For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face.
—New Testament.
Thus we sat and talked until the morning light streaming through the partially opened entrance to the hut showed me more fully my boy, still sleeping soundly; and for this we were thankful, knowing how much better than all physic is the healing power of sleep. I could see now by his thin face and wasted hands that he had been through a dangerous illness; but his breathing was so even and there was such absence of fever, I said gratefully to Sister Genoveva, "Thou hast saved Sonnlein's life."
But she replied, blushing at my praise, "Nay, 'tis to the witch thou must give thy gratitude. She hath wonderful wisdom with the herbs she findeth in the woods."
And then for the first time in all these years, it came to me that, perhaps, I had misjudged this woman whom I held in such abhorrence. 'Tis an awful thing to think evil of an innocent person!
Suddenly I asked our sister, "How did she treat thee?"
"At first I feared she meant me harm, for she would look at me with an evil glare as though she felt like killing me; but the red man spake something to her whereat she seemed less sullen so that I lost fear of her."
"Thou dost not look as if thou hadst been pining away with fear," I said, smiling to our sister; for as I glanced at her with such admiration as made her blush again, I marveled not how my boy could be so bent on having her to wife; for I had seen him make love to her when he was in the full flush of health, and if a man when he be well can feel tenderly toward a woman, how much dearer must she be to him when she appears in the guise of a ministering angel.
Not that our sister was one of those delicate, etherial ones whom a man must watch over like some frail flower; for the clear, honest light of day showed fully what the deceitful moonlight had only half revealed; the pure, healthful beauty of that graceful, rounded form and sweetly calm, noble face, so full of womanly strength and character not in the slightest dimmed or marred by her hard life in this wilderness, far harder even than the rigorous life of our Kloster; for though this rude hut were proof enough 'gainst wind and cold and rain, yet I could see from its meagre furnishings that she had endured more than usually falls to the lot of woman, so that it came to me, if Sonnlein were set upon marrying her, surely in all this wide world could he not find a fitter mate, in body, mind, soul, and spirit, as man and woman should be mated.
But now it came to me I must get Genoveva and Sonnlein home again, for in this dreadful war with the French and Indians, I knew not what the witch might do; for though the Conestogas had been accounted a peace-loving tribe, yet there were many of the white settlers who charged the Conestogas with secretly assisting the French red men, and indeed, not many years after this, the Paxton boys killed a number of Conestogas in their little town.
Much against my will I was compelled to leave our sister and Sonnlein alone in this unprotected hut, while I with a great joy in my heart that made me forget my hurts and loss of sleep, tramped down the mountains, laughing to myself at the good news I should break to my admiring brothers and sisters.