“And our father’s clothes, are they burnt?”
“Were they fire-proof?” asked Dami angrily. “How can you ask such foolish questions?”
Barefoot could scarcely help weeping at her brother’s unkindness, but she felt quickly that misfortunes naturally make one harsh and bitter, and she merely said,—
“Well, thank God that your life is spared. The loss of our father’s clothes can never be repaired, but they would at length have been worn out—then, so—or so—” and she wept.
“All thy tattle is a cat’s-paw,” said Dami, and kept stroking the horses. “Here I stand as God made me. If the horses could speak, they would tell a different story. But I was born to ill luck, however well I do, it is of no use, and yet—” He could say no more—his voice failed him.
“What then has happened?” asked Amrie.
“The horses, cows, and oxen—yes, all, not a hoof of them has been burnt—the swine alone we could not save. Look! the horse there above tore my shirt as I drew him out of the stall; the near-handed horse would not have hurt me—he knows me! Ei! thou knowest me, Humple? Ei! we know each other.” The horse thus spoken to, laid his head over the neck of the other, and looked earnestly at Dami, who continued,—
“When I went joyfully to inform the farmer that I had saved all the animals, he said, ‘That was nothing to him; they were all insured, and he should have been paid more than their worth.’ Then I thought to myself, ‘Is it nothing that the innocent animals should all be burnt? Is life nothing when one is paid?’ The farmer must have guessed my thoughts, for he asked, ‘You have, of course, saved your clothes and things?’ ‘No!’ I answered, ‘not a thread, for I sprang into the stable first.’”
“The more fool you,” he said.
“‘How?’ I asked, ‘for if you were insured, and the animals would have been paid for, my clothes must also be paid for; the clothes also of my late father, fourteen florins, my watch, and my pipe.’”