Above, Kaspar Bernstein was searching frantically for the location
of his lost home. As the bells died away, with the full force of his
strong lungs he shouted, “Josepha! Josepha! Jo-se-pha!”
Franziska heard, and, with the cry--“Oh, Gretchen! hear you? it is ‘der
Vater’s’ voice,”--answered him with all her strength, but her voice
failed to reach the outer air.
Still shouting he wandered to and fro, now near them, now more remote.
“Gretchen!” she called, “answer ‘der Vater’; perhaps he can hear you
through the little star.”
Gretchen only moaned.
“Gretchen, you _must_ answer! ‘der Vater’ will not find us; he will
go away and leave us here to die,--Gretchen darling--shout as loud as
you can--for the love of God, Gretchen!” And the little one lifted her
feeble voice and called, “Vater! Vater!”
Overwhelmed by sorrow, as Kaspar stood a moment motionless, that faint
cry reached him like a whisper from God. Oh, how desperately he dug,
throwing the earth and stones in all directions in his eager haste to
reach his darling, while he shouted words of hope and comfort to her.
It was not long before he came upon the front room of his ruined home.
There, beside the crushed cradle, lay his dead wife, little Fritz
clasped in her arms. He lifted them tenderly, and laid them carefully
down out in the open air. He would go back to them later; there would
be time for grieving, but not now. A little further on lay Gretchen,
under a pile of dirt and stones. She was badly bruised, and her hip was
broken. As he raised her in his arms, the blue eyes opened; a slight
smile flitted over the pale face as she whispered “Vater.”
The tears which had not started when he beheld his dead wife and baby
now ran down his cheeks, and he felt as though he could never let her
go; but there was still work to do, so placing her in the arms of a
kind-hearted Frau from a neighboring village, he carefully dug his way
towards Franziska. As the light entered her prison she looked about
her. Some of the beams and boards of the house were jammed together
about six inches above her head, and held back the earth that must
otherwise have crushed her. When Kaspar reached her, he found her so
wedged in between great stones and beams, he could not dig her out
alone; so bidding her keep her hope and courage a little longer, he
went for help.
The earth, which had so recently been disturbed, now and then fell in
small quantities into the opening; and occasionally a stone rolled over
the edge.
Franziska’s strength began to desert her;--how long it was since “der
Vater” had left her;--what if the earth should cave in upon her before
he returned;--the beams above her head,--she surely saw them move; and
when at last help reached her she was unconscious.
The kind-hearted Frau who had taken Gretchen opened her heart and home
to Franziska also; but many weeks passed before she knew any one.
In her delirium she was constantly talking to Gretchen, telling her
stories, begging her not to be afraid,--not to cry so; until the good
Frau would turn away her head, and with her apron wipe her eyes. But,
one day, when the ground was white with snow, she awoke and knew them,
and when little Gretchen, who had grown quite well and strong, climbed
up on the bed and kissed her over and over again, Franziska thought she
must have died and waked up in heaven, such a wave of happiness rolled
over her.
It was many days before Frau Brinkerhoff told her how on that
never-to-be-forgotten day tons and tons of earth and stones broke away
from the Rossberg, and came sweeping into the valley, burying four
villages and five hundred souls; how the earth filled up one end of the
lake, and the water rose in a great wall and swept out onto the land
wrecking all before it; how Frau Bernstein and baby Fritz lay in the
quiet church-yard, and how the beautiful laughing valley was beautiful
no longer, but oh, so desolate!
[Illustration]