Harper's Round Table, March 9, 1897

Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.

Thomas, said Professor Schinkel, as they were in the midst of supper, run down and see what all the noise is about.
Tom Rodman was only fifteen years old; but like most Yankee boys of his age, he was pretty quick at getting news. He knew that the French Emperor had declared war against the Germans; he knew that soldiers were being marched from every village of the father-land, and he knew also that the Rhine was near to the frontier of France. He was just then—this was in 1870—living in the family of Professor Schinkel, at Slaugenstein on the Rhine, and quickly made up his mind that the noise he heard in the street was made by troops marching to the war. So, with a big piece of brown-bread in his hand and another in his mouth, he sprang down stairs two steps at a time, and opened the front door. The street was full of soldiers who wore helmets of black leather on their heads, and who looked very brown and strong. They all seemed to be looking for something; they had been marching all day, and each soldier carried a knapsack that weighed quite as much as a very heavy child.
As Tom Rodman was wondering what these soldiers wanted, a big corporal with a straw-colored beard and blue eyes came up, measured the house with his eyes, counted the windows, then pulled out a piece of chalk, and wrote on the door,
One corporal and seven men!
Tom now noticed that other doors in the street were being treated in the same way, and quickly learned why; the whole town was to become night quarters for the troops marching to the war.
Is the Herr Professor at home? asked the corporal.
Yes; come this way, said Tom, now very much excited.
The corporal knocked at the professor's door, and walked in with a sharp military tread. He then stood bolt-upright, put one hand to the side of his helmet, after the soldier fashion, and said, in a voice that could be heard all over the house,