Shrub and tree bared gaunt
limbs to every autumn wind. Only the spruce and pine stood forth in
their year-round habiliments of green. The days shortened steadily.
The nights grew long, and bitter with frost. Snow fell, blanketing
softly the dead leaves. Old Winter cracked his whip masterfully over
all the North.
Day by day, between tasks, and often while she worked, Hazel's eyes
would linger on the edges of the clearing. Often at night she would
lift herself on elbow at some unexpected sound, her heart leaping wild
with expectation. And always she would lie down again, and sometimes
press her clenched hand to her lips to keep back the despairing cry.
Always she adjured herself to be patient, to wait doggedly as Bill
would have waited, to make due allowance for immensity of distance for
the manifold delays which might overtake a messenger faring across
those silent miles or a man hurrying to his home. Many things might
hold him back. But he would come. It was inconceivable that he might
not come.
Meantime, with only a dim consciousness of the fact, she underwent a
marvelous schooling in adaptation, self-restraint. She had work of a
sort, tasks such as every housewife finds self-imposed in her own home.
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