HEINZEL

I'm not comin'. What for? To swill cold water? I needn't go no farther than the spring for that. Or for the sake of a little coffee.

HAHN

An' prayin' an' singin' for dessert. An' mebbe, there's no tellin', the parson from Jenkau will come over an' see if we know the ten commandments.

HEINZEL

Or the seven beat.i.tudes on top o' that! That'd be a fine state of affairs. I've long forgot it all.

KLEINERT

You folks had better stop teasin' August. I'm tellin' you now, if I had a girl of my own, I wouldn't be wantin' no better son-in-law. He knows his business! You always know where to find him.

_The working men and women have scattered themselves at ease in a semicircle and are eating their evening meal; coffee in tin pots and great wedges of bread from which they cut pieces with their clasp-knives._

OLD MRS. GOLISCH

There comes Rosie Bernd around from behind the farm.

GOLISCH

Look an' see, will you, how that girl can jump.

KLEINERT

She can lift a sack o' wheat and drag it to the very top o' the barn.

This very mornin' I saw her with a great heavy chest o' drawers on a wheelbarrow, trundlin' it over to the new house. That there girl has got sap an' strength. She'll take care o' her household.

HAHN

If I could get along in the world like August in other respecks, my faith, I wouldn't a bit mind tryin'; I'd see what bein' pious can do for a man.

GOLISCH

You've got to know how to run after good fortune; then you'll get hold of it.

HAHN

When you consider how he used to go around from village to village with a sack full o' tracts; an' how, after that, he used to be writin' letters for people ... an' now, to-day, he's got the finest bit o' property an'

can marry the handsomest girl in the county.

_ROSE BERND approaches. In a basket she is carrying the evening meal for AUGUST and OLD BERND._

ROSE

A good afternoon to you.

SEVERAL VOICES

Good evenin'!--Good evenin'! Many thanks!

GOLISCH

You're lettin' your sweetheart starve, Rosie.

ROSE

[_Merrily unpacking the food._] Don't you worry! He don't starve so easy as that.

HEINZEL

You must be feedin' him well, Rosie, or he'll put on no flesh.

GOLISCH

That's true. He'll be a sight too lean for you, la.s.s.

BERND

Where have you been keepin' yourself so long? We've been waitin' this half hour.

AUGUST

[_In a subdued but annoyed voice._] An' now the whole crowd is here again! An' we might have been through this long time.

OLD MRS. GOLISCH

Let him scold, la.s.s, an' don't mind it.

ROSE

Who's scoldin'? There's no one here to scold. August wouldn't do it in a lifetime.

OLD MRS. GOLISCH

Even so! But that's right: you shouldn't care nothin' about it.

HEINZEL

'Cause, if he don't scold now, that'll be comin' later.

ROSE

I'm not afraid o' that ever comin'.

GOLISCH