Harper's Round Table, February 18, 1896

Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.

There was a suspicious sniffle, then a series of gulps, and then the letters grew blurred and indistinct, and even hard winking would not keep the tears back; to Charlie's mortification they actually splashed down on the page before him.
Herr Dr. Hartmann looked up, peering through his glasses at the boy.
What dost thou read? he asked, kindly. It is not, I hope, bad news from the home?
No, muttered Charlie, blowing his nose hard; it's—a hockey story.
Ach, du liebe Zeit! ejaculated the puzzled master. And what is that—an American wild animal, perhaps?
Charlie shook his head and smiled, such a pathetic, homesick smile. No, it's a game, he answered. You play it on the ice with hockeys—sticks with a crook at the end—and a block of wood or rubber.
So? and our German boys they do not know it? Then thou must teach them —cheerfully— yes? for the skating is good now, they tell me. Komischer Junge! he exclaimed a little later to his wife. He reads for pleasure, and then he cries. It is, of course, the homesickness, and I fancy he misses the out-of-door life and the sports which they have always in America.
Charlie Stanton was fourteen—quite old enough, he maintained, to be his own master, even in a foreign country; but when his mother and father had actually said good-by, leaving him in a German family in Berlin while they went to Egypt for the winter, he began to regret his boasted independence; and while not acknowledging himself homesick, even a hockey story recalled too many happy memories to be read quite stoically. Mr. and Mrs. Stanton had felt perfectly safe in leaving their son with Dr. Hartmann, for he was a man who made it as much his concern to know that his pupils were happy, as that they imbibed a sufficient quantity of German and the classics.
At two o'clock the next afternoon Charlie started out for the West End Eisbahn. It was a beautiful day, cold and crisp and clear, and the boy's eyes glistened as he adjusted the lever of his skates. Then he stood up and looked about. Germans to right of him, Germans to left of him, Germans all around him, rising and falling. He watched them for a moment, and then struck out rather dismally, for even skating lost half its charm when one was quite alone. What was his astonishment, then, when a small block of wood shot past him, propelled by a real hockey in the hands of a boy about his own size.