III 

 FORTUNE FAVORS THE IMPUDENT 

 Like all people who lead useful lives and neither have nor pretend to have acquired tastes for fine-drawn emotion, Otto and Hilda indulged in little mooning. They put aside their burdens—hers of dread, his of despair—and went about the work that had to be done and that healthfully filled almost all their waking moments; and when bed-time came their tired bodies refused either to sit up with their brains or to let their brains stay awake. But it was gray and rainy for Hilda and black night for Otto. 

 On Sunday morning he rose at half-past three, instead of at four, his week-day rising time. Many of his hard-working customers were astir betimes on Sunday to have the longer holiday. As they would spend the daylight hours in the country and would not reach home until after the shop had closed, they bought the supplies for a cold or warmed-up supper before starting. Otto looked so sad—usually he was in high spirits—that most of these early customers spoke to him or to Joe Schwartz about his health. There were few of them who did not know what was troubling him. Among those friendly and unpretending and well-acquainted people any one's affairs were every one's affairs—why make a secret of what was, after all, only the routine of human life the world over and the ages through? Thus Otto had the lively but tactful sympathy of the whole community. 

 He became less gloomy under the warmth of this succession of friendly faces and friendly inquiries. But as trade slackened, toward noon, he had more leisure to think, and the throbbing ache returned to his heavy heart. All the time pictures of her were passing before his eyes. He had known her so long and she had become such an intimate part of his daily life, so interwoven with it, that he could not look at present, past or future without seeing her. 

 Why, he had known her since she was a baby. Did he not remember the day when he, a small boy on his way to school, had seen her toddle across the sidewalk in front of him? Could he ever forget how she had reached with great effort into a snowbank, had dug out with her small, red-mittened hands a chunk of snow, and, lifting it high above her head, had thrown it weakly at him with such force that she had fallen headlong upon the sidewalk? He had seen her every day since then—every day! 

 He most clearly of all recalled her as a school-girl. Those were the days of the German bands of six and seven and even eight pieces, wandering as the 

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