The battle went on; the dead and dying strewed the ground. Little Paul saw his brave companions falling all around him. Still the child stood at his post, until a ball fractured his leg; then, in his agony, he said, what all children say in their pain, “Mother!” fainting as he said it. Some time after, a soldier flying from the field, saw a child lying beneath his horse. All the army knew Paul, and loved him; so the soldier forgot all about his own danger, and stopped to pick up poor little Paul from the dead soldiers around him, and put him on his shoulders, to carry him to the camp. Several times the enemy stopped him; but he had only to point to the wounded child—for everybody had heard of “Little Paul,”—and they let him pass.
When he got to the camp, little Paul came to his senses; and then they told him that it would be necessary to cut off his leg.
“Better that, than my head!” said Paul; “but stop!” said he, as a thought struck him; “it may kill me, may it not?” The doctor bowed his head; he could not say yes, he felt so sorry for him.
“Give me, then, half an hour first, and let me write to my mother!” said Paul; and with great agony he wrote tremblingly a few lines to her whose thoughts were always of her boy.
After this he said, “Now I am ready!” His father stood by, holding his little hand, and whispering, “Courage, my child! courage!”
Little Paul smiled and answered, “Oh, I have plenty—more than any of you!” but as he said it, the smile faded, and a deadly pallor overspread his face.
“Oh, papa, I am dying!” said Paul.
You have seen a cloud-shadow flit over a sunny meadow.
“Oh, papa, I am dying!”
Little Paul never spoke again, and the smile faded from his face, and the small hand grew cold in the father’s grasp. Ah! poor little brave Paul! He did not think of this when he and his grandfather played battle, with wooden soldiers, evening after evening, on the study table, in their pleasant chateau in France. I think it was a great shame ever to take little Paul from there; don’t you?