Supper was a huge bowl of soup, with big slices of brown bread
swimming in it and some onions bobbing up and down; the bowl was
soon emptied by ten wooden spoons, and then the three eldest boys
slipped off to bed, being tired with their rough bodily labor in
the snow all day, and Dorothea drew her spinning-wheel by the
stove and set it whirring, and the little ones got August down
upon the old worn wolfskin and clamored to him for a picture or a
story. For August was the artist of the family.
He had a piece of planed deal that his father had given him, and
some sticks of charcoal, and he would draw a hundred things he had
seen in the day, sweeping each out with his elbow when the
children had seen enough of it, and sketching another in its
stead,--faces and dogs' heads, and men in sledges, and old women
in their furs, and pine trees, and cocks and hens, and all sorts
of animals, and now and then--very reverently--a Madonna and
Child. It was all very rough, for there was no one to teach him
anything. But it was all lifelike, and kept the whole troop of
children shrieking with laughter, or watching breathless, with
wide open, wondering, awed eyes.
They were all so happy; what did they care for the snow outside?
Their little bodies were warm, and their hearts merry; even
Dorothea, troubled about the bread for the morrow, laughed as she
spun; and August, with all his soul in his work, and little rosy
Ermengilda's cheek on his shoulder, glowing after his frozen
afternoon, cried out loud, smiling, as he looked up at the stove
that was shedding its heat down on them all:--
"Oh, dear Hirschvogel! you are almost as great and good as the
sun! No; you are greater and better, I think, because he goes away
nobody knows where all these long, dark, cold hours, and does not
care how people die for want of him; but you--you are always
ready; just a little bit of wood to feed you, and you will make a
summer for us all the winter through!"
The grand old stove seemed to smile through all its iridescent
surface at the praises of the child.
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