big husband for a few minutes, then she
sat down quietly at his side. There was a strange look in his big blue
eyes, the look of a man to whom has come a vision, the look which came
into the eyes of those shepherds of Judea long, long ago.

"What is it, Ivan?" she murmured softly, patting his big hand. "Tell
me."

And Big Ivan of the Bridge, slow of tongue, told of the Dream. To no
one else would he have told it. Anna understood. She had a way of
patting his hands and saying soft things when his tongue could not
find words to express his thoughts.

Ivan told how the Dream had come to him as he plowed. He told her how
it had sprung upon him, a wonderful dream born of the soft breezes, of
the sunshine, of the sweet smell of the upturned sod and of his own
strength. "It wouldn't come to weak men," he said, baring an arm that
showed great snaky muscles rippling beneath the clear skin. "It is a
dream that comes only to those who are strong and those who want--who
want something that they haven't got." Then in a lower voice he said:
"What is it that we want, Anna?"

The little wife looked out into the darkness with fear-filled eyes.
There were spies even there in that little village on the Beresina,
and it was dangerous to say words that might be construed into a
reflection on the Government. But she answered Ivan. She stooped
and whispered one word into his ear, and he slapped his thigh with
his big hand.

"Ay," he cried. "That is what we want! You and I and millions like us
want it, and over there