be packing. I sensed something amiss and went over to him. He made out it was nothing, and I said to him: “Don’t do anything silly, Detering.”
“Ach, why—it’s merely that I can’t sleep———”
“What did you pick the cherry branches for?”
“I might have been going to get some more cherry branches,” he replied, evasively—and after a while: “I have a big orchard with cherry trees at home. When they are in blossom, from the hay loft they look like one single sheet, so white. It is just the time.”
“Perhaps you will get leave soon. You may even be sent back as a farmer.”
He nodded, but he was far away. When these peasants are excited they have a curious expression, a mixture of cow and yearning god, half stupid and half rapt. In order to turn him away from his thoughts I asked him for a piece of bread. He gave it to me without a murmur. That was suspicious, for he is usually tight-fisted. So I stayed awake. Nothing happened; in the morning he was as usual.
Apparently he had noticed that I had been watching him;—but the second morning after he was gone. I noticed it but said nothing, in order to give him time; he might perhaps get through. Various fellows have already got into Holland.
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