A Round Dozen

"One day when Papa Stork was absent, and Mother Stork had hopped from the nest to the roof, she heard a crackling sound which she did not at all understand. Then the air grew thick and smoky, and there was a smell of burning wood. The shed was on fire! Frau Stork became uneasy, and called loudly for her mate, but he was too far away to hear her voice. Presently the smoke became more dense, and a little red tongue of flame crept through the thatch. When it felt the air it grew large, swelled, and at last, like a fiery serpent, darted at the nest and the screaming brood within."

"Oh dear! oh dear!" cried the children, sitting up in their beds. "What did the poor stork do?"

"She could easily have flown away, you know," continued the mother. "There were her strong wings, which would have borne her faster than the fire could follow. But she loved her babies too well to leave them like that. She seized them with her beak, and tried to drag them from the nest. But they were too heavy, and flapped and struggled, hindering her, for they did not understand what she wished to do. The flames drew nearer, the branches began to blaze. Then Mother Stork took her usual place in the nest, gathered her brood under her wings as if to shield them, bent her poor head, and – "

"Oh, she didn't burn up! – please don't say she did!" interrupted Annchen.

"Yes. When Papa Stork came from the pond with a fresh fish in his beak, there was no roof there, no nest, no little storks, – only a heap of ashes and curling smoke. Frau Stork loved her children too well to desert them, and they all died together."

There was silence for a minute or two. Annchen was sobbing softly, and a suspicious sniff was heard from the direction of Fritz's pillow.

"I hope our stork won't burn up," said Carl, solemnly.

"Yes, – because then she won't bring us good luck, you know," added Fritz.

"Do you think the stork has forgotten?" whispered Annchen to her mother. "I've waited and waited for her so long that I'm tired. Do they forget sometimes?"

"She will have to bestir herself if she is to do anything for us this year," said the mother; and though her heart was heavy enough just then, she smiled into Annchen's eager eyes. "Autumn is here; the winter will come before long. Frau Stork and her family may fly off any day."

"I shall have to remind her," murmured Annchen, sleepily.

She remembered this resolution next morning, and went out into the yard. The day was chilly; the blue sky, all dappled with gray, looked as if a storm were coming. Mother Stork was alone on the roof. Her young ones could fly now, and they and their father were off somewhere together.

"Mother Stork," said Annchen, standing close to the wall, and speaking in a loud, confidential whisper, "you won't forget what you promised, will you – that day when you nodded your head, you know? The mother says you will fly away soon, but please bring us our good luck first. Poor mother works so hard and looks so pale, and sometimes there is almost no dinner at all, and the cold winter is coming, and I don't know what we shall do, if you don't help us. Please do, Mother Stork. We can't wait till you come again, it's such a long time. Pray fetch our good luck before you go."

Mother Stork, perched on one leg on the roof's edge, nodded her head up and down, as if considering the point. Then she rose on her large wings and flew away. Annchen marked her course through the air, and her eyes grew large and eager with delight.

"She has gone to the fen!" she cried. "That's where she keeps it. Oh, the dear stork!"

"What is it? Who has gone where?" asked the boys, running into the yard.

"Frau Stork," explained Annchen. "I reminded her about it, – our good luck, you know, – and she flew straight off to fetch it. She went to the fen, the beautiful fen, where I went once with the father —such a place! How I should like to go there again! You never saw such a place, boys!"

"I want to go to the fen too," said Carl.

"I wonder if we might!" went on Annchen, thoughtfully. "It isn't so very far. I didn't get tired at all that day when I went before. And we could help Frau Stork, perhaps. I wonder if we might."

"I'll go in and ask the mother," said Fritz, running to the door with an eager demand: "Mother, may we go for a walk, – Annchen and Carl and I?"

The mother, who was very busy, nodded.

"Don't go too far," she called after him.

"Mother says we may," shouted Fritz, as he ran again into the yard; and the children, overjoyed, set forth at once.

It was quite a distance to the fen, but the road was a plain one, and Annchen had no difficulty in following it. When she went there before, not only her father had been along, but Ernst the wood-cutter, with his donkey; so, when tired, she had rested herself by riding on top of the fagots. She was three years older now, and the sturdy lads did not mind the distance at all, but ran forward merrily, encouraging each other to make haste.

The sun had broken through the clouds, and shone hotly on the white road. But as they neared the fen, they passed into shade. Softly they lifted the drooping branches of the trees, and entered, moving carefully, that they might not disturb the stork. A little farther, and the ground grew wet under foot. Bright streams of water appeared here and there. But between the streams were ridges and island-like tufts of moss and dried grasses, and stepping from one of these to the other, the little ones passed on, dry-shod. Tall reeds and lance-shaped rushes rose above their heads as they crept along, whispering low to each other. The air was hushed and warm, there was a pleasant fragrance of damp roots and leaves. The children liked the fen extremely. Their feet danced and skipped, and they would gladly have shouted, had it not been for the need of keeping quiet.

Suddenly a beautiful glossy water-rat, with a long tail, glanced like a ray of quick sunshine from under a bank, and at sight of the intruders flashed back again into his hole. Fritz was enchanted at this sight. He longed to stay and dig into the bank in search of the rat. What fun it would be to take him home and tame him! But Annchen whispered imploringly, and Carl tugged at his fingers; so at last he gave up searching for the rat, and went on with the others. They were near the middle of the fen now, and Mother Stork, they thought, must be close at hand.

Pop! glug! An enormous bull-frog leaped from a log, and vanished into the pool with a splash. Next a couple of lovely water-flies, with blue, shining bodies and gauze-like wings, appeared hovering in the air. They rose and sank and circled and whirled like enchanted things; the children, who had never seen such flies before, felt as if they had met the first chapter of a fairy-story, and stood holding their breaths, lest the pretty creatures should take alarm and fly away. It was not till the water-flies suddenly whirled off and disappeared, that they recollected their errand, and moved on.

All at once Annchen, who was in advance of the rest, stopped short and uttered an exclamation. The parting of the reeds had shown her a pool larger than any they had seen before, round which grew a fringe of tall flowering water-plants. Half in, half out of the pool, lay a black log with a hollow end, and beside it, dabbling with her beak as if searching for something, stood a large white bird. At the sound of voices and rustling feet, the bird spread a pair of broad wings and flew slowly upward, turning her head to look at the children as she went.

"It was," cried Annchen. "Oh, Mother Stork, we didn't mean to frighten you. Please come back again. We'll go away at once if you don't like to have us here."

But Mother Stork was no longer visible. She had dropped into some distant part of the fen – where, the children could not see.

"Her eyes looked angry," said little Carl.

"Oh dear!" sighed Annchen. "I hope she isn't angry. That would be dreadful! What will poor mother do if she is? And it would be all our fault."

"I want to go home," whined Carl. "It's dinner-time. I want my dinner very much."

All of them wanted to go home, but it was not an easy or quick task to do so. The children had wandered farther than they knew. It took a long time to find their way out of the fen, and when at last they reached the rushy limits, and stood on open ground, it was an unfamiliar place, and much farther from home than the side where they had entered. Weary, hungry, and disheartened, they trudged along for what to them seemed hours, and it was long past midday when at last they reached the familiar gate.

Frau Stork had got there before them, and stood on the roof beside her mate, gazing down as the sorry little procession filed beneath. Annchen had no heart to greet her as she passed. She was tired, and a dread lest their long absence should have frightened or angered the mother added weight to her fatigue, and made her heart sink heavily as they opened the door.

The mother did not start or run forward to meet them as the children expected she would do. She sat by the table, and some one sat opposite her – a tall, stately officer in uniform, with an order on his breast. His helmet lay on the table, with some papers scattered about it. When the children came in, he turned and looked at them out of a pair of kind blue eyes.

"Ah," he said. "These are the little ones, dame?"

"Yes," said the mother, "these are his children. Take off your hats, boys; and, Annchen, make your reverence. This is the Herr Baron, your father's captain, children."

Carl stared with round eyes at the splendid Herr Baron, while Annchen demurely dropped her courtesy. The captain lifted Fritz and perched him on his knee.

"My fine fellow," he said, "you have your father's face," – and he stroked Fritz's yellow hair, while Fritz played with the bright buttons of the uniform. The captain and the mother went on talking. Annchen did not understand all they said, but she saw that her mother looked happier than for a long time before, and that made her feel happy too.

At last the captain rose to go. He kissed the children, and Annchen saw him put a purse into her mother's hands.

"I take shame to myself that I left you so long without aid," he said; "but keep up heart, dame. Your pension will no doubt be granted you, and I will see that you and the children are cared for, as a brave man's family should be. So good-day, and God bless you!"

"May He bless you, Herr Baron," sobbed the widow, as he went away.

"What is it, mother, – why do you cry?" asked little Carl at last, pulling her sleeve.

"For joy, dear. The good Baron has brought your father's back pay. I can discharge my debts now, and you need hunger no more."

"It is the good luck come at last. I knew it would," said Annchen.

"We will thank God for it," said her mother. And they all knelt down and repeated "Our Father," that beautiful prayer which suits equally our time of joy and our time of sorrow.

But when the prayer was said, and the mother, smiling through her tears, was bustling about to cook such a supper as the little family had not tasted for many a day, dear, superstitious little Annchen stole softly to the door and went into the yard.

The young storks were asleep with their heads under their wings, and Frau Stork, poised on one leg, was gazing about with drowsy eyes. She looked bigger than ever against the dim evening sky.

"Thank you, dear stork!" said Annchen.