Among the Trees at Elmridge Part 13

Caroline ran and brought in on a porcelain plate some of the ripest cherries from her own tree.

"Cherries!" exclaimed the officer. "They are a rarity in this district.

How did they escape the enemy? All the trees in the country around are stripped."

"The cherries," said the mother, "are from a little tree which was planted in Caroline's flower-garden on her birthday. It is but a few days since they became ripe; the enemy, perhaps, did not notice the little tree."

"And is it for me you intend the cherries, my dear child?" asked the officer. "Oh no; you must keep them. It were a pity to take one of them from you."

"How could we refuse a few cherries," said Caroline, "to the man that sheds his blood in our defence? You must eat them all," said she, while the tears streamed down her cheeks. "Do, I entreat you! Eat them all."

He took some of the cherries and laid them on the table, near his wine-gla.s.s; but he had scarcely placed the gla.s.s to his lips when the trumpet sounded. He sprang up and girded on his sword.

"That is the signal to march," said he. "I cannot wait one instant."

Caroline wrapped the cherries in a roll of white paper and insisted that he should put them in his pocket.

"The weather is very warm," said she, "and even cherries will be some refreshment."

"Oh," said the officer, with emotion, "what a happiness it is for a soldier, who is often obliged to s.n.a.t.c.h each morsel from unwilling hands, to meet with a generous and benevolent family! I wish it were in my power, my dear child, to give you some pledge of my grat.i.tude, but I have nothing--not so much as a single groat. You must be content with my simple thanks." With these words, and once more bidding Caroline and her mother an affectionate farewell, he took his departure, and walked rapidly out of sight.

The joy of the good family for their happy deliverance was, alas! of short continuance. Some weeks after, a dreadful battle was fought near the village, which was reduced to a heap of ruins. The mayor's house was burned to the ground and all his property destroyed. Alas for the horrors of cruel war! Father, mother and daughter fled away on foot, and wept bitterly when they looked back on their once happy village, now but a ma.s.s of blazing ruins.

The family retired to a distant town, and lived there in very great distress. The mayor endeavored to obtain a livelihood as a scrivener, or clerk; his wife worked at dressmaking and millinery, and Caroline, who soon became skillful in such matters, faithfully a.s.sisted her.

A lady in town--the Countess von Buchenhaim--gave them much employment, and one day Caroline went to this lady's house to carry home a bonnet.

She was taken to the garden, where the countess was sitting in the summer-house with her sister and nieces, who had come to visit her. The young ladies were delighted with the bonnet, and their mother gave orders for three more, particularly praising the blue flowers, which were the work of Caroline's own hands.

The Countess von Buchenhaim spoke very kindly of the young girl to her sister, and related the sad story of the worthy family's misfortunes.

The count was standing with his brother-in-law, the colonel, at some little distance from the door of the summer-house, and the colonel, a fine-looking man in a hussar's uniform and with a star on his breast, overheard the conversation. Coming up, he looked closely at Caroline.

"Is it possible," said he, "that you are the daughter of the mayor of Rebenheim? How tall you have grown! I should scarcely have recognized you, though we are old acquaintances."

Caroline stood there abashed, looking full in the face of the stranger, her cheeks covered with blushes. Taking her by the hand, the colonel conducted her to his wife, who was sitting near the countess.

"See, Amelia," said he; "this is the young lady who saved my life ten years ago, when she was only a child."

"How can that be possible?" asked Caroline, in amazement.

"It must indeed appear incomprehensible to you," answered the colonel, "but do you remember the hussar-officer that one day, after a battle, stood knocking at the door of your father's house in Rebenheim? Do you remember the cherries which you so kindly gave him?"

"Oh, was it you?" exclaimed Caroline, while her face beamed with a smile of recognition. "Thank G.o.d you are alive! But how I could have done anything toward saving your life I cannot understand."

"In truth, it would be impossible for you to guess the great service you did me," said he, "but my wife and daughters know it well; I wrote to them of it at once. And I look upon it as one of the most remarkable occurrences of my life."

"And one that I ought to remember better than any other event of the war," said his lady, rising and affectionately embracing Caroline.

"Well," said the countess, "neither I nor my husband ever heard the story. Please give us a full account of it."

"Oh, it is easily told," said the colonel. "Hungry and thirsty, I entered the house in which Caroline and her parents dwelt, and, to tell the plain truth, I begged for some bread and water. They gave me a share of the best they had, and did not hesitate to do so, though their village and themselves were in the greatest distress. Caroline robbed every bough on her cherry tree to refresh me. Fine cherries they were--the only ones, probably, in the whole country. But the enemy did not give me time to eat them; I was obliged to depart in a hurry.

Caroline insisted, with the kindest hospitality, that I should take them with me, but that was no easy matter: my horse had been shot under me the day before. I took from my knapsack whatever articles I could in a hurry, and, thrusting them into my pockets, I fought on foot until a hussar gave me his horse. All that I was worth was in my pockets, so that to make room for the cherries I was obliged to take the pocket-book out of my pocket and place it here beneath my vest. The enemy, who had been driven back, made a feint of advancing on us, and I led down my hussars in gallant style. But suddenly we found ourselves in front of a body of infantry concealed behind a hedge. One of them fired at me, and the fellow had taken good aim, for the ball struck me here on the breast. But it rebounded from the pocket-book; otherwise, I should have been shot through the body and fallen dead on the spot. Tell me," said he, in a tone of deep emotion; "was not that little child an instrument in the hand of G.o.d to save me from death? Am I right or not when I give Caroline the credit, under G.o.d, of having saved my life? Her must I thank that my Amelia is not a widow and my daughters orphans."

All agreed with him. His wife, who had Caroline's hand locked in her own during the whole narrative, now pressed it affectionately and with tears in her eyes.

"You, then," said she, "were the good angel that averted such a terrible misfortune from our family?"

Her two daughters also gazed with pleasure at Caroline.

"Every time we ate cherries," said the younger, "we spoke of you without knowing you."

All had kind and grateful words for the young girl, but the colonel soon bade her farewell for the present, and said that he had some business to attend to with his brother-in-law. This business was to urge the count to appoint Ehrenberg his steward in place of the one who had died a few months before. A better man, he said, could not be found; for when he had visited Rebenheim to make inquiries for the family, although none could tell where they had gone, all were loud in their praise, and the mayor was p.r.o.nounced a pattern of justice, honor and charity.

The count drew out the order, signed it, and gave it to his brother-in-law, who wished himself to take it to Mr. Ehrenberg; and he went at once to the house and saluted him as "master-steward of Buchenhaim."

"Read that," he said to the astonished man as he handed him the paper in which he was duly appointed steward of Buchenhaim, with a good salary of a thousand thalers and several valuable perquisites.

"And you," said the colonel to Caroline and her mother, "must prepare to remove at once. Your lodgings are so confined! But you will find it very different in the house which you are to occupy in Buchenhaim. The dwelling is large and commodious, with a fine garden attached, well stocked with cherry trees. Next Monday you will be there, and this very day you must start. What a happy feast we shall have there!--not like the hasty meal you gave the hussar-officer amid the thunder of cannon and the blazing roofs of Rebenheim. Do not forget to have cherries, dear Caroline, for dessert; I think they will be fully ripe by that time."

With these words the colonel hurried away to escape the thanks of this good family, and, in truth, to conceal his own tears. So rapidly did he disappear that Ehrenberg could scarcely accompany him down the steps.

"Oh, Caroline," said the happy father when he returned, "who could have imagined that the little cherry tree I planted in the flower-garden the day you were born would ever produce such good fruit?"

"It was the providence of G.o.d," exclaimed the mother, clasping her hands. "I remember distinctly the first time the blossoms appeared on that tree, when you and I went out to look at it, and little Caroline, then an infant in my arms, was so much delighted with the white flowers.

We resolved then to educate our daughter piously, and prayed fervently to G.o.d that she, who was then as full of promise as the blossoms on the tree, might by his grace one day be the prop of our old age. That prayer is now fulfilled beyond our fondest antic.i.p.ations. Praise for ever be to the name of G.o.d!"

Edith declared that this was one of the very sweetest stories Miss Harson had ever told them, and Clara and Malcolm were equally well pleased with it.

"Were those cherries like ours?" asked Clara.

"They were larger and finer than ours generally are, I think," was the reply, "being the great northern cherry, or bird-cherry, of Europe, which grows in Germany to great perfection. And the little German girl's plate of cherries, which she so generously urged upon a stranger when food of any kind was so scarce, is a beautiful ill.u.s.tration of the first verse of the eleventh chapter of Proverbs: 'Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.'"

CHAPTER XII.

_THE MULBERRY FAMILY_.

"There is a fruit tree," said Miss Harson, "belonging to an entirely different family, which we have not considered yet; and, although it is not a common tree with us, one specimen of it is to be found in Mrs.

Bush's garden, where you have all enjoyed the fruit very much. What is it?"

"Mulberry," said Clara, promptly, while Malcolm was wondering what it could be.

"Oh yes," said Edith, very innocently; "I like to go and see Mrs. Bush when there are mulberries."

Mrs. Bush was not a cheerful person to visit, as she was quite old and rather hard of hearing, and she lived alone in the gloomy old house with the Lombardy poplars in front, where everything looked dark and shut up.

A queer woman in a sunbonnet, nearly as old as Mrs. Bush, lived close by, and "kept an eye on her," as she said.

Mrs. Bush's great enjoyment was to have visitors of all ages, to whom she talked a great deal, and cried as she talked, about a daughter who had died a few years ago. The little Kyles did not care to go there except when, as Edith said, there were ripe mulberries; but Mrs. Bush liked very much to have them, and Miss Harson took her little charges there occasionally, because, as she explained to them, it gave pleasure to a lonely old woman, and such visits were just as much charity, though of a different kind, as giving food and clothes to those who need them.

The children delighted in the mulberries just because they did not have them at home, although they had fruit that was very much nicer; but Miss Harson never wished even to taste them, although she too had liked them when a little girl.