Bimbi | Page 3

ones, who could only open their mouths to be fed
like young birds,--Albrecht and Hilda, and Waldo and Christof, and last
of all little three-year-old Ermengilda, with eyes like forget-me- nots,
whose birth had cost them the life of their mother.
They were of that mixed race, half Austrian, half Italian, so common in
the Tyrol; some of the children were white and golden as lilies, others
were brown and brilliant as fresh fallen chestnuts. The father was a
good man, but weak and weary with so many to find for and so little to
do it with. He worked at the salt furnaces, and by that gained a few
florins; people said he would have worked better and kept his family
more easily if he had not loved his pipe and a draught of ale too well;
but this had only been said of him after his wife's death, when trouble
and perplexity had begun to dull a brain never too vigorous, and to
enfeeble further a character already too yielding. As it was, the wolf
often bayed at the door of the Strehla household, without a wolf from
the mountains coming down.
Dorothea was one of those maidens who almost work miracles, so far
can their industry and care and intelligence make a home sweet and
wholesome and a single loaf seem to swell into twenty. The children
were always clean and happy, and the table was seldom without its big
pot of soup once a day. Still, very poor they were, and Dorothea's heart

ached with shame, for she knew that their father's debts were many for
flour and meat and clothing. Of fuel to feed the big stove they had
always enough without cost, for their mother's father was alive, and
sold wood and fir cones and coke, and never grudged them to his
grandchildren, though he grumbled at Strehla's improvidence and
hapless, dreamy ways.
"Father says we are never to wait for him; we will have supper, now
you have come home, dear," said Dorothea, who, however she might
fret her soul in secret as she knitted their hose and mended their shirts,
never let her anxieties cast a gloom on the children; only to August she
did speak a little sometimes, because he was so thoughtful and so
tender of her always, and knew as well as she did that there were
troubles about money,--though these troubles were vague to them both,
and the debtors were patient and kindly, being neighbors all in the old
twisting streets between the guardhouse and the river.
Supper was a huge bowl of soup, with big slices of brown bread
swimming in it and some onions bobbing up and down; the bowl was
soon emptied by ten wooden spoons, and then the three eldest boys
slipped off to bed, being tired with their rough bodily labor in the snow
all day, and Dorothea drew her spinning-wheel by the stove and set it
whirring, and the little ones got August down upon the old worn
wolfskin and clamored to him for a picture or a story. For August was
the artist of the family.
He had a piece of planed deal that his father had given him, and some
sticks of charcoal, and he would draw a hundred things he had seen in
the day, sweeping each out with his elbow when the children had seen
enough of it, and sketching another in its stead,--faces and dogs' heads,
and men in sledges, and old women in their furs, and pine trees, and
cocks and hens, and all sorts of animals, and now and then--very
reverently--a Madonna and Child. It was all very rough, for there was
no one to teach him anything. But it was all lifelike, and kept the whole
troop of children shrieking with laughter, or watching breathless, with
wide open, wondering, awed eyes.
They were all so happy; what did they care for the snow outside? Their
little bodies were warm, and their hearts merry; even Dorothea,
troubled about the bread for the morrow, laughed as she spun; and
August, with all his soul in his work, and little rosy Ermengilda's cheek

on his shoulder, glowing after his frozen afternoon, cried out loud,
smiling, as he looked up at the stove that was shedding its heat down
on them all:--
"Oh, dear Hirschvogel! you are almost as great and good as the sun! No;
you are greater and better, I think, because he goes away nobody knows
where all these long, dark, cold hours, and does not care how people
die for want of him; but you--you are always ready; just a little bit of
wood to feed you, and you will make a summer for us all the winter
through!"
The grand old stove seemed to smile