Where is he now?" Matthias asked quietly.

"Gene with the men to the Nebraska

Territory to find suitable
holdinge for some of our church people. We are to move as soon as they return for
us. It is said that
sometime before many years it may be a state, too, even as Illinois." "Yes, I
suppose so." He felt definitely
disappointed, vaguely sad that this lovely girl of whom he had thought all week was
betrathed. A daar that
had sa recently opened a bit seemed suddenly shut in his face. "You have come a
long way. Perhaps you
would like to sit down awhile..." she smiled, " beside your kettle. "And almost for
the first time Matthias gave
heed to the fact that the kettle which he had fashioned with such meticulous care
hung an three hickory
stakes in the clearing with a mound of ashes underneath. "Already you have wed it?"
"Yes... we made the
soap, using all of our grease from the butchering so we will have a plentiful
supply for the long journey and a
whole year after
But the words recalled this disquieting thing he had heard of her betrothal and
going away, and he frowned
as he seated himself beside her on a log near the kettle. “But this man... you do
not love him?" It was as
much a statement as a question. She was a mere child and Matthias felt very old.
Amalia pandered. "I respect
him... and my father says that is the same thing. ** I don't agree with him,"
Matthias cantended boldly, and in
the impulsiveness of youth stead up. "Where is your father? I would like to see
him. “But Amalia, alarmed,
was saying: "Da not go to the house to see him. I beg of you. I am sorry not to be
more hospitable. You san
how damineering he was." Herrscht was the ward she used
"He should not know you are here. He would only anger and hurt you Always after
Sunday dinner he sleeps.
Indeed..." and the gay little smile which had sa captivated Matthias was there
again for a flashing moment,
"he begins it in the church service. "Matthias laughed at that and sat down again
beside her. "What causes
you to think of going to that troubled territory?" "It is no longer troubled. The
Paninces have long been
quieted, and my father thinks all is well now to settle there.
We are of the Lutheran faith and here our farms are scattered. My father says that
by moving there and
keeping together we can retain our customs and our language and our church
relations." "But why....?"
Matthias wanted to know "What advantage is there in the people of one church being
so close? I can see
how the Pilgrims of England - - persecuted as they were--But you're not." "My
father says nane but the
followers of Luther are right, and it is not well to mingle sa much with others.
Already two of the young people
have married out of the church." If Matthias held his oxin opinion on the
iniquitous depths of that sin, he did
nat sayso. Indeed, when she was speaking sa earnestly he found himself far more
interested in watching her
lang lashes sweep a soft check. "Our farm is already sold to the English Dunbar
family.
All things are as near ready to go as is possible ... the wagens are kept always in
repair -- and the harnesses.
Already many barrels are packed. When the men arrive, all the families need is a
short time for the last of the
baking and the loading of the wagens, and the colony can start. My father says it
is like the German army,
each knowing his part and obeying orders instantly." For some time sitting there on
the sunken log in the
clearing the girl told of the plans for the coming journey. Matthias, listening and
commenting was disturbed
at his own disturbance over the moving. Once he ventured again: "This man... if you
do not love him...?"
She glanced away. "I am premised," she said simply. Very sean, in spite of nature's
heralding of the spring it
grew too cool, and when the sun dipped behind the top of the timber, the chilliness
of the air made the girl
suddenly shiver. "You must ge in, " Matthias was all solicitude, but found himself
hinting broadly: "You do nat
wish me to go?" "Nein. It would be too hard to explain to my father. He could not
understand that you were--"
she put out her hand, "a new friend."
At that. Matthias forget the coming journey and the faith of Martin Luther, the
domineering father and the
affianced who was far off beyond the Big Muddy: "Meet me here again next Sunday
afternoan, Amalia. You'll
come? It couldn't be otherwise." When she hesitated, he said, to test her: "On I
shall come boldly to the house
to call on my new friend." "I'll come," she turned away, anxious and hurried now
that she had been here such
a long time. "But it will be wrong," she called over her shoulder. "And beautiful."
Matthias grinned back at her
impudently so that she, too, was smiling a bit mischievously when she went away.
All weekAmalia went about her housework. She cooked and cleaned and serubbed in her
energetic and
immaculate way. Everything was as it had been, --save one. And all week Matthias
sold his uncle's iran wares,
kept the books, and occasionally shad a horse at the blacksmith end of the shop.
And everything was as it
had been, -- save one. Sunday was milder. The Big Woods gave forth the pungent odor
of bursting buds and
Warming leaf-mold. At the creek-bed fuzzy pussies scratched insistently inside the
branches of the willeno:
Wild gray gecse flew henking across the timber- land and disappeared in the distant
north. Swallows darted
high in their nuptial flight and a meadow-lark sat on a stake-and-rider fence and
sang the prairie's love song
to the spring. Amalia had been in the clearing only a short time when Matthias came
riding through the damp