Year: 1874

About mile from Wllnelm, IN
the midst of solitary wood, there
is house in which, in 1919, dwelt
q forester whose name was Merkel.
He had three children; the eldest
was girl of seventeen, handsome,
strong and resolute.


Wont you be frightened in these
unsettled tilnes!' asked her father,
when he with her mother and the
two younger children were starting
on Christmas morning to go to
church.


sFrightened!' said the brave girl
laughing. up stairs hang your
guns, two double barreled.'


Take care, Kate said the faith
er, they are loaded with ball


'All the better for that said the
girl; Sultan is with me, too, and he
always knows his man, and I shall
shut up and bar the windows down
stairs


AS they left the house, she began
to close and bar all the windows on
the ground floor.


Then she not only locked and
bolted the door, but placed a heap
of blocks and wood against it in
side, and calling the great dog to
her in the kitchen, she began to
prepare for cooking the family din
ner, as her mother had directed.
When this was arranged, she went
up stairs, and carried all the pow
der which her father kepti in a large
stone jar into the upper room, and
the bullets, too, of which her faith
er had large supply.


Outside, the snow laid thickly
upon the trees and the ground; the
cold was cutting and severe.
Merkel was a well to do man; but
considered much richer than he
really was.


Kate's parents and brother might
just have reached Wilhelm, when
she saw a half frozen old man, lean
ing on his staff approach the house
She remarked how he trembled al
the frost, and how disappointed he
looked when he saw all the shutters
closed, as if no one was at home
His snow white beard nearly
covered his face, and seemed tc
reach almost up to the cap of fox.
skin which he wore on his head
with the foxtail hanging down be-
hind.


The girl pitied the old man. Ht
can not get on to Wilhelm, for his
legs seemed scarcely able to carry
him; and in this weather he ran ir
great danger of being frozen te
death.


She went to the window of tn,
second story, and asked him wha
he wanted.


'Oh! my good child he cried ou
with a faint voice, 4 want to warn
myself, for I am thoroughly frozen
I can not get any farther on m,
way to Wilhelm, for I have no
tasted food to-day
| The kind heart of the maidel
was softened and overcome.
! She fastened down stairs; move,
away her means of defense, an,
opened the door; but scarcely wa
the old man in the room, when sh
locked the door again, little think
ing that she had now to defend he,
self against an enemy within. Sh
showed the old man into the warn
room, and made him sit down il
her fathers arm chair, which stoo
near the large stove.


Something hot will be the bes
to warm and revive you,' she sal
kindly. There is some coffee whic
we only drink on Sundays an
festival days, left, I will warm
for you


It seemed strange that the grea
dog, Sultan, ran about in an angry
excited way, growing and showin
his teeth FROM the time the old ma
had entered the house. Only wit
difficulty could she keep him quiet
And now, when she went into tn
kitchen to get the coffee ready, tn
dog pressed up closer to her, an
looked distrustfully at the old mar
who was resting in the arm chat,


The dogs strange conduct mad
her suspicious. AS in many oil,
German houses, there was an open
ing in the wall, sort of window
with slide between the kitcbe,
and theroom Inhabited by the fam
lily, through which the dishes wer
passed from one to the other.


This window was just behind tn
arm chair, and since this morning
when the mother had put the COTE