the churches and the schools, and the tilling
of the wheat farms. She notes with sus-
picion the actions of the women who bring
home webs of cloth from the store, instead of
spinning them as their mothers did before
them; and she shakes her head at the wives
who run to the village grocery store every
fortnight, imitating the wasteful American
women, who throw butter in the fire faster
than it can be turned from the churn.

She watches yet other things. All winter
long the white snows reach across the gently
rolling plains as far as the eye can behold.
In the morning she sees them tinted pink at
the east; at noon she notes golden lights
flashing across them; when the sky is gray --
which is not often -- she notes that they grow
as ashen as a face with the death shadow on it.
Sometimes they glitter with silver-like tips of
ocean waves. But at these things she looks
only casually. It is when the blue shadows
dance on the snow that she leaves her corner
behind the iron stove, and stands before the
window, resting her two hands on the stout
bar of her cane, and gazing out across the
waste with eyes which age has restored after
four decades of decrepitude.

The young Icelandmen say: