As it was, the wolf often bayed at
the door of the Strehla household, without a wolf from the
mountains coming down.
Dorothea was one of those maidens who almost work miracles, so far
can their industry and care and intelligence make a home sweet and
wholesome and a single loaf seem to swell into twenty. The
children were always clean and happy, and the table was seldom
without its big pot of soup once a day. Still, very poor they
were, and Dorothea's heart ached with shame, for she knew that
their father's debts were many for flour and meat and clothing. Of
fuel to feed the big stove they had always enough without cost,
for their mother's father was alive, and sold wood and fir cones
and coke, and never grudged them to his grandchildren, though he
grumbled at Strehla's improvidence and hapless, dreamy ways.
"Father says we are never to wait for him; we will have supper,
now you have come home, dear," said Dorothea, who, however she
might fret her soul in secret as she knitted their hose and mended
their shirts, never let her anxieties cast a gloom on the
children; only to August she did speak a little sometimes, because
he was so thoughtful and so tender of her always, and knew as well
as she did that there were troubles about money,--though these
troubles were vague to them both, and the debtors were patient and
kindly, being neighbors all in the old twisting streets between
the guardhouse and the river.
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