FATHER'S LETTER.
So the long days deepened, and the sun grew hot and strong over the
town of Edelsheim. In the middle of the day the streets were almost
deserted, except by those who, under cover of huge, mushroom-shaped
umbrellas, ventured out to make their purchases. Even the roofs
opposite had been almost deserted by the birds, which only twittered in
the early morning; and the pigeons pattered up and down in the shadow
of the eaves, or sat huddled together on the chain which hung across
the street opposite Violet's window, for at mid-day their pink feet
would have been scorched on the hot tiles of the houses opposite, where
they generally congregated.
Violet's canary seldom sang now. In the evening sometimes it trilled
out a delicious song, with its head bent on one side, as if it were
looking out through the opening in the roofs opposite to the hill,
with its crown of trees and the blue sky over it so fresh and free;
but in the morning it never sang. Evelina would not allow it to sing;
its chattering and loud rejoicing as the sun arose had disturbed her
sleep, and rising up early one morning, she had opened the door of
her room suddenly, and with smothered, angry words, had rushed in and
thrown a black shawl over the cage, which she had carried with her in
her hand from the inner room. Violet, who was awake, and listening to
her favourite's song with silent pleasure, protested loudly, but it was
all of no use; Evelina was really angry, and she said sharply that if
Violet chose to make a fuss about it she would remove the cage from the
room altogether.
Violet's heart beat and her eyes flamed, and she cried hotly after
Evelina's retreating figure.
"Father will soon come home, and then--"
"Yes; and then thou mayest do as thou choosest, no doubt, and eat the
little beast, head and tail, if it pleases thee; but it shall not keep
me awake, that is all." Evelina closed the door sharply after her, and
flung herself back into bed, angry with Violet and angry with herself.
Both their voices had been raised, and the windows of the room lay wide
open to catch even a passing breath of the cool morning air.
And as Evelina had hurried past the window of her room she had caught
a glimpse of the old policeman standing on the pavement opposite, and
looking up anxiously with strained inquiring gaze at the projecting
casement of Violet's room. He must have heard her anguished cry of
protestation, "Father will come home soon, and then--" But her own
voice, she hoped, had not been raised so loud. "The little spoiled
thing! she thinks she must not be crossed in anything," she said
pettishly to herself; and so turning on her pillow fell fast asleep.
The same morning brought a letter from Violet's father, and her trouble
about the canary bird was soon forgotten. It was such a long letter.
Her eyes deepened and her cheeks flushed. She begged of Evelina to go
across the street and ask Madam Adler to come over and read it out to
her. Evelina took the message somewhat unwillingly, saying that she
could read it for her with pleasure. But Violet shook her head and
replied nervously, "Madam Adler knows father, and she will understand."
"I suppose," replied Evelina with a short laugh, "any one who does not
know thy father must be a blockhead, eh?" and running lightly down the
stairs and across the street, she came suddenly face to face in the
Adlers' doorway with the policeman.
Evelina blushed a deep conscious blush and tried to hurry past; but
laying his hand a moment on her arm he said gravely, while he pointed
across at the window opposite,--
"How is the little maiden up yonder?"
"Oh, she is like a mad thing this morning. She has got a letter from
her father, and I have just flown across to call Madam Adler to read it
to her."
"So; that is good," he replied, still looking fixedly at Evelina's
blushing face, and seeking to fix the eyes which looked every way
except at him.
"Let me pass, if you please," she said nervously; "the child will be
impatient if I delay."
"You are very kind to our Violet?" he said, moving a little aside. "She
is happy?"
"Oh yes, happy enough; that is to say when she gets everything she
wants. She is a trifle peevish sometimes, and hard to manage. But we
are great friends."
"I fancied I had heard her crying this morning very early; was it not
so?"
"Pah!" cried Evelina with a toss of her head, "one must not stand in
the street and count every cry a sick child gives. The canary bird
chattered so that she could not sleep, nor I either, so I threw a shawl
over its head, and there was an end of the matter."
"So," said the policeman again, only this time more gravely, and
allowed Evelina to go past him up the stairs.
Madam Adler did not lose a moment in hastening to come at Violet's
call. She too had had a letter from her husband, and had only just read
the first line; but she thrust it into her pocket and hurried across
the street. Little Violet's trembling heart must first be quieted, and
then when she was satisfied Madam Adler would return and read her own
letter in the quiet of her room with many thanks to the good God who
had spared her husband so far.
[Illustration: Reading the Letter. _Page 163._]
She drew her chair beside the bed, and having kissed the little white
face with its ardent, loving eyes, she took the letter from Violet's
hand and read it out to her slowly. It was just such a letter as she
had expected it would be--overflowing with love, and with almost no
allusion to the war or its horrors, but giving accounts of their
camp-life,--the bivouacs under the trees, the fires lighted on the
grass, and the large camp-kettles swung upon poles over the blazing
logs; and of the little children who came out of the villages and stole
through the woods to stare at them; and of one little maiden who had
made so bold as to come and sit on John's knee, and had stroked his
beard and chatted to him in French, and finally had kissed him ere
she went away. Sometimes they slept on the ground with nothing but the
bright stars overhead, and sometimes they made houses of leaves and
boughs, into which they crept at night, and were as comfortable as
could be.
But the chief part of the letter was taken up with home affairs. John
wanted to know all about his Violet;--whether she was happy; what she
did all day; whether she went out to drive in her carriage; if Fritz
took good care of her, if Madam Adler came often to see her. Had the
good doctor been to pay her a visit; was the canary well; did the poor
back ache much? And inside the envelope, folded up carefully in a small
piece of tissue-paper, were some wild flowers gathered from under the
trees where they had bivouacked the night before. Violet could put them
into mother's Bible. The flowers which she had given him were quite
safe. He kept them always in a little package near his heart, and he
loved to think of the words which Violet had printed for him--"To meet
again."
It is needless to say that Violet's eyes were full before this letter
was ended, and Madam Adler had to speak quickly of the one which she
must write to him in answer, and of all the news she would have to
tell him--about her watch, and about the doctor's visit, and how
Ella's front tooth had fallen out, and she could no longer eat the hard
ginger-bread nuts in the bakery.
Madam Adler promised to come over the next day to help her to write
this letter, and having placed her mother's Bible on the bed beside
her, she returned with an anxious heart to her own house to finish the
closely-written page which lay hidden away in her pocket.