Читать книгу Walda. A Novel онлайн

55 страница из 74

“Where is Gerson Brandt?” asked the overseer, who had been too closely engaged in examining some of the vines to pay attention to anything that was going on around him. “I need his advice, and he and all his troop of boys should have been here a quarter-hour ago.”

“The Herr Doktor hath kept him in the school-house. They are speaking together,” explained the village fool.

“Go tell him that the work cannot go on until he comes,” said the overseer.

Hans Peter turned and went back with lagging steps. The vineyard workers paid little attention to him, however, for they were all intent upon helping themselves to Mother Werther’s clear coffee. Joseph Hoff dipped a cup into one of the buckets. Calling to Everett, he said:

“Wilt thou not join the men of Zanah in drinking good luck to the wine-presses?”

Everett rose from his seat to take the proffered cup. He saw that Joseph Hoff managed to pass by where Frieda Bergen sat upon the ground. They spoke a word to each other, but no one noticed them. Under the cheering influence of the coffee, more talking was permitted than the stranger in Zanah had heard at any other time since he came to the colony. Now and then the elder men and women exchanged a word. The young girls laughed in low tones, and there was even something like playfulness among the youths, some of whom wrestled, and some of whom cuffed one another in rough play.