Page:The shoemaker's apron (1920).djvu/176

 left, a poor forsaken widow! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!”

Her grief was so great that Batcha leaped out of the sheepfold to comfort her.

“There, there, dear wife, don’t cry! Here I am, alive and well! No wolf ate me, no witches caught me. I’ve been asleep in the sheepfold—that’s all. I must have slept all winter long!”

At sight and sound of her husband, the woman stopped crying. Her grief changed to surprise, then to fury.

“You wretch!” she cried. “You lazy, good-for-nothing loafer! A nice kind of shepherd you are to desert your sheep and yourself to idle away the winter sleeping like a serpent! That’s a fine story, isn’t it, and I suppose you think me fool enough to believe it! Oh, you—you sheep’s tick, where have you been and what have you been doing?”

She flew at Batcha with both hands and there’s no telling what she would have done to him if the stranger hadn’t interfered.

“There, there,” he said, “no use getting excited! Of course he hasn’t been sleeping here in the sheepfold all winter. The question is, where has he been? Here is some money for you. Take it and go along home