XIII. REFUGEES

XIV. THE MOST WONDERFUL PART


THE BELGIAN TWINS

I

THE HARVEST-FIELD

THE HARVEST-FIELD

It was late in the afternoon of a long summer's day in Belgium.
Father Van Hove was still at work in the harvest-field, though
the sun hung so low in the west that his shadow, stretching far
across the level, green plain, reached almost to the little red-
roofed house on the edge of the village which was its home.
Another shadow, not so long, and quite a little broader,
stretched itself beside his, for Mother Van Hove was also in the
field, helping her husband to load the golden sheaves upon an old
blue farm-cart which stood near by.

Them were also two short, fat shadows which bobbed briskly about
over the green meadow as their owners danced among the wheat-
sheaves or carried handfuls of fresh grass to Pier, the, patient
white farm-horse, hitched to the cart. These gay shadows belonged
to Jan and Marie, sometimes called by their parents Janke and
Mie, for short. Jan and Marie were the twin son and daughter of
Father and Mother Van Hove, and though they were but eight years