There had been nothing strange about the tree
before, but now, with some one kneeling before it,--images, candles, {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
Grandfather merely put his finger-tips to his brow and bowed his venerable
head, thus Protestantizing the atmosphere.
We persuaded our guest to stay for supper with us. He needed little
urging. As we sat down to the table, it occurred to me that he liked to
look at us, and that our faces were open books to him. When his
deep-seeing eyes rested on me, I felt as if he were looking far ahead into
the future for me, down the road I would have to travel.
At nine o'clock Mr. Shimerda lighted one of our lanterns and put on his
overcoat and fur collar. He stood in the little entry hall, the lantern
and his fur cap under his arm, shaking hands with us. When he took
grandmother's hand, he bent over it as he always did, and said slowly,
"Good wo-man!" He made the sign of the cross over me, put on his cap and
went off in the dark. As we turned back to the sitting-room, grandfather
looked at me searchingly. "The prayers of all good people are good," he
said quietly.
XIII
THE week following Christmas brought in a thaw, and by New Year's Day all
the world about us was a broth of gray slush, and the guttered slope
between the windmill and the barn was running black water. The soft black
earth stood out in patches along the roadsides.
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