"The bullets are all of iron and lead;
But it's not every bullet will strike a man dead."
(Old Soldier-song.)
Kläre Güntz was nursing her child. Through the thick drooping branches of the pear-tree the sun shone on the mother's breast and on the infant's little round head. She bent over him with a happy smile, and held him close.
Sheltered on one side by a high wall, and on the other by the thick leafage, the little garden seemed a haven of joy and peace far removed from all turmoil and tumult of the outside world. The stillness of the summer morning reigned unbroken.
A few more sucks, and then, sleepy and satisfied, the little head sank back on its cushion. Kläre laid the baby-boy in his perambulator.
In the heavenly quiet of this secluded corner of the garden, in the presence of her sleeping child, a picture of health, and from whose lusty sucking her breast still ached a little: in the fulness of this bliss she felt so overwhelmed with thankfulness that she could not help shedding a few holy tears of joy over the blessedness of life.
Suddenly she checked herself.
Kläre Güntz did not exactly regard such moments of tender emotion as inadmissible; but one should not give way to feelings of this sort too long. Recognition of great happiness should always manifest itself in cheerful activity. So she sat up, and began stitching energetically.
But the work was almost mechanical. Like Cæsar, Kläre Güntz could do two things at once: mend, darn, sew, or anything else of the kind, and think at the same time.
She was anxious about her husband,