V.
With the sabre of a French cavalry officer in one hand, and the standard of a French cavalry regiment in the other, Tom ran as hard as his legs could carry him towards the rapid stream which was not more than fifty yards from where he had had the short fight. It was no use trying to escape on horseback, for his retreat was cut off by French cavalry; indeed, it seemed to Tom as though Frenchmen had started up out of the ground all around him, and he realized that he was now cut off entirely from his comrades, and must make good use of his wits if he wished to avoid being killed or made prisoner. Along the edges of this stream were clumps of overhanging bushes, and into the thickest of them he sprang, where he lay effectually concealed. Pretty soon a detachment of Frenchmen passed close to him, and he heard one of them say:
"Oh, that sacré Prussien! How I should like to catch him and get back the standard of our regiment! But I don't see how he could have knocked our Captain off his horse; it is most mysterious. However, I suppose he has drowned himself in the river, and so I ought to be satisfied."
Tom did not know the name of this river, or where it led to, but he knew enough of geography to know that if he kept on it long enough he should arrive at the Rhine. He was an expert swimmer, and made up his mind that the only way open to him was to travel by water and avoid the land. Of course he did not dare move by daylight, but as soon as the sun was set he launched himself upon the stream and struck out with the current. The sabre and standard he had wrapped round and round with small branches cut from the bushes, and this served him not only as a means of concealing his trophies, but also as a help, for it supported him when he was tired. His uniform he had to leave behind, for it would have been in his way, and he wore nothing but his shirt and a sort of bathing-drawers, which he made by cutting off the lower part of his uniform trousers. The water was, fortunately, warm, and Tom was prepared for a good long swim. He had gone about an hour, and already he had begun to feel that he could not stand very much more of this kind of work, when he noticed ahead of him something black. He struck out for it, and found that it was a massive door, which had been broken off from some peasant's barn and probably thrown into the river out of mischief by some prowling band of soldiers. To the great delight of Tom this barn door was so big that he could lie upon it and find most welcome rest as he floated on down stream at the rate of five or six miles an hour. Tom had nothing to eat with him, but he tightened his belt and tried to think of other things, and soon he fell asleep, with his head resting in the water on one side of the raft, and his legs in the water on the other side.
As he lay sweetly dreaming, he was suddenly awakened by a sound of voices and by the fierce light of a huge camp-fire on the bank. The voices were French, and Tom could understand this much.
"Look out there! I see something suspicious on the river."
"It is a corpse," said another Frenchman, and then Tom heard a laugh.
"Be careful there," cried another, "or he will float down upon us and poison our soup;" and then Tom heard foot-steps coming down to the water's edge; then he felt a push against his raft and the scraping of a bayonet-point against one of his legs. So near was he that he could smell the fragrant supper—the onions, the beef, and the smoke of the wood fire.
About half an hour from where he had left the Frenchmen cooking their soup he rounded a bend in the river, and saw ahead of him another camp-fire, with soldiers about it wearing German forage-caps. He recognized the big straw-colored beard of Kutchke, and knew at once that he was amongst friends. He floated close to the bank where the corporal stood, and pretended to be a corpse. No one noticed him until he was at their very feet, and then he heard some one say: "Ach, there is a corpse! Push it away quickly!" And then he heard Kutchke call out: "No; wait until I see it. Perhaps it is Tom Rodman." Then he heard the heavy tread of Kutchke, and presently the corporal's voice could be heard breaking out into loud lamentation.
"Ah, yes," said he, "it is poor Rodman who saved my life from the Frenchmen! How dreadful that I should have brought him to the war! What can I do?"
"Why, you can give me something to eat!" came from the raft; and with these words Tom Rodman sat bolt-upright and laughed in Kutchke's face. Then there was a loud hurrah in the camp, and all the soldiers flocked down to see the miracle of Rodman coming to life and asking for something to eat. Kutchke embraced him, and kissed him several times, and called him his savior. All the men shook hands with him, and he was at once put into a good warm uniform, and given the most comfortable seat by the fire, where he was provided with a big tin full of well-cooked cabbage, sausage, and bread, which tasted exceedingly well after the hardships of the last twenty-four hours.
In the midst of it arrived the Captain, who wanted also to hear the story of Tom's escape, and why he had chased after the French officer. Tom told his adventures, and then produced the French cavalry standard, and the sabre of the officer whom he had knocked from his horse with the pair of stirrups.
All were delighted at the result of Tom's courage, and Kutchke said that Tom deserved three Iron Crosses—one for saving his life, another for capturing the standard, and another for bringing home the sabre. Tom was very popular with his comrades, and the news of his adventures soon reached the ears of the Colonel of his regiment, and he was soon afterwards informed that he was to receive the Iron Cross. The whole regiment was formed into three sides of a square, and the Colonel called out the name of Tom Rodman, who stepped forward, and stood very stiff while the Colonel asked after him and his family. Tom could not any longer conceal the fact that he was not a German, but an American boy, and the Colonel promised to say nothing about it, in order that Kutchke should not be punished. So this is how Tom Rodman joined the German army, and was the first American to wear the famous Iron Cross. The Colonel cabled to his mother in America, so that she might not be alarmed, and the Professor easily forgave his pupil for all the anxiety that Tom had caused him.
[A JAPANESE PICTURE-STORY.]
BY BARNET PHILLIPS.
he stories that have been written about pictures are to be divided into two general categories—those indicating the skill of the artist, and those relating to the performances of the pictures themselves. Both of these merge, since they attest the ability of the artist. There is a third kind of story, dwelling on the mishaps of painters, which accidents, however, in the long-run, invariably aid the artist.
The supernatural must have been called into play at the dawn of civilization, when the first artist scratched with splinter of flint an animal form on a bone. Pygmalion, who carved a woman so lifelike that he prayed to Venus to give Galatea flesh, blood, and a soul, must in an earlier form have been a story of the most remote antiquity. We find traces of this myth in Egyptian worship. To a South Sea Islander carved idols are not stocks nor stones, but living gods. The most acute Hindostanee does not separate his brazen images from the personalities of his deities.
Nothing is older than the stories of the supreme skill of the artist which the old Greek repeated. The common type of this legend is the picture with the figs painted on it, which were so natural that the birds pecked at them. The modern Orientals have embellished this story in many ways. The Persians will tell you that the birds actually carried a pomegranate out of a picture and fought over the fruit. One of the pomegranates slipped from the beak of a bird and tumbled down to a garden below. The over-ripe fruit broke, the seeds were scattered, and where they fell a pomegranate-tree grew, which will be shown you to-day in a court-yard in Ispahan.
We have the very old joke about the slab of stone painted so exactly like a log of wood that it floated. The Japanese have worked up the idea in many ingenious ways. They had a painter of the tenth century who drew a crystal ball so perfectly that when the sun shone on it, it behaved as would a lens, and would light tinder.
The Greeks tell of an artist who was dissatisfied with the flecks of foam in the mouth of the dog he was painting, and in anger threw a sponge at his picture, and, lo! where the sponge had struck the painting there was the froth required.
THE BRONZE WAS HURLED TO THE GROUND.
This is told of a bronze artificer who never could be satisfied with the ocean he was making up, into which his hero was wading. He set his work on a window. A storm arose, there was a blinding flash of lightning, and the bronze was hurled to the ground. When the artist picked up the bronze a portion of the metal representing the water had been fused, and there was the rolling, undulating sea, such as no mortal hand could ever have produced.
Another story is about a second bronze-worker, who was a great artist, but an intemperate one, for he drank too much saki. The man had fashioned a deity in bronze which did not satisfy him, though he had worked on it for ten years. Do what he would, the figure showed traces of the long toil he had lavished on it. Though given to his cups, he was apparently a conscientious artist. Putting his bronze in his pocket or up his sleeve, the artist determined to commit suicide, and so plunged into a great tub of fermenting rice, from which saki is distilled. When the saki-maker emptied his tubs there was the artist dead, and his bronze, but the work had been perfected. The fermenting rice had smoothed down the hard lines. The bronze was admirable, and so the artist's death conferred on him a certain amount of heroism—that is, according to Japanese ideas of heroism.
The neatest story of artistic performance and of higher criticism is Japanese, and for the lesson it conveys has its value. There was a Shogun of the fourteenth century who was the art critic of his time, because he never saw a screen or a bronze or a china decoration without finding some fault. In his court all his retainers followed the Shogun in deprecating whatsoever was shown to them.
In the court of the great man was a painter, the most distinguished of his time, and this artist became very tired of the adverse criticisms passed on his work. The Shogun ordered a screen, leaving the choice of the subject to the artist.
"As you are very slow," said the Shogun, "you may take a year to paint your screen. Time enough, I think, to assure us that there will be nothing careless in your work."
The artist accepted the commission, and asked for leave of absence, which was granted to him. He was away for eleven months, and it was within three days of the end of the year when he paid his respects to the Shogun.
"Exhibit at once your so-called work of art," said the Shogun.
"I have not yet commenced it, may it please your Dignity," answered the artist.
"And in three days do you expect to show me a picture worth my looking at?" inquired the Shogun.
"I have travelled all over the country for that work which it has pleased you to commit to my care, and it will be ready on time," replied the artist, humbly.
When the last day had come the artist said his screen was ready, and that it was hanging in a particular room in the Shogun's palace. The high dignitary and his court were present, and examined the picture.
What was painted was simplicity itself. There was a river, and in the stream a boat was moored, with a furled sail. The banks of the river were lined with rushes. There were a few trees, with a bird here and there perched on the boughs. A rabbit was nibbling the grass. In the distance was a high mountain.
"That is supposably water, if I am not mistaken," said the Shogun.
"It's very sluggish," remarked the pipe-bearer.
"Those rushes—ahem!" interposed a courtier—"are they not absurdly stiff?"
"And, dear me," chimed in the secretary, "what birds! Stuffed birds on boughs are too preposterous!"
"The boat—such a boat as that never could float! Is it meant for a boat or a rock?" inquired the master of the robes.
"The fact is," said the Shogun, "it is an idiotic performance. It wants life, go, dash, imagination. It is dulness personified. It is nothing but 'prentice work, and entirely unfitted to grace our elegant abode. Treasurer, pay this man for his trouble. A full year's wages, such as you would give to a weeder of rice."
"Your Highness always was a liberal patron of the arts," said the treasurer.
"And though generous, most discriminating, for really the picture is overpaid," said the courtiers.
THE ARTIST PLUNGED HEAD FOREMOST INTO HIS WORK.
The painter smiled, slowly walked to where the screen was hung, and plunged head foremost into his work. Then, to the great amazement of the Shogun and his court, a splash was heard. Now the water rippled and the boat began to rock. The rushes on the bank of the stream nodded and bent and swayed, as if with a passing breeze. The birds flew from bough to bough. The rabbit scampered away. There was a figure in the boat, and presently the anchor was hauled up and the sail was set, and the little craft, heeling over with the wind, sped up the stream, and now a landing was made at the foot of the mountain.
Next a little man was seen slowly climbing up the mountain, and when the mountain-top was reached the figure bowed respectfully to the Shogun and the court and disappeared, as if descending on the other side of the mountain.
Then a loon came to the immediate foreground of the screen, and flapped his wings, and said, in very courtly Japanese, these words, which may be rather carelessly translated into English in this way:
"You are all a set of ninnies, for you don't know a good thing when you see it. Ta, ta!"
The courtiers were so enraged that they drew their two swords and wanted to hack the loon and the screen to pieces. But when they looked at the screen, they saw a big tear in it, with falling flaps of silk, on which the work had been painted. It was where the artist had made his exit. This is the Japanese fable for critics.