human
Will will be soon with you now--the best company, Katrine said, with a tired smile;
gpt
she had said,
human
Her eyes looking upwards to the darkening windows caught the old and smoke-hued almanac pinned up to the wall beside it. She set the child down, and getting up walked slowly over to it and ran one trembling finger down the dates. Each one from December, when they had first hung it up, had a heavy black line against it, where she had scratched it out with eager fingers; only the last days had no mark against them. She had been too weary, too heart sick, to note them any longer. What did it matter to her when the Spring came? the almanac for her would have come to an end before that. But now a fresh gleam of hope seemed to have entered her heart, and with a feverish movement she drew the old stump of pencil from her pocket and scratched off the unmarked days, and then stood gazing at the date of that day; they were still far, far from the Spring--too far. Oh, to go back in the Spring, to escape from this prison of darkness, this country of horror and starvation and misery, to be back once more in her home in the Spring! Her mind fled away from the dreary interior of the darkening cabin. She stood once more in the rich grassy meadow with the golden sunlight of an evening summer sky warm around her, the song of the birds in her ears, the hot scent of the meadow-sweet in her nostrils, before her the little narrow path leading to the cottage that seemed to bask sleepily in the yellow glow. She made a step forward with dilated eyes, then the cough seized her, the vision dissolved and fled. Again the cabin with its blackened rafters enclosed her. She turned from the calendar. What was the Spring's coming? It might come, but they would not go back. What right had she to think of it? They had made no strike, and had not Will sworn he would never go back without the gold? This accursed gold! If they could but have found it as others had! She put her hands to her head to drive away the thoughts, they were familiar and so useless. She had thought them over and over again so often. As she went back to the fire she noticed one of Will's woollen shirts lying on a chair. Why, that was the one she had meant to wash that morning! How could she have forgotten it? And now perhaps she would not get it done before he returned. Her heart began to beat, her limbs trembled. How weak and queer she felt this afternoon! Still, she would do it somehow. There was hot water on the fire that Katrine had put there. She lifted with an effort the great iron kettle from the fire, and with that in one hand and the shirt in the other she went into the adjoining sloping roofed compartment that served as scullery, wood-shed, pantry, and wash-house. It was many degrees colder here, and the long iron nails that kept the boards together overhead had sparkling icicles on them that glittered as the firelight from the inner room touched them, and she could hardly draw her breath. Nevertheless she walked over to the wash-tub and poured in the water, and set to work with shaking hands.
gpt
Had ever shirt seemed so large?