II
THE CHANNEL
THE peasants and peasant women—in war time the village is a woman's country—come out and look at the oncoming fugitives with great curiosity.
—Not our faces. Not our caps. They're not dressed like us, they don't speak plainly.
The peasant women look at them closely.
—Where do they come from?
Everyone is rapturous concerning:
—The people from below Riga.
That is how the peasants designate the German colonists from the Baltic provinces.
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