Mother:

You leave me, too?

Amelia:

I want to go to the front with Franz and Otto and Emil, to nurse them, to take care of them if they are wounded—­and all the others.  Let me, Mother!  I, too, must do something for my country.  The grapes are plucked, and the hay is stacked.  Hedwig is gathering the wheat.  You can spare me.  I have been dreaming of it night and day.

Mother: [Setting her lips decisively.]

No, Amelia!

Amelia:

O Mother, why?

Mother:

You must help me with Hedwig.  I can’t manage her alone.

Amelia:

Hedwig!

Mother:

She is strange; she broods.  Hadn’t you noticed?

Amelia:

Why, yes; but I thought she was worrying about Franz.  She adores him, and any day she may hear that he is killed.  It’s the waiting that’s so awful.

Mother:

But it’s more than the waiting with Hedwig.  Aye, you will help Franz more by staying home to take care of his wife, Amelia, especially now.

Amelia: [Puzzled.]

Now?

Mother: [Goes to her work-basket.]

Hedwig has told you nothing?

Amelia:

No.

Mother:

Ah, she is a strange girl!  She asked me to keep it a secret,—­I don’t know why,—­but now I think you should know.  See! [Very proudly she holds up the tiny baby garments she is knitting.]

Amelia: [Pleased and astonished.]

So Franz and Hedwig—­

Mother: [Nods.]

For their child.  In six months now.  My first grandchild, Amelia.  Franz’s boy, perhaps.  I shall hear a little one’s voice in this house again.

Amelia: [Uncertainly, as she looks at the little things.]

Still—­I want to go.

Mother:  [Firmly.]

We must take care of Hedwig, Amelia.  She is to be a mother.  That is our first duty.  It is our only hope of an heir if you won’t marry soon—­and if—­if the boys don’t come back.

Amelia:

Arno is left.

Mother:

Ah, but they’ll be calling him next.  It is his birthday to-day, too, poor lad.  He’s on the jump to be off.  I see him gone, too.  God knows I may never see one of them again.  I sit here in the long evenings and think how death may take my boys,—­even this minute they may be breathing their last,—­and then I knit this baby sock and think of the precious little life that’s coming.  It’s my one comfort, Amelia.  Nothing must happen now.

Amelia: [With a touch of impatience.]

What’s the matter with Hedwig?

Mother: