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"Alf said he shouldn't be here next year," said Carlen, each cheek showing a little signal of pink as she spoke; but it was a dim light the one candle gave, and John did not see the flush. "He was going to the west to farm; in Oregon, he said." "Ay, that's it!" replied John. "That's where everybody can go but me! I'll be going too some day, Carlen. I can't stand things here.
The cows, in a warm day, used to stand knee-deep there, in shade of the rocks. It was a favorite place of Wilhelm's. He sometimes lay on the top of one of these rocks the greater part of the night, looking down into the gliding water or up into the sky. Carlen from her window had more than once seen him thus, and passionately longed to go down and comfort his lonely sorrow.
She's been spinning ever since daylight, I believe." "Is it hard work spinning, Liebchen?" he asked. Carlen turned her round blue eyes on him with astonishment. There was something in his tone that smote vaguely on her consciousness. What could he mean, asking such a question as that? "No," she said, "it is not hard exactly.
She could not believe her ears; neither her eyes, when she saw him walking swiftly, almost running, erect, his head held straight, his eyes gazing free and confident before him. What had happened? What could have happened? Now, for the first time, Carlen saw the full beauty of his face; it wore an exultant look as of one set free, triumphant.
Something akin to pity stirred even in John's angry heart as he watched him. "What can it be," he said, "that makes him hate even the sky? It may be it is a sweetheart he has lost, and he is one of that strange kind of men who can love but once; and it is loving the dead that makes him so like one dead himself. Poor Carlen! I think myself he never so much as sees her."
As he entered the kitchen and saw his pretty sister Carlen at the high spinning-wheel, walking back and forth drawing the fine yarn between her chubby fingers, all the while humming a low song to which the whirring of the wheel made harmonious accompaniment, he thought to himself bitterly: "Work, indeed! As if they did not work now longer than we do, and quite as hard!
"I will come in!" she answered wildly, trying to force her way past him. "I will come in. You shall not keep me out. What has happened to him? Let me by!" And she wrestled in her brother's strong arms with strength almost equal to his. "Carlen! You shall not come in! You shall not see!" he cried. "Shall not see!" she shrieked. "Is he dead?" "Yes, my sister, he is dead," answered John, solemnly.
"We are not children any more," she said, with a little laugh. "More's the pity!" said John, half lightly, half sadly, as they went on hand in hand. When they reached the bars, Carlen paused. Withdrawing her hand from John's and laying it on his shoulder, she said: "Brother, will you not try to find out what is Wilhelm's grief? Can you not try to be friends with him?" John made no answer.
It was the summer before Wilhelm came that he had begun this Oregon farm, which he, from the first, had fondly dedicated to Carlen in his thoughts; and when he went back to Pennsylvania after her, he found her the same as when he went away, only comelier and sweeter. It would not be easy to give Alf an uncomfortable thought about his Carlen. But he did not like to see her cry.
To-morrow he will have something to tell me. To-morrow!" When Wilhelm returned from this errand, he came singing up the road. Carlen heard the voice and looked out of the window in amazement. Never before had a note of singing been heard from Wilhelm's voice.
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