“Ach! Where is that boy Hans Peter?” asked Mother Werther. “He was to follow in my very footsteps.” She looked back across the field, and in the distance the form of the simple one appeared. On his head Hans Peter carried an immense basket. He walked slowly in his usual listless way, and appeared unmindful of the numerous urgent calls to him. When he finally reached Mother Werther he put the basket, which was heaped high with tin cups, down upon the ground, and stood staring vacantly ahead of him. “Thou art tardy, foolish one,” said a man who scowled down upon the boy and took the topmost cup, which he dipped into one of the buckets of coffee. Hans Peter made no reply. “Where is Gerson Brandt?” asked the overseer, who had been too closely engaged in examining some of the vines to pay attention to anything that was going on around him. “I need his advice, and he and all his troop of boys should have been here a quarter-hour ago.” “The Herr Doktor hath kept him in the school-house. They are speaking together,” explained the village fool. “Go tell him that the work cannot go on until he comes,” said the overseer. Hans Peter turned and went back with lagging steps. The vineyard workers paid little attention to him, however, for they were all intent upon helping themselves to Mother Werther’s clear coffee. Joseph Hoff dipped a cup into one of the buckets. Calling to Everett, he said: “Wilt thou not join the men of Zanah in drinking good luck to the wine-presses?” Everett rose from his seat to take the proffered cup. He saw that Joseph Hoff managed to pass by where Frieda Bergen sat upon the ground. They spoke a word to each other, but no one noticed them. Under the cheering influence of the coffee, more talking was permitted than the stranger in Zanah had heard at any other time since he came to the colony. Now and then the elder men and women exchanged a word. The young girls laughed in low tones, and there was even something like playfulness among the youths, some of whom wrestled, and some of whom cuffed one another in rough play. “The quarter-hour is past,” said the overseer, and all the cups were thrown upon the ground in a pile, while men and women, youths and maidens, turned again to their work. Everett had half a mind to ask for a knife with which to cut the great clusters of heavy fruit from the vines. He felt that he would know how to do it quite as expertly as the men whom he watched; but while he was hesitating about taking upon himself anything that was like real work his attention was attracted by the appearance of Hans Peter, accompanied by the school-master, who was followed by his pupils. As the school-master came near, Everett saw that he had a troubled look. “What hath detained thee, Brother Brandt?” inquired the overseer, who was superintending the loading of the grapes upon heavy wagons. “I had mislaid a book,” the school-master said, simply. “I spent half an hour searching for it.”