Bertha | Page 7

stork," said Bertha, thoughtfully. "She had a family of baby birds. They were not big enough to leave their nest, when a fire broke out in the chimney where it was built. Poor mother bird! She could have saved herself. But she would not leave her babies. So she stayed with them and they were all burned to death together."
"I know the story. That happened right in Strasburg," said her uncle.
"Please tell us about the beautiful cathedral with its tall tower," said Hans. "Sometime, uncle, I am going to Strasburg, if I have to walk there, and then I shall want to spend a whole day in front of the wonderful clock."
"You'd better have a lunch with you, Hans, and then you will not get hungry. But really, my dear little nephew, I hope the time will soon come when you can pay me a long visit. As for the clock, you will have to stay in front of it all night as well as all day, if you are to see all it can show you."
"I know about cuckoo-clocks, of course," said Gretchen, "but the little bird is the only figure that comes out on those. There are ever so many different figures on the Strasburg clock, aren't there, Uncle Fritz?"
"A great, great many. Angels strike the hours. A different god or goddess appears for each day in the week. Then, at noon and at midnight, Jesus and his twelve apostles come out through a door and march about on a platform.
"You can imagine what the size of the clock must be when I tell you that the figures are as large as people. When the procession of the apostles appears, a gilded cock on the top of the tower flaps its wings and crows.
"I cannot begin to tell you all about it. It is as good as a play, and, as I told Hans, he would have to stay many hours near it to see all the sights."
"I should think a strong man would be needed to wind it up," said his nephew.
"The best part of it is that it does not need to be wound every day," replied Uncle Fritz. "They say it will run for years without being touched. Of course, travellers are coming to Strasburg all the time. They wish to see the clock, but they also come to see the cathedral itself. It is a very grand building, and, as you know, the spire is the tallest one in all Europe.
"Then there is so much beautiful carving! And there are such fine statues. Oh, children, you must certainly come to Strasburg before long and see the cathedral of which all Germany is so proud."
"Strasburg was for a time the home of our greatest poet," said Bertha. "I want to go there to see where he lived."
The child was very fond of poetry, even though she was a little country girl. Her father had a book containing some of Goethe's ballads, and she loved to lie under the trees in the pleasant summer-time and repeat some of these poems.
"They are just like music," she would say to herself.
"A marble slab has been set up in the old Fish Market to mark the spot where Goethe lived," said Uncle Fritz. "They say he loved the grand cathedral of the city, and it helped him to become a great writer when he was a young student there. I suppose its beauty awakened his own beautiful thoughts."
The children became quiet as they thought of their country and the men who had made her so strong and great,--the poets, and the musicians, and the brave soldiers who had defended her from her enemies.
Uncle Fritz was the first one to speak.
"I will tell you a story of Strasburg," he said. "It is about something that happened there a long time ago. You know, the city isn't on the Rhine itself, but it is on a little stream flowing into the greater river.
"Well, once upon a time the people of Zurich, in Switzerland, asked the people of Strasburg to join with them in a bond of friendship. Each should help the other in times of danger. The people of Strasburg did not think much of the idea. They said among themselves: 'What good can the little town of Zurich do us? And, besides, it is too far away.' So they sent back word that they did not care to make such a bond. They were scarcely polite in their message, either.
"When they heard the reply, the men of Zurich were quite angry. They were almost ready to fight. But the youngest one of their councillors said:
"'We will force them to eat their own words. Indeed, they shall be made to give us a different answer. And it will come soon, too,