And from the midst of his anguish, the Major was already pleasing himself with the thought, how, in a few days, in the quiet arbor in his garden, he will tell Fräulein Milch of the imminent peril. He caressed Laadi, and rehearsed to himself the whole story of the impending danger.
They arrived at the station where the road branches off to the university-town. Here they are told that no extra train could be furnished, as there was only one track. They must wait an hour for the next regular train.
Sonnenkamp stormed and scolded over these dawdling Europeans, who did not know how to put a railroad to its proper use; he had arranged, indeed, by telegram for a clear track. But it was of no use. The Major stood at the station, and thanked the Builder of all the worlds that all was so unalterably fixed. He went away from the river, and saluted the cornfields, where the standing corn, in its silent growth, allowed itself to be in no way disturbed out of its orderly repose; he rejoiced to hear, for the first time this season, the whistling of the quail, who has no home in the vineyard region; and he gazed at the larks singing as they flew up to heaven.
A train had come into the station and stopped. The Major heard men's voices singing finely, and he learned that many persons, who were already seated in the cars, were emigrating to America. He saw mothers weeping, fathers beckoning, and while the locomotive was puffing at the station, many village youths stood on the platform together, in a group, and sang farewell songs to their departing comrades. They sang with voices full of emotion, but they kept good time.
"It will rejoice Fräulein Milch when I relate this to her," thought the Major, and he mingled among those who remained behind, giving them words of consolation; he went to the emigrants and exhorted them to continue good Germans in America. In the midst of his weeping, an old man cried:—
"What are you waiting for? make it go ahead!"
The rest scolded the man for his rudeness, but the Major said,—
"Don't take it ill of him, he cannot do differently, he is too miserable." The old man nodded to the Major, and all the rest looked at him in surprise.
In the mean while, the train arrived which was to carry those going on the branch road.
"Herr Major! Herr Major!" shrieked the employés of the road from various quarters. They had great difficulty in bringing the Major over to the other side of the train.