wandered? He stood stroking his forehead, and looked rather
bewildered when he answered Katrina.

"I thought it was Herod, King of Judea, and his wife, Herodias,"
he said.


GLORY GOLDIE'S ILLNESS

When the little girl of Ruffluck was three years old she had an
illness which must have been the scarlet fever, for her little
body was red all over and burning hot to the touch. She would not
eat, nor could she sleep; she just lay tossing in delirium. Jan
could not think of going away from home so long as she was sick. He
stayed in the hut day after day, and it looked as though Eric of
Falla's rye would go unthreshed that year.

It was Katrina who nursed the little girl, who spread the quilt
over her every time she cast it off, and who fed her a little
diluted blueberry cordial, which the housewife at Falla had sent
them. When the little maid was well Jan always looked after her;
but as soon as she became ill he was afraid to touch her, lest he
might not handle her carefully enough and would only hurt her. He
never stirred from the house, but sat in a corner by the hearth all
day, his eyes fixed on the sick child.

The little one lay in her own crib with only a couple of straw
pillows under her, and no sheets. It must have been hard on the
delicate little body, made sensitive by rash and inflammation, to
lie upon the coarse tow-cloth pillow-casings.