Learning the News
Learning the News.Page 52.
War is proclaimed! Only three words, and yet the whole town was already rocking with their import. Bells were ringing, shouts were rising, men and women stood so closely packed beneath that one could have walked across their heads with safety. Exultant youths, full of their young life and young blood, so soon to be given and spilt for God and Fatherland, were flinging their caps in the air; men, too, with beards and grizzled hair, shouted and gesticulated frantically; others, grave and silent, turned their voices inward and cried aloud to the God of the fatherless and widow. Fritz, in his night-dress, at the little gable window opposite, was blowing a shrilltin trumpet and screaming out, in his high, boyish voice, "War, war, war!" which was echoed by a still higher treble in the room beyond.
At last Violet stirred. It was almost impossible that with such a din going on outside she could sleep on.
In a moment John had risen and was kneeling at her bedside. His hand had clasped the little fingers which lay so loosely upon the knitted counterpane. His bearded check was close to the white face on the pillow, barely discernible now in the closely-shaded light of the lamp which burned at the foot of the bed. He was ready with the word of love to quiet her alarms, and with a kiss to soothe her back to sleep, but they were not needed. She merely moved restlessly to and fro on her pillow, and muttered to herself in some dreamful excitement,—
"Look! look out into the street! What dost thou see, father?"
John bent low over the child's face and touched it gently with his lips. He must have kissed her then, or his heart would have broken.
Even in her sleep Violet knew who was bending over her. "Father," she said softly.
"Yes, my heart's love, I am here beside thee."
"Seest thou? is it not lovely?"
"What? what?" he asked with a sob.
"The little hunchback has wings."
After this she gave a long, restful sigh, and turned her head against her father's arm. Nor did the noise in the street disturb her any more, though the cries at times rose almost to shrieks, and though the lamp in her room burned on unextinguished until daylight had taken its place.
The next day there seemed little if any diminution of the excitement. The crowd was not quite so dense; but ordinary business appeared for the time almost suspended. People were rushing up and down the street with slips of paper in their hands on which were printed the latest telegrams; and persons who were usually engrossed with their work in the early hours of the day were standing at the doors of their shops and houses discussing the great news of impending war, news which gathered with every hour fresh confirmation.
Violet, of course, seated as usual in her chair in the window, could not but notice the bustle and the stir beneath; but it did not frighten or distress her, for her father had brought his work up to her room quite early this morning, and when he was near her she always reposed on his strength and courage in place of her own.
But John was both distressed and disturbed; and presently seeing that Violet's hair was a little blown about by the wind, he made it a pretext for closing over the casement, so that she might not hear what the people were talking about so earnestly in the street underneath; and for a time his efforts were successful.
It was only as the day wore on and it came near the time when he had to go to the store for orders that she grew restless, and the anxious pleading look came into her eyes which he never could bear to see, and which to-day he felt less able than ever to withstand.
"I shall not be long away, darling," he said softly as he gathered up his tools and laid them on the broad window-sill beside her. "See, I am not taking away my work materials, and I shall be back almost before thou thinkest that I am gone. I will send Kate to sit with thee, and thou canst teach her how to paint the ducks for the magnet-box, only this time I would not give them scarlet wings; black, I think, would be better."
Violet smiled at the idea of Kate's trying to paint the ducks—Kate, who was so blind that she could not see a cockroach creeping across the kitchen floor, and the length of whose nails would sadly interfere with her holding the paint-brush.
"I would rather have Fritz to sit with me," she said plaintively.
"Fritz! ah, well; but is not this the time for his school?"
"He has not been at school all to-day. I have seen him ever so often at the window. See, father, he is there now; and oh! only look what a dress he has got on."
She burst out laughing, and even John with his heavy heart could not repress a smile, for there at the window opposite stood Fritz with an enormous spiked helmet on his head; a huge military coat buttoned across his chest, which covered his whole body; and a pair of riding-boots on his legs, which evidently encumbered him a good deal, for just at this moment, while John and Violet were gazing at him, he made a sudden rush at some unseen enemy beside the curtain, and one of the boots doubling up at the ankle he fell waddling on the floor, his helmet tumbling off his head and going almost out of the window, while all his efforts to get up again, even with the assistance of fat Ella, who tugged at him with all her might and main, were fruitless.
Again Violet burst out into one of those rare fits of real childlike laughter which always delighted and refreshed poor John's heart; but to-day, though hesmiled somewhat grimly, he turned away quickly to the door, saying as he went: "I shall see about Fritz coming to sit with thee; but if his mother will not permit it thou must be content for awhile with Kate."
"Yes, yes," cried Violet after him; "but do, please, send Fritz here. I have something so particular to ask him."
She watched her father as he crossed over the street to the baker's. He was such a great tall man that he had generally to stoop as he went in at the doorway; but to-day Madam Adler met him at the entrance to the bakery, and they held what seemed to the watcher at the window upstairs a very lengthy conversation. Madam Adler, who was a round fat little body, gesticulating somewhat wildly, pointed first up the street and then down it, and clutched every now and then at her cap, which was hanging half off the back of her head, while she gazed up at the great tall man beside her, whose grave eyes were fixed intently upon her face, and who listened earnestly while she poured forth a torrent of words, not one of which Violet could hear from the buzz and noise in the street beneath.
Fritz, who had regained his legs by this time, was now standing in the window opposite, making frantic signs across to Violet, who at first remained quite unconscious of his efforts; but presently looking upshe saw him waving a sword furiously across the street to attract her attention; and seeing now he had secured it, he proceeded to make a sudden lunge at Ella, digging the weapon apparently deep into the very middle of her body. Ella immediately collapsed on the floor, and Fritz continued for some time to prod her violently. Violet screamed and turned away her head; but when she looked round again, Ella, with an enormous brown paper helmet on her head, was standing beside Fritz in the very middle of the window grinning from ear to ear, while her assailant, still martially attired in the old trailing coat, and with a face flushed with victory, had his arm thrown affectionately round her neck.
By-and-by, as Violet still gazed across and smiled more and more at Fritz's excited movements, she saw her father enter the room opposite. He sat down in a chair a little distance from the window and called Fritz over to him, and a conversation ensued apparently of some interest, as Fritz never lifted his eyes from John's face while he was speaking to him, and Ella's countenance also assumed a kind of rigid stolidity most unnatural to it.
But this tranquillity did not last long; for no sooner had John left the room, having shaken hands with Fritz and kissed Ella, than a kind of secondaryexcitement seemed to take possession of the children. Fritz first took off his own helmet, and then, while Ella was stooping down to unloosen her brown paper leggings, he snapped hers off also with a summary politeness which Ella seemed for a moment to resent; but Fritz had no time, evidently, to give to trifles. He laid both helmets on the foot of a couch which projected out into the window, and then he rapidly divested himself of his coat and his huge leather boots, winding up by planting Ella on the end of the sofa and tugging violently at her less cumbersome leggings, until the little girl descended suddenly upon her back on the floor.
This time a few tears evidently softened the heart of the warrior, for he stooped down, lifted Ella from the ground, and covered her face with kisses; and in a few minutes Violet saw them both emerge from their house hand-in-hand and cross over the street, and push through the gathering of people towards the door of her own house, which opened immediately beneath her window.
She felt rather sorry that Ella had come across with her brother, for she had something to say to Fritz, a question to ask him in secret about some subject which was troubling her, and which she felt she could only confide to him in private. But when the door of herroom opened and Ella burst in all smiles and health and happiness, and rushed over to fling her dimpled arms round Violet's neck, she forgot for a time about her secret; and her spirits rose, and her white face broke into one of its sudden smiles, as she noticed scraps of cord and paper still sticking to Ella's fat legs which Fritz had evidently been too hurried to remove.
"What hast thou been doing all this morning, Ella?" she asked curiously; "and why has Fritz not been at school? I have seen him ever since I was dressed, playing in the window."
Ella's cheeks suddenly deepened to a purple red, and she gazed towards her brother with eyes which said plainly, "Thou must give an answer to this question."
"I have not been at school because—because, well, because I did not go; and besides I was busy doing lots of other things."
Ella's face looked decidedly relieved by this explanation of her brother's, which was entirely satisfactory to her own mind; but Violet was much puzzled by Fritz's words and still more perplexed by his manner, which was strange and quite unlike himself.
While she was pondering with herself what it all meant Ella broke in upon the silence.
"Yes, Fritz was doing lots of things all the morning—killing and cutting and stabbing the French, and he gave me an awful scrape on the arm; just look at it, Violet!" And Ella turned round the fattest of arms to Violet for compassionate inspection, across which just at the pink and dimpled elbow there certainly was a most undeniable and somewhat gory scratch.
"Hold thy tongue, thou little gabbling goose of a chatterbox," cried Fritz, turning suddenly round in real anger and casting a glance of withering scorn upon his unhappy sister; "hast thou already forgotten what I said to thee in the hall downstairs?"
"I did not say anything about the war," said Ella in reply, covering her face suddenly with her frilled pinafore and grasping on to the side of the invalid's chair, while she stretched out her hand as if to defend herself;—"I did not say one word about the war, did I, Violet?"
"No, no; she said nothing—nothing that I heard. She is a good little lamb, and thou must not frighten her, Fritz," cried Violet soothingly, as she drew the little sobbing girl over to her side and held her arm tightly round her fat waist.
"She is a good little new-born donkey," snorted Fritz still in much virtuous anger; "she has no moresense than the head of a pin. I told her something only a moment ago downstairs, and the instant she gets up into the room she must begin to let out the whole secret."
"What secret?"
"About the war," sobbed Ella.
"About what war? I do not understand. Why is it a secret, and why should Ella not tell me?" she added in a distressed voice.
"He said if I did tell thee he would cut my tongue out with his sword, and give me to the policeman to put me into the prison," sobbed Ella.
"For shame, Fritz! how couldst thou frighten her so?" said Violet with quite a hot flush on her usually pale face.—"I will not let him touch thee, Ella. There, put down thy apron; Fritz was only laughing at thee."
"Of course," cried Fritz contemptuously; "but she is such a little thrush, she would swallow a camel, hump and all, if one only held it up to her mouth."
This brilliant sally was suggested by the descent of one of Violet's newly-painted animals upon Fritz's head from the window-ledge above.
"I would not swallow a camel—I am not a thrush," still sobbed Ella, hiding her face against Violet's chair.
"Well, well, what does it signify? stop crying,"cried Fritz, making an effort over himself to recover his usual gallantry. "Come along, let's have some fun.—May we take down all those old beasts overhead and have a game with them?—may we, Violet? We have not played at crossing the desert for ages."
"Yes, yes; only take care. Some of them are quite sticky, and one or two have broken legs; but there are lots of other animals in the Noah's ark in the corner."
"All right; now we shall have real good fun," cried Fritz, tugging Ella's lingering arm from the rungs of Violet's chair with reassuring roughness and making room for her on the bench beside him. "Now, thou shalt be Noah, and Violet shall be Aaron, and I will be Moses with the rod."
"What rod?" asked Ella, gazing up at her brother rather doubtfully with eyes all wet and smudged with tears, while she wriggled herself into a more comfortable position on the carpenter's hard bench beside him.
"Oh, not the rod thou meanest," he replied reassuringly as he emptied out pell-mell a whole box full of animals upon the table—cows, sheep, ducks, elephants, and canary birds, all heaped up in a mound of wild confusion.
Ella had by this time her yellow curly headpillowed confidingly against Fritz's left shoulder, and perfect harmony was restored between them. Violet was now the most silent of the three. For some minutes past she had seemed in a reverie, and occasionally she looked anxiously across at Fritz, as if longing but fearing to ask him some question.
Whether he was aware of these longing, sorrowful glances directed towards him, it was impossible to tell. One might perhaps have thought so from the way he rambled on in a foolish, disconnected style, while he ranged the animals two by two along the edge of the table, and elicited shrieks of laughter from Ella by making the broken-legged elephant sit on its tail, while the no-legged goose was given a lift across the desert, seated between the horns of a scarlet cow.
At last they were all arranged in order, from the elephant down to the little red spotted lady-bird, which was fully as large as the mouse some distance in front of it; and Ella was desired to keep her feet and arms under the table, as every time she stretched them out she was certain to overturn a whole cavalcade of animals.
"Now Moses is going to drive them all into the ark, and I am Moses," cried Fritz triumphantly; "and any that are stupid and won't go in for me, Aaroncan pick up and push them in after Moses, as hard as he likes."
"But Moses did not drive the animals into the ark, nor Aaron either," said Violet smiling.
"Yes, yes," shouted Ella, kicking her toes against the underneath part of the table, so that several of the astonished animals suddenly leaped high into the air and then fell down on their sides—"yes, yes; Fritz is right. Moses drove them in, every one, into the ark; he whacked them with his rod, and off they galloped."
"For shame, Ella!" cried Violet, though she could not help laughing a little as she looked at the joyous round face opposite her, stretched in innocent smiles from ear to ear; "it was Noah who drove the animals into the ark; and besides, that story is in the Bible."
"But Fritz said it was Moses," repeated Ella, whose confidence in Fritz's veracity was not easily to be shaken.
"I know I did, but I was wrong. It was Noah of course—only, what does it matter? I never can remember the names of those very old men; and besides I don't much care for Bible stories—I like bits of them, that's all."
"Oh!" said Violet, with a sound of such unmistakable dismay in her voice that Fritz looked upsurprised; "thou dost not care for Bible stories, Fritz?"
"No, he does not; only bits—bits the size of a crumb," chimed in Ella, who was busy crushing the heads of two stags together, to the total destruction of their antlers.
"Hold thy tongue, Ella," cried Fritz angrily; "I do like some Bible stories, of course: Daniel in the lions' den; and Gehazi, who was turned white for telling a lie—that's a grand story; and the little child who was standing in the corn in the sun and got a headache, and who was made alive after he was dead, and given back to his mother—I like that best of all."
"So do I," screamed Ella, whose mirth was momentarily becoming more irrepressible. "Get in, old humpy back, into thy box; get in, I say, old beast." This speech was addressed to a kind of violet-coloured camel which had stuck in the entrance to the ark and was now standing head downwards amongst its imprisoned comrades with its heels elevated in the air.
"Ella, thou great goose, thou stupid little child, what art thou saying? thou must not speak of humps to Violet." A sudden push from Fritz's elbow sent the astonished Ella rolling off the bench on to the floor.
"Violet," cried Fritz, suddenly looking up andtaking no notice whatever of his sister's descent, for at this moment a spasm of recollection had flashed across his mind, "dost thou know, Violet, the lamplighter's girlhasa mother? I saw her yesterday morning in the market selling fish."
"Selling fish?" said Violet, repeating Fritz's words in a curious, absent manner.
"Yes; and such an old lobster I never saw. Her hands were just like claws, and—but what is the matter with thee? why art thou crying? It is all the fault of that horrid little Ella. But never mind; mother slapped me for speaking about thy hump, and Ella shall get slapped too."
"I am not crying," said Violet, vainly trying to keep back a sob; "it is only because I have been waiting so long, Fritz, to say something to thee."
"Not about the war?" cried Fritz, colouring crimson and bending his face down suddenly on the table. "I promised thy father I would tell thee nothing about it."
"It is nothing about war. It is a secret, but—but I could not say it to thee before Ella; she would not understand."
"Well, Ella shall go.—Come along home, thou little good-for-nought, and I will carry thee across on my back."
Ella at these words half moved out from her hiding-place under the wooden table, whither after her fall she had retreated in some dudgeon, but she almost immediately drew herself in again, and said flatly,—
"Ella will not go home; mother will smack her for calling the camel a—"
"Hist, thou little goose; mother will do nothing of the kind. Get up quickly, or I will not carry thee at all; there, hold on tightly now and keep thy heels quiet, for it is getting so dark and the stairs are so narrow I might fall down and break thy neck. Say good-evening now to Violet, and away we go."
He carried Ella over to Violet's chair, and the little maiden put her soft loving arms about her neck and kissed her with all the strength of her childish heart.
"Ella did not make thee cry, Violet, did she? Ella did not know that thou wast so fond of the poor—" She did not finish her sentence, for Fritz whirled her away suddenly.
But Violet called down the stairs after her, "Ella did not make Violet cry; Ella is a good girl. Good-evening, sweet Ella."
It was almost dusk when Fritz returned, and John had not yet come home. Violet heard the boy's step on the stairs, and her heart beat so fast that the neckof her little purple frock heaved up and down flutteringly.
She had packed away all the animals she could fit into the Noah's ark, and the others she had placed in a heap on the window-sill. There was nothing now on the table before her but her mother's Bible and the book with the gold-spotted cover.
For the twentieth time since Fritz had left the room, she had opened this book at the picture of the little hunchback and as hastily closed it again. "I will ask him first, and then I will show it to him," she said in a whisper to herself as she looked up nervously at the opening door.
But Fritz came in quite unconscious of the fluttering heart; his own was beating so hard that he had to sit down on the chair by the stove to get his breath, and it was some moments before he gasped,—
"Well, if ever I take that great fat Ella on my back again! I would rather carry a cow to market on my shoulders than have her hanging on to my neck and throttling me. First she made me carry her up to the top of the house, to the very garret, because she said mother was there; and then all the way down again, because she said mother was in the bakehouse. Then I had to haul her all the way off again down the street to Madame Bellard's, and up to thetop of that house, where we found mother and Madame Bollard crying over their coffee like two sea-crabs; and there I left Ella gaping at them with her eyes nearly falling out on her cheeks. Pah! she weighs at the least three tons."
"What were they crying about?" asked Violet curiously; "I saw so many people crying in the street to-day."
"People often cry when they have nothing else to do," he said, jumping up suddenly from his chair and raking out the ashes from the stove vehemently,—"at least Ella does; but of course they had something to cry for—only it is a secret, and thou must not ask me."
"A secret?" she said, nervously pushing the little book in front of her up and down the table. "Thou hast not asked me yet, Fritz, what my secret is."
"What is it, then?" he asked, coming close up to the table; and then recognizing the gold-spotted cover on the back of which Violet's fingers were trembling visibly, he added, "Is it about the lamplighter's girl? or hast thou perhaps found out the name of the little mother?"
"No," said Violet, shaking her head; "I cannot think who the mother is. But oh, there is such a lovely story in her book, Fritz, and I want so much to ask of thee, 'Is it true?'"
"Show it to me," said Fritz cheerfully. "Of course I can tell it to thee at once."
But Violet covered the book with both her hands; and though it was now almost dusk, he noticed how the blood rushed over her white face, and she looked for a little while out of the window.
"No, no—in a minute thou shalt see it; but first thou wilt tell me one thing, wilt thou not, Fritz? only one thing, but quite, quite truly;" and she turned her eyes upon him so earnestly that the boy felt almost frightened.
"Of course I will answer thee truly; but first I must hear thy question."
"If mother were here she could tell me all I want to know," sighed Violet, putting off the dreaded moment; "and father, I know he could also tell me, only he does not like me to talk about hunchbacks."
"About hunchbacks!" cried Fritz with a sudden gasp; "I do not know anything about hunchbacks."
"Yes, yes, thou dost," she cried excitedly. "I am a little hunchback; thou knowest that; thou saidst so thyself, Fritz, one day long ago. And now thou wilt tell me this one thing. Is it true—" She paused and breathed more quickly than ever; the question was evidently one of gigantic importance.
"Is what true?"
"That God gives the little hunchbacks these humps?"
"Yes, of course; that is to say, first they get a fall or something, and then God gives them the humps afterwards."
"And what does he put into them?"
"What? I do not understand thee."
"Is there not something inside of every poor hunchback's hump?"
"Yes, of course there is."
"Well, and what is it, Fritz? dear Fritz, tell me what it is." The question was breathed with actual pain.
"Dost thou mean what is in thy hump—this thing?" and Fritz laid his hand very softly on her shoulders.
"Yes."
"Why, any one knows that. Bones, of course; I can feel them."
"Bones?" she gasped.
"Yes; bones, and flesh, and skin, and all that kind of thing."
Violet's eyes distended; an anguish crept into them that appalled even Fritz. She drew the spotted book quickly over to her, and said slowly, as she opened it at the story of the hunchback, "Look at that picture,Fritz: that little sick child had 'wings' in her hump, lovely silver wings; and are not books like this true, Fritz? There are angels in the page, and the little girl flies up to her mother, and people would not write what was not true about angels and—and heaven."
The question was a little puzzling; but Fritz answered it without hesitation.
"The stories in this book are all fairy tales. Look at the cover and thou canst see that for thyself."
"Fairy tales? but are fairy tales never true?"
"No; at least none that I ever read."
"But God, and the angels, and heaven are all in that book, and they are true; and the little sick hunchback, that is not a fairy tale, for I am sick just like her; and why—why must that one little bit be untrue? And besides," sobbed Violet, whose whole courage and hope seemed almost to have forsaken her,—"besides, the words under that picture are in the Bible. I found them in mother's own Bible: 'No more tears.'" As she lifted up her face to Fritz for some hope, some consolation, immense tears were running down her cheeks, and the boy felt a tightening in his own throat too.
"What does it matter?" he said as he pushed the spotted book away from her; "I will throw thisold thing out of the window if it makes thee cry. Thou dost not want wings; thou art the best little angel in all Edelsheim: and, besides, flies have wings, and they are horrid beasts; and so why need one care?" and he threw his arms round her neck, and kissed her wet face, and whispered every loving name he could think of into her ear.
The next few days were so full of a new excitement for Violet that she scarcely had time to think of the little hunchback, or of the shock her feelings had received from Fritz's words.
All day long she sat in the window, absorbed in watching what was going on in the street beneath. Regiments of soldiers were constantly marching past, bands were playing, and flags flying from many of the opposite windows. Great forage-carts toiled up the hill, driven by soldiers; and Uhlans were for ever dashing up and down the street on their great tall horses, so that the points of their lances often seemed to come up to the very window at which she sat.
Going forth to War
Going forth to War.Page 76.
But Violet was not afraid of them, for even in their haste they gave her often a nod as they went by. Many of the Uhlans were friends of her father's, and though she scarcely recognized some of them in their square caps, they knew her; and not a few, as theyrode quickly past and saw the white face in the window, felt a shiver at their heart as they asked themselves the question, "If John goes to the war, what is to happen to the child?"
But as yet the question was not decided, and though Violet had heard through Kate some talk of the war, her heart lay still in an unsuspecting calm.
Once, as she saw a little child crying in the street below and holding on to its father's long military coat in an anguish of grief, she lifted her head suddenly and said to her father, who was busy making one of the wheels for her new carriage, "Thou art not a soldier, father?"
"No, darling, no, not at this moment."
"Thou wast a soldier once though, long ago, before Violet was born. Is it not so? Fritz has told me thou wert."
"Yes, a long time ago."
"And wert thou ever in a battle, father?"
"Yes, my sweetest treasure, in several; but we will not talk of battles. Thou hast not asked me all to-day about the carriage. I have got the springs home this morning from the blacksmith, and it will be so light when it is finished that even Fritz could draw thee about in it."
"How lovely to go up and down the street withFritz as Ella does, ever so fast down the hill, and ever so slow up. I am not so heavy as Ella, am I, father?"
"No, my poor little daughter, I am afraid not."
"And thou, father, some day, thou wilt take me in my carriage to the hill, and we will gather nuts and bring them home in my carriage; and every one will wonder when they see no one in the window. They will look up and they will say, 'Where is little Violet?' and they will never think that she is gone far, far away, to that hill which is so very far off."
The child's face was radiant; her eyes had turned to that deep purple hue which seemed always to match the shadows of her dress, and her cheeks had crimsoned with the thought of this new and wonderful life which was so soon to be hers.
Poor John put down his wheel and went over to his favourite seat on the broad sill beside her. He had purposely set her to talk on this theme, and now she was breaking his heart with her innocent raptures.
"I am afraid father is a great idler," he said, putting his head down very softly against her shoulder. "I ought to be downstairs in my workshop now, instead of chattering nonsense to thee all day."
"But we were not talking nonsense, were we,father? It is quite true about the carriage, is it not? it is not a fairy tale, father?"
"A fairy tale?"
"Fritz says—;" she paused.
"What does Fritz say?" John asked the question somewhat dreamily. He had been gazing at her earnestly for some minutes, and now he kissed her twice passionately, as if without any apparent reason. "Thou art father's little treasure, his darling, his own sweet little maiden," he said with almost a sob in his throat, "and thou must try and grow strong for father's sake."
Violet looked up a little shyly, and put her arms round his neck. "And thou art the best father in all the world—dear, dear father."
The old policeman, walking by in the street, saw the little maiden with her arms so tightly clasped round her father's neck; and he said to himself with a groan, "Poor maiden! she knows it all now, and she would fain hold him back if she could;" and he walked on.
But Violet did not know it all, nor for many days did the truth dawn upon her. It fell to Fritz's lot, as usual, to be the one to proclaim the tidings.
It was one evening about a month after war had been proclaimed. It had been a very hot day, andViolet was tired and weak, and not inclined to play or talk. She was leaning back against her pillows looking out at the pigeons, which always came at this hour of a summer's afternoon to sit and preen their feathers on the lantern-chain which hung high up across the street.
She knew these pigeons quite well; she had given them all names. She placed crumbs for them every day on the window-sill beside her chair, and she delighted to see their fussy ways, twirling round and cooing angrily, and trying to push each other off the sill so as to secure the larger share of the food.
But to-day she only watched them languidly. For the last three days neither Fritz nor Ella had called in to play with her. She had seen them in the street hanging on to the backs of the forage-waggons, and Fritz had once appeared in the window opposite with Ella's doll speared at the end of a lance, but seeing Violet beckoning to him to come across, he had shaken his head lugubriously and disappeared from her sight.
So Violet, whose back was aching and whose little heart sank easily under any depressing influence, was alternately watching her father putting some finishing touches to the hood of her new carriage, and gazing out languidly at the pigeons and the storks on thered roofs, and the jackdaw in Fritz's window opposite, hopping everlastingly up and down from its perch, and screaming out some words which the baker's boy had taught it with much trouble to say.
Beyond the roofs and between the fretted spire of the church she saw also the hill, looking so green and fresh in the golden evening air; and above it there was a pale green sky, flecked with amber clouds and little bars of red.
Violet sighed heavily, and John looked up from his work.
"What ails my treasure?"
"Nothing, father, only I am so, so tired; and Fritz and Ella, they have not come to see me for so many days."
"Ah, I will call over there presently and send them across to thee. I have but one or two nails to put in this hood, and then thy carriage will be finished; that is good, is it not?"
"Delightful!" cried Violet, raising herself up in her chair to see better the last finishing touches put to her new possession; but as she did so her eyes fell for a moment on the pavement opposite, where a soldier was just stopping at the Adlers' door with a bundle of papers in his hand, surrounded and followed by a large and excited crowd.
"What is it? father, come here. There is such a fuss in the street. A soldier has just gone in at the Adlers' house, and all the people are standing at their door, and one woman is crying."
"I am afraid a great many women and children will cry before this evening is over," said her father very gravely, as he rose and went over to the window.
"Why, father?"
"Because their husbands and fathers will have to go away from them to the war, and leave them. Yes; it is just as I thought. It is the orderly corporal leaving the names at the different houses. Whose turn will it be next?"
"But Fritz's father cannot be sent to the war; he is not a soldier, father?"
"We must all be soldiers, little one, when a war comes, and we are called out to fight."
"But thou, father, art not a soldier; thou saidst so to me thyself the other day. Father, dear father, turn round thy face to me. Tell Violet that thou wilt never be a soldier."
"I cannot tell Violet what she asks me," said John slowly, turning his face and speaking in a strained, thick voice. "If the king wants me to fight for God and the Fatherland, of course I must go."
"But he does not want thee; he has not sent for thee?"
"Not yet," he said, sitting down beside his little girl, and lifting up one of her hands tenderly; "but he may want me. And if he does, I must go; must I not, Violet? Father could not stay at home if his king called him. A brave soldier is always ready to fight for his country."
"But thou art not a soldier, father. The king has not called; and if he were to call for thee, I would not let thee go. For if father goes away to the war, and leaves Violet all alone, she must die! she must die! she must die!" Violet sobbed, and rocked herself to and fro in her chair.
"There, there, my heart, thou must not say such things. The corporal has not called yet with father's name. Keep still, my lamb, and cease crying. Fritz will be here soon, and thou wilt see how brave he is. I will go over and call him," cried John, rising precipitately. The corporal had come out of the Adlers' house, and was crossing over towards their own doorway.
"Father, father, stay!" cried Violet. "I would rather have thee to sit with me than Fritz." She caught at his coat. "Come back to me! come back, come back!"
But he was already closing the door after him, and in a moment more she heard his footsteps hurrying down the stairs.
With eyes full of blinding tears, she turned quickly to see him emerge into the street beneath; but though she brushed them from her eyes, he was nowhere to be seen. She looked up at the windows opposite, but he was not there either—only she could see Fritz lying on his face on the floor, and Ella stooping caressingly over him, with her little white apron to her eyes.
The crowd was now gathered exactly under their own window, and Violet's heart beat so fast that at last she cried out loud in her misery, and Kate opening the door came in.
"Kate, Kate, where is father?" she cried out anxiously.
"Father is busy talking to the corporal downstairs. He cannot come up just yet."
"The corporal!" screamed Violet passionately; "he is not coming to call my father to the war? Go down, Kate, to the door, and tell him he must not call him away. Father could not go to the war and leave me all alone."
"No, no; to be sure not," said Kate soothingly. "Men with children have no business to go off fighting. I will tell him so when he comes up, and—Ah, here comes Master Fritz, tearing across the street like a madman, and Miss Ella too."
"Shut the door!" screamed Violet. "I do not want to see Fritz; I do not want to see Ella: I want only father, only father to come back." But before Kate's stiff bones could bear her across the room, the door flew open and the children rushed in.
Fritz's cheeks were purple, his eyes were red, his blue-striped blouse was damp with tears. Ella tumbled in after him, her face also streaked and smeared from crying, and her pinafore hopelessly crumpled.
"Hast thou heard the news, Violet?" screamed Fritz excitedly. "The Reserve has been called out, and father is to go to the war!"
"What is the Reserve?"
"Oh, all the soldiers who have been out fighting before, long ago. My father was in lots of battles before, and so was yours."
"My father is not in the Reserve?" cried Violet, leaning forward eagerly.
"Yes; of course he is. I saw the corporal put the same blue paper into his hand downstairs as he did into father's a few minutes ago."
"And he is to go away to the war?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"The day after to-morrow."
Then such a cry of bitter anguish burst from Violet's lips that Fritz and Ella absolutely stood aghast with terror. She struggled wildly to get free from her chair, and to push her little table away which held her a close prisoner—"Let me out! let me down, Fritz, Ella! I must find father.—Father, father, father!" till at last the bitter cry echoed through the room, the house, and out into the street.
Madam Adler opposite heard it, and thrust her fingers into her ears; the policeman walking past covered his eyes suddenly with his gloved hands; and John, saying farewell to the corporal in the hall, heard it also. In a few moments he was up the stairs, and held his darling close to his heart. Fritz and Ella speedily departed homewards, leaving the door wide open behind them. John rose and closed it, and he and Violet were left alone to their grief.
The next day an aunt of Violet's arrived from a distant town. She was a sister of John's wife and a wife herself, very young and very fair, and with a wonderful likeness to the poor dead mother. Her husband, who was many years older than herself, was amongst the militia, and had not yet been called out; and at the cry from John's broken heart she came at once, leaving her own little ones behind her, to remain a few days with Violet, until the bitterness of the parting was over.
On this day the little girl had made no effort to leave her bed; all the long morning she had remained with her head buried in the pillows, and with the sheet drawn over her head, deaf to all comfort or words of sympathy. For who could comfort her when the appalling fact remained unchanged that her father was going to leave her, to go to the war, and she would be left alone?
In vain Fritz had stood by her bed and called to her. He had brought her a box of the most delicious sweetmeats, a farewell present from the confectioner; for poor Madame Bellard, like all the rest of the French residents in Edelsheim, had had to break up her home since the war was declared, and prepare to leave Germany at once; and now, as her shop was being closed, the children of the neighbourhood were profiting by her good-nature. To Violet she had sent a special gift of great beauty—a box of frosted silver, and all within were sweetmeats of various colours, pale pink and green and white, which shone glitteringly, as if they had been sprinkled over with diamond dust.
But no words of Fritz, nor descriptions of the treasure he held in his hand, could induce Violet to look up. Her head was buried in her pillows, and no sound but smothered sobbings reached his ears. Once a little thin hand was stretched out for a moment through the sheets, and grasped his gratefully, and there was an effort to say something, but Fritz did not understand it; and having left the sweetmeat-box on the table beside her bed, he moved away dejectedly, followed by Ella, who, in endeavouring to walk out on her tip-toes, had nearly fallen down on her face in the doorway.
Once in the afternoon Violet started up, andlifting herself painfully from the pillows, flung the clothes from off her face. She had heard a step on the stairs, and now she heard her father's voice calling to her. He was standing in the doorway as she looked up, and all the bright colour rushed to her pale face, and an exclamation of admiration and surprise burst quite unconsciously from her lips.
"Father, is it thou? Oh, how splendid!"
And splendid he did look this afternoon in his new uniform—a giant in height, in breadth, in strength, with a fair open face, which could look stern enough at times, but now there was no sternness about it, only a searching eagerness to see if he might win one smile from his darling in the bed yonder.
John had to take his helmet off to enter at the doorway. And now, as he stood by his little girl's bed, turning himself round with an assumed pride for her admiration, he looked, as he was, one of the very flower of the German army, ready to die for his king and fatherland; with a heart of steel to face the foe, and a heart of wax to be moulded by those tiny burning fingers in the bed, into whatever shape or form she chose.
"Has the king seen thee, father?" she asked with a sob and a smile.
"No, my child."
"Ah, he will be delighted. Thou art the finest soldier I ever saw."
"Thou thinkest so, my treasure?"
"Yes, yes; the best soldier in all the army"—she stretched out her arms lovingly, yearningly—"and the best, the very best, the dearest father in all the world."
John put down his helmet on the bed; his spurs clattered, his sword clanked, as he stooped over it; but she heard nothing—only the whisper in her ear: "Violet, my heart's treasure, how can I go away and leave thee?"
Later on in the evening, when he had gone out to make some final arrangements, and to buy some last comforts for his little girl, and she had relapsed into her former state of speechless grief, there came a tap at the door of her room, and a voice, which seemed to thrill through every fibre of her frame, cried softly,—
"Is Violet awake? May Aunt Lizzie come in?"
Violet once more flung down the clothes and made a violent effort to rise up quickly. Her cheeks flamed to a carmine red, her eyes glowed in the twilight, and there was something in their expression which made her aunt pause on the threshold and place her hand suddenly upon her heart.
"Poor little girlie! all alone?" she said, in the same sweet, low voice. "Aunt Lizzie has come at a good time to sit and comfort thee."
Violet had not seen her Aunt Lizzie for two long years; but now, at this crisis of her young life, when her heart was hungering for a face which she could never see again, and her spirit was crying out for her lost mother to comfort her, Aunt Lizzie had come in at the door, with the same gentle voice, the same sweet blue eyes and waving golden hair, and had laid just such a soft cheek against her own. All Violet's reserve gave way at once, and she turned with a sudden movement of overpowering relief, and flung her arms around Aunt Lizzie's neck.
"Aunt Lizzie! Aunt Lizzie! dost thou know, hast thou heard?—my father—;" here she turned her head in upon her aunt's breast; she could not finish the sentence—only a storm of sobs completed it.
"Yes, yes; I know it all. Thy father has to go away to the war. It is terrible. I was thinking of thee all the way in the train, and of all the other poor little children in Edelsheim who must say 'Good-bye' to-morrow to their fathers."
"But, Aunt Lizzie, Violet will be so lonely, so quite alone."
"Yes; thy father is so wonderfully good, and sokind, thou wilt miss him more than most children: I know that well."
"There will be no one to sit with Violet all day, no one to kiss Violet at night, no one to hear Violet say her prayers, no one to talk about mother—only Kate, and Kate never knows what Violet says."
"Ah, well, Aunt Lizzie must think of some one to come and stay with Violet. Our little darling must not be left alone. We will talk to father this evening. And now Violet must dry her eyes. Aunt Lizzie has seen so many tears to-day that she feels quite sad; and, besides, when father comes home we must not weep."
"Where did Aunt Lizzie see so many tears?" asked Violet, still sobbing.
"Oh, so many!—such red eyes and blistered faces!—at the railway station. It was at first almost impossible for Aunt Lizzie to find a seat. Only the colonel interfered, and said they must make a place for her. So many wives with babies in their arms, sobbing and stretching out their hands; and quite old women from the country, and little girls about thy size."
"Violet cannot go down to the station and see her father off to the war, can she, Aunt Lizzie?"
"No, no; it would only make father sad, and it would tire thee."
"Were there any poor little hunchbacks at the station at Edelsheim?"
"What?" cried Aunt Lizzie, with almost a start of horror. "Sweetest treasure, thou must not say such things. Thou art our own sweet Violet—a little sick girlie that every one loves, and God most of all. Is it not so, my loved one?"
"Some hunchbacks have wings," said Violet, with a sudden gasp and a swift upward glance at her aunt's face. "God gives them wings."
"Yes, dearest child; and some day he will give thee wings too, and then Violet will fly away and be at rest: she will be so happy up there with mother; and she will have no more pain in her poor back, and she will never cry any more, nor have tears in her eyes."
"Yes," said Violet, with a sigh and a long, fluttering sob, "no more tears. The poor little hunchback in the fairy tale never cried once, not once, after God gave her wings. I read that in the book, underneath the picture, and I know it is true, although Fritz will not believe it, for I found the words in mother's Bible."
"Yes, yes, it is quite true," said Aunt Lizzie softly: "there will be no more sorrow nor trouble of any kind in heaven—nothing to make us cry—no more fighting, no more wars."
"No more soldiers, and having to say 'Good-bye,'"added Violet sobbing. "Aunt Lizzie, Aunt Lizzie, Violet cannot say good-bye to father."
"Ah, darling, it is hard, but thou must try to say it;" and Aunt Lizzie pressed the little head close to her breast. "Father is a soldier, and Violet must seek to be a soldier too. Thou wilt be brave, sweetest child, for his sake, wilt thou not? Father's heart is breaking at having to say farewell to his little girl, and yet thou seest, dearest one, how he strives for thy sake to be cheerful."
"I know a text about soldiers, Aunt Lizzie," said Violet almost in a whisper.
"What is it, my little girlie?"
"'Fight the good fight;' but, Aunt Lizzie, Violet is too sick to fight, and her back aches so."
"Violet is one of Christ's own little soldiers, and when she is very tired she must just lay her head on his breast, and he will fight for her all her battles, whatever they may be."
"Yes; that is like mother's hymn that we used to say always at night, 'How sweet to rest on Jesus' breast.' And then when mother used to lie down beside Violet on the bed, and put her arms so closely around her, Violet used to say, 'How sweet to rest on mother's breast;' and there was no harm, was there, Aunt Lizzie?"
"None, none," replied the young mother with an effort to keep back her own tears. "Now lay thy head softly down on Aunt Lizzie's breast, and she will sing thee to sleep."
"Dost thou know what Kate said to Violet once?" asked the little girl, a smile spreading over all her face.
"No, my child; what was it?"
"She said Violet would soon sleep on mother's breast, and then Violet would have no more headaches. Is not that lovely, Aunt Lizzie?"
"Lovely," she answered almost in a whisper.
While they were talking thus, John came in. At first his face was somewhat white and stern. He seemed afraid to trust himself to glance towards the bed. When at last he did look across to the corner where Aunt Lizzie, who had taken off her hat and shawl, was sitting on the bed beside Violet, his face suddenly changed; a light, a look came into it, a sudden flush passed over his handsome face, and he stretched out his hand with a hasty movement and a quick outburst of thanks.
"Lizzie, thou best of sisters! so thou hast come. I scarcely dared to hope it. It has been too good of thee to leave thy home; and of Henry, too, to spare thee." He kissed her affectionately, and sat down onthe edge of the bed, where Violet lay, partially supported by her aunt's arm.
"Ah, God be thanked, my task is now comparatively light." He drew a long, deep breath, and tried to smile a happy smile as he gazed into his little girl's face and lifted one of her hands into his own. "I have had such a busy afternoon," he continued, still searching into the large wistful eyes opposite him for some ray of cheerfulness. "I have finished Violet's carriage, and I have bought a lovely cushion for it, and a rug to put over her feet; and Fritz put Ella into it, and found it was so light he could draw her up the steep hill from the church to the fountain without drawing breath: so now Violet can go out also every day and get some roses in her cheeks.—Is that not so, my heart's angel?"
Violet nodded her head silently, and pressed her father's hand, but no words came.
"And father is going to give Violet his canary to take care of for him; and such a grand cage as he has bought for him, all gold and silver, and with beautiful green fountains. And Violet must feed him herself, and see that he is never hungry or thirsty either. Eh, my darling?"
"Yes, father."
"And here is a desk father has got for thee—areal leather desk full of paper and envelopes and beautiful red sealing-wax; and, look here, my treasure, a seal with 'Violet' on it. Is not that lovely?"
"Beautiful," said Violet, her eyes dilating and her mouth expanding with a troubled smile.
"And somewhere in the desk Violet will find, if she searches well for it, a little box with silver in it, bright silver money to buy stamps with; and when she wants more money in her box she must ask Madam Adler for it, and then she can always write letters to father and tell him all the news."
"Father will write to Violet?"
"Of course, of course;—and the ink-bottle thou hast not seen yet, nor the pens and pencils," cried John with a sudden access of interest; for Violet's lips quivered ominously, and one large tear had already fallen with a splash upon the pink blotting-paper.
"And now we will shut up the desk, and Violet will get up on father's knee. We are all going to sit by the stove and have our supper. And father has a cake for thee, which Madame Bellard has baked on purpose for us. Wait till Aunt Lizzie sees it; it is all sugar on the top. It was good of Madame Bellard, in all her trouble, to think of us. Was it not, Violet?"
"Yes, yes, too good," she said softly.
It did not take long to dress her. A couple of shawls fastened loosely round her, and stockings drawn up over her feet, were enough for the occasion; and when the coffee was ready the cake was uncovered in all its glory. Such a splendid cake as it was, all covered with creamy frosted white sugar; and on the top were letters made of pink comfits, which formed these words, "John and Violet;" and underneath, in smaller comfits of the same colour, was added, "Auf wiedersehen" (To meet again).