St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls | Page 3

had cost him would have been kneaded into it, and made it a kind of heavenly manna for her.
To him it had meant hunger, and heroism, and sleepless hours of endurance. It seemed strange that to Lenichen it should seem nothing more than a hard, dry, common crust.
But to the mother it was much more.
She understood all; and, because she understood so much, she said little.
She only smiled, and said he looked more than ever like his father; and as he sat musing rather sadly while she was dressing, and Lenichen had fallen asleep again, she pointed to the little peaceful sleeping face, the flaxen hair curling over the dimpled arm, and she said:
"That is thy thanks--just that the little one is happy. The dear Heavenly Father cares more, I think, for such thanks than for any other; just to see the flowers grow, just to hear the birds sing to their nestlings, just to see His creatures good and happy, because of His gifts. Those are about the best thanks for Him and for us."
But Gottlieb looked up inquiringly.
"Yet He likes us to say 'Thank you,' too? Did you not say all the Church services, all the beautiful cathedral itself, is just the people's 'Thank you' to God? Are we not going to church just to say 'Thank you,' to-day?"
"Yes, darling," she said. "But the 'thank you' we mean to say is worth little unless it is just the blossom and fragrance of the love and content always in the heart. God cares infinitely for our loving Him, and loves us to thank Him if we do. He does not care at all for the thanks without the love, or without the content."
And as she spoke these words, Mother Magdalis was preaching a little sermon to herself also, which made her eyes moisten and shine.
So she took courage, and contrived to persuade the children and herself that the bread-and-water breakfast that Christmas Eve morning had something quite festive about it.
And when they had finished with a grace which Gottlieb sang, and Lenichen lisped after him, she told him to take the little sister on his knee and sing through his songs and hymns, while she arrayed herself in the few remnants of holiday dress left her.
And as she cleaned and arranged the tiny room, her heart was lighter than it had been for a long time.
"I ought to be happy," she said to herself, "with music enough in my little nest to fill a church."
When Gottlieb had finished his songs, and was beginning them over again, there was a knock at the door, and the face of old Hans, the dwarf, appeared at the door, as he half opened it.
"A good Christmas to thee and thy babes, Mother Magdalis! Thy son is born indeed with a golden spoon in his mouth," croaked old Hans in his hoarse, guttural voice.
The words grated on Magdalis. Crooked Hans' jokes were apt to be as crooked as his temper and his poor limbs, and to give much dissatisfaction, hitting on just the sore points no one wanted to be touched.
She felt tempted to answer sharply, but the sweet Christmas music had got into her heart, and she only said, with tears starting to her eyes:
"If he was, neighbor, all the gold was lost and buried long ago."
"Not a bit of it!" rejoined Hans. "Didn't I hear the gold ring this very instant? The lad has gold in his mouth, I say! Give him to me, and you shall see it before night."
She looked up reproachfully, the tears fairly falling at what she thought such a cruel mockery from Hans, who knew her poverty, and had never had from her or hers the rough words he was too used to from every one.
"The golden days are over for me," was all she said.
"Nay! They have yet to begin," he replied. "Your Berthold left more debtors than you know, Frau Magdalis. And old Hans is one of them. And Hans never forgets a debt, black or white. Let the lad come with me, I say. I know the choir-master at the cathedral. And I know he wants a fine high treble just such as thy Gottlieb's, and will give anything for it. For if he does not find one, the Cistercians at the new convent will draw away all the people, and we shall have no money for the new organ. They have a young Italian, who sings like an angel, there; and the young archduchess is an Italian, and is wild about music, and lavishes her gifts wherever she finds it good."
Magdalis looked perplexed and troubled.
"To sell the child's voice seems like selling part of himself, neighbor," she said at length; "and to sell God's praises seems like selling one's own soul."
"Well, well! Those