By noon the last of the wheat had been garnered, and this time
Jan drove Pier home, while his mother sat on the load. In the
afternoon the three unloaded the wagon and stowed the grain away
in the barn to be threshed; and when the long day's work was
over, and they had eaten their simple supper of bread and milk,
Mother Van Hove and the children went together down the village
street to see their neighbors and hear the news, if there should
be any.

There were no daily papers in Meer, and now there were no young
men to go to the city and bring back the gossip of the day, as
there had used to be. The women, with their babies on their arms,
stood about in the street, talking quietly and sadly among
themselves. On the doorsteps a few old men lingered together over
their pipes. Already the bigger boys were playing soldier, with
paper caps on their heads, and sticks for guns. The smaller
children were shouting and chasing each other through the little
street of the village. Jan and Marie joined in a game of
blindman's buff, while Mother Van Hove stopped with the group of
women.

"If we only knew what to expect!" sighed the Burgomeister's wife,
as she shifted her baby from one arm to the other. "It seems as
if we should know better what to do. In a day or two I shall send
my big boy Leon to the city for a paper. It is hard to wait
quietly and know nothing."

"Our good King and Queen doubtless know everything," said the
wife of Boer Maes. "They will do better for us than we could do
for ourselves, even if we knew all that they do."