"How are my brothers and sisters?" asked Conrad.
"I have heard no ill news of them. Sabina is married, and Barbara has taken her place with a kind mistress in Schenectady. Of all my dear children you are left me, Conrad. What has befallen you?"
Conrad talked steadily and quietly. He was different; his eyes were steady, his figure erect, his voice deep. He told of the strange life, of the harsh training, of the bitter suffering from hunger and cold.
When he described the council, John Conrad shivered.
"A thousand times I wished I had not let you go!" Then in the gathering dusk his eyes sought his son's face. "What are you going to do now, Conrad?"
Conrad turned and smiled into the anxious eyes.
"I am going to help you and I am going to teach the children their letters. Father,"—Conrad looked back into the darkening woods,—"the life among the Indians seems already like a dream; but there they are waiting, a fearful menace to us all. Suppose that I should some day be the one to keep the peace! Perhaps God has saved me for that through much danger and perversity."
John Conrad breathed a long sigh. He did not look into the future, but into the past.
"Your mother and I could not give our children riches and honor," said he slowly. "We tried to give them faith in God and willingness to do their simple duty. If you have learned those lessons from us or in the forest among the Indians, you are at last a man. Your mother—"
But John Conrad could not finish, needed not to finish. The hand within his tightened and an arm was thrown across his bent shoulders. Together the two sat silently, as they had stood long ago in Gross Anspach in the moonlight by the little church. Their thoughts traveled together from sister to sister and brother to brother, and finally back once more across the sea. Then, at last, John Conrad spoke.