Lars Nordis raised his head as his daughter and then his brother entered. His smile of welcome was hardly more than a stretch of parchment skin over thrusting bones and Dard’s secret fear deepened as he studied Lars anxiously. They were always hungry, hut tonight Lars had the appearance of a man in the last stages of starvation.
“Good haul?” he asked Dard as the boy began to shed his first layer of the sacking which served him as a coat.
“Good as we could do without the axe. Dessie got a lot of pine cones.”
Lars swung around to his daughter who had squatted down before the small fire on the hearth where she began to methodically unwind the strips of burlap which were her mittens.
“Now that was lucky! Did you see anything interesting, Dessie?” He spoke to her as he might have addressed an adult.
“Just a fox.” she reported gravely. “It was watching us— from under a tree. It looked cold—but Dardie said it had a home—”
“So it did, honey,” Lars assured her. “A little cave or a hollow tree.”
“I wish I could have brought it home. It would be nice to have a fox or a squirrel—or something—to live with us.” She stretched her small, grime-encrusted, chapped hands out to the fire.
“Maybe someday…” Lars’ voice trailed oil He stared across Dessie’s head at the scanty flames.
Dard hung up the cobbled mass of tatters which was his outdoor coat and went to the cupboard. He lifted down an unwholesome block of salted meat as his brother spoke again.