A TERRIBLE DEED
THE weather Sunday was very fair and the garden lay peaceful and
quiet in the sunlight. Nothing could be heard except the occasional
thump of a falling apple, which had begun to ripen. The parents had
gone to church with Paula and Miss Hanenwinkel and Jul and Hun sat
peacefully before a great bowl of hazelnuts, discussing the different
ways in which the nutcracker could open nuts. Willi and Lili, after the
instructive experience of the day before, had come back to their ark
with the wooden men and ladies and sat in the schoolroom where they
were allowed to spread their toys over the large table. Rolf had run to
a lonely little summerhouse in a distant corner of the garden in order
to be undisturbed at different studies he was interested in.
When the deluge, which had to proceed this time without any water, had
lasted a long time, and the dove had returned with the olive branch,
Lili grew tired of the game and cast about for something new.
"Come down stairs, Willi," she proposed. "Let's look at Rolf's bow and
arrow. He put it in the hall yesterday."
Willi, quite ready for a change of occupation, hastened downstairs
after his twin sister, who knew the exact spot where Rolf had put the
bow and the quiver full of feathered arrows.
"It must be great fun to shoot with it," said Lili. "I watched Rolf
doing it. You pull the string back and lay the arrow on it; then you
let go of the string and the arrow flies away. Let's try it, Willi."
"But we are not allowed to do it. Don't you remember papa saying we
mustn't?" answered Willi.
"I don't actually mean to shoot. We'll just try a little how it works,"
suggested Lili.
This tempted Willi very much.
"But where shall we try it? There is too little room in the hall," he
said.
"Of course not here; I know a good place, for it in the garden," she
cried, running out with the arrow towards an open space near, the
hedge. Willi eagerly followed with the bow.
"Here is a good place," said Lili, "let's both try it together."
Willi stuck the bow into the ground and both pulled the string back as
hard as they could. When they succeeded in tightening the string, Lili
jubilated loudly.
"Now lift up the bow," she directed her brother, "put on the arrow like
that and pull this thing here back. You'll see what fun it is! Try it,
Willi."
The boy pulled hard, and the arrow went whirring through the hedge.
That same moment, they heard a cry of pain in the little garden beyond.
Then everything was still.
[Illustration: "DO YOU THINK IT WAS A LITTLE RABBIT THAT MADE THE
NOISE?" ASKED WILLI, FRIGHTENED.]
The children looked at each other perplexed.
"Do you think it was a little rabbit that made the noise?" asked Willi,
frightened.
"Do you think it was a chicken?" asked Lili, with a very bad conscience.
Both hoped sincerely they had heard wrongly when it sounded like a
child's cry, and that they had only hurt a little animal. They knew
they had been very disobedient in handling the weapon, and without
saying a word, they carried the bow back to its place.
Here a new dread took hold of them. What would happen if Rolf
discovered an arrow was missing?
Just then they heard the others coming back from church. This prevented
them from going out and hunting for the missing arrow, which would
give them away at once. Rolf, of course, would not know they had shot,
but he might ask them. They felt very helpless and entangled by their
disobedience. Besides, it seemed quite impossible ever to admit the
truth, if somebody asked them for the arrow.
In silence and greatly oppressed by a feeling of guilt, Willi and Lili
slipped back to the schoolroom and remained there without making a
sound till they were called to dinner. They sat down quietly on their
chairs without any joyful expectation of the coming meal. They never
raised their eyes and swallowed hard at their soup as if it contained
large gravel stones. Whenever the father accosted them, they did not
raise their eyes, and their answers were scarcely audible.
"What is the matter again with those two?" the father asked, quite
convinced that their contrition was not due to the incident of the day
before: the repentance of the twins never lasted so long as that.
He received no answer, as they sat motionless, staring at their plates.
The mother anxiously shook her head, while Hun, who guessed at once
that something dreadful must have happened, kept a watchful eye on the
pair.
The fine pudding with the sauce appeared and each got a nice big
helping. Suddenly the father jumped up from his seat. "What is the
matter? Can someone over there be ill? I just saw the doctor running in
there rapidly as if someone were in great danger."
"I know of no sick people," said the mother. "Mrs. Kurd has rented her
rooms to strangers. Perhaps one of them is ill."
First the twins blushed scarlet, then they grew white from fear as an
inner voice repeated to them insistently: "Now you'll be found out, now
you'll be found out!" They were so petrified that they could not move
their limbs and found themselves obliged to leave the tempting pudding
with the raisins untouched.
Even Hun, known as the most indefatigable eater of puddings, left
his portion behind, for suddenly, leaping from his seat, he cried in
terrible agitation, "Mamma, papa, come! Everything will fall to pieces
now!" And nearly pulling Jul bodily from his chair, he flew towards the
door. He could still be heard shrieking insanely outside, "Come, come!
Everything will go to pieces. Jul told me so."
"What evil spirit has come into the children!" inquired the father,
amazed. "The twins are acting as if they were screwed to a torture
bench, and Hun has completely lost his senses."
Suddenly realizing what had caused Hun's panic, Jul burst into a
gale of laughter. The small boy, seeing the twins so frightened and
grim themselves, felt sure the pair had begun their fearful work
of destruction. In a few moments, the house would crash down over
the assembled family, he was quite sure. Under renewed outbursts of
laughter, Jul explained what Hun's insane cries signified and even
the mother was quite unable to tempt the boy into the room again with
soothing words. He danced up and down before the house and violently
implored everybody to come outside. At last, his father ordered the
door to be shut, so the meal could proceed in quiet. Afterwards, when
the family went into the garden, little Hun approached as soon as he
saw them all in safety under the apple tree. Then he said, sighing,
"If only somebody would fetch me out my pudding before the house falls
down!"
The mother drew the little boy up to her, and explained how very
foolish both Jul and he had been, the big boy to invent such nonsense,
and the other to believe it. She told him to think a little and see how
impossible it would be for two small people like Willi and Lili to tear
down a large house built of stone; but it took quite a while to remove
the fixed idea from the boy's brain.
Dora had been standing at the hedge waiting for the children to come
to the garden when the twins approached. She watched their sport with
much suspense, and then the arrow happened to fly straight into her
bare arm. The pain was so great that she moaned aloud. Fortunately the
arrow had not penetrated far enough to remain fixed in her flesh, and
had fallen down at once. But such streams of blood poured from her arm
over her hand and dress that Dora, in her fright, forgot her suffering.
She could not help thinking how terribly Aunt Ninette would worry at
her accident. In her anxiety, she sought for some means to conceal the
matter and pulling out her handkerchief, she wrapped it firmly round
the wound. Next, she ran to the fountain in front of the house, and
began to wash off the stains. But the blood immediately soaked through
the bandage, and Dora was stained with blood.
That moment, her aunt called her name from upstairs and Dora had to
go. Trembling, she went reluctantly upstairs to her aunt, holding her
bandaged arm stretched out in front, because the blood was simply
dripping from it. The light Sunday frock was spotted with blood, and
streaks were on the child's cheeks and forehead, because in trying to
wipe it off, Dora had soiled herself everywhere.
"For mercy's sake!" shrieked the aunt at this appalling sight. "Dora,
what is the matter with you? Tell me! Did you fall? How dreadful you
look! Your cheeks look as white as chalk under the bloodstains! Dora,
for heaven's sake, speak!"
Dora had several times been on the point of speaking, but had not got
the chance. She answered timidly at last: "It was an arrow."
A storm of worse complaints than Dora had ever heard broke forth
now. Wringing her hands and running up and down the room, the aunt
exclaimed, "An arrow, an arrow! You were shot! And in the arm! You'll
be lame for life now! Your arm will stay stiff and you'll be a cripple
forever! You won't be able to sew any more, no, you won't be able to
do anything at all! You will have to live in poverty the rest of your
life! We'll all suffer most dreadfully! How could such a misfortune
break in upon us? How can we go on living now? What on earth shall we
do if you become lame?"
"But, Aunt Ninette," Dora said, between her sobs, "perhaps it won't be
so terrible. Don't you remember what papa used to say:"
"'Yet God keeps watch above us
And doeth all things well.'"
"Ah, yes, that is true, but if you are crippled, you are crippled,"
wailed the aunt anew. "It is enough to drive one to despair. But come
here! No, go now. Better come to the water here! But where is Mrs.
Kurd? We must send for the doctor at once."
Dora went to her wash basin, while the aunt ran to Mrs. Kurd and urged
her to send for the physician without a moment's delay. One could not
tell what danger there might be in such an injury.
The doctor came as soon as he was able, examined the wound, stopped
the blood and made a tight bandage without saying a word, though Aunt
Ninette had several times tried hard to bring him to some declaration.
Taking his hat, he was soon at the door.
"But, doctor, won't you tell me?" said Aunt Ninette, accompanying him
further, "Tell me, doctor, will her arm remain lame? Lame for life?"
"Let us hope not! I'll come again tomorrow," was the answer, after
which the physician was gone.
"'Let us hope not,'" repeated Aunt Ninette, in a despairing voice.
"With a doctor that means yes. Oh, what will become of us? What shall
we do? We can never pull through now."
The aunt never stopped wailing the entire day.
When the mother that night came to Willi's bed to say his prayers with
him she did not find him sitting happily on his bed as usual, eager to
detain her for a long talk. He was crouched together and did not look
up at her when she sat down beside him. Nor did he speak.
"Willi, what is the matter?" asked the mother. "Something is troubling
you. Did you do something wicked?"
Willi gave forth an incomprehensible sound, which was neither yes nor
no.
"Come, say your evening song, Willi. Maybe that will open your heart,"
said the mother again.
Willi began:
"The moon is now ascending,
The golden stars are lending
Their beauty to the night."
But he prayed mechanically, constantly listening to every sound
outside. He also gazed at the door, as if something dreadful might
enter at any moment. From his restless glances, one could see that he
was suffering from some inner terror. When he came to the end of his
song:
"Oh, take us in Thy keeping,
Dear Lord, while we are sleeping,
And watch o'er those in pain."
Willi burst into violent sobs, and tightly clinging to his mother,
cried out, "The child won't ever be able to sleep again, and God will
punish us frightfully."
"What do you mean, Willi?" asked the mother gently. "Come, tell me what
has happened. I have known all day you must have been naughty. What was
it?"
"We have—we have—perhaps we shot a child dead," was heard at last.
"Willi, what are you saying?" cried the mother, frightened, for
she immediately remembered the doctor's hurried appearance at her
neighbor's cottage. "But that isn't possible. Explain to me what
happened."
Willi related from the beginning what Lili and he had done, how they
had heard the moan, after which they had run away. They were so
frightened now, they would rather die at once, he said, than live any
longer in such dread.
"Now you see, Willi, what comes from disobedience," said the mother,
sternly. "You thought it wasn't very bad for you to play a little with
the bow and arrow, but your father knew very well what danger there
might be in it. That is why he forbade you to use it. We can't tell yet
what terrible thing has happened through your disobedience. Therefore,
we will earnestly implore God to make only good come out of your wicked
action."
The mother began to say a prayer which Willi continued himself. He had
never in his life prayed as fervently as he did at that anxious moment.
He could hardly stop, because he felt such intense relief in praying,
and it was wonderful to lay his trouble in God's hands. He earnestly
begged His forgiveness and His assistance. Willi experienced great
happiness in being able to look up at his mother again and he said
good-night with a lighter heart.
In the room opposite, Lili was waiting for her mother. As the latter
stepped up to her little one's bed, she said seriously, "Will you say
your prayers, Lili?"
Lili began, then stopped. Once more she began and stopped abruptly.
Dreadfully uneasy, she said now, "Mamma, I can't pray. God is angry
with me."
"What did you do, Lili? What makes you so sure God is angry with you?"
Lili remained silent, and pulled her sheet to and fro, for she was an
obstinate little person.
"If our God is not satisfied with you, I am not, either. Now I must go.
Sleep well, if you can," said the mother, turning to leave the room.
"Mamma!" shrieked Lili, "Don't go! I'll tell you everything."
The mother turned around.
"We shot with the bow, though we were not allowed to do it. And we hit
something that cried out. Then we were awfully frightened and ran away.
Afterwards, we were still more scared and we can't be happy any more."
"Of course you can't be happy now," agreed the mother. "Just think,
Lili! Because of your disobedience, a poor child over there has to
suffer dreadful pain. She may even be here without her mother, for she
is a stranger. She is probably crying all night in the strange house."
"I want to go over to the child and stay with it," Lili began pitifully
crying. "I can't sleep, mamma, I am so scared."
"You see, Lili, that is the way we always feel when we have done wrong.
I'll go to the poor child, and you must pray to God for an obedient
heart, and beg Him to keep bitter suffering away from the innocent
child you wounded."
Lili obeyed, and was glad she could pray again. After confessing her
guilt, she did not feel as if God were angry with her any more, and she
begged Him from the bottom of her heart to make her good and obedient
and to heal the poor hurt neighbor.
Immediately afterwards, the mother sent Trine to Mrs. Kurd in order to
find out if a child had been really shot, how it all had happened, and
if the doctor had been brought for that reason.
Mrs. Kurd told Trine in detail how the arrow had flown through the
hedge and into Dora's arm. She also repeated the doctor's words when
asked about the dreadful consequences that might result from the
accident. He had promised to return the next day.
Trine carefully told her mistress everything she had learned, and Mrs.
Birkenfeld was glad to find the wound had not immediately endangered
the child's life. She was especially relieved that the child's eye had
not been struck, which possibility had troubled her the most.