It was a cold, stormy night; there were great drifts of snow, and the wind was driving it against the windows. In the beautiful great parlor, beside the bright fire, sat the sweet, gentle mother, and in her lap lay the stout little Hans. The children had their little chairs before the fire, and watched the red and yellow flames, while Louise had already taken out her knitting-work.
They were all very still, for their father seemed sad and troubled, and the children were wondering what could be the matter. Their mother looked at them and smiled, but, after all, it was only a sad smile. I think it is hardest for the father, when he can no longer give to wife and children their pleasant home; but, if they can be courageous and happy when they have to give it up, it makes his heart easier and brighter.
"I must tell the children' to-night," said the father, looking at his wife, and she answered quite cheerfully: "Yes, tell them; they will not be sad about it I know."
So the father told to his wondering little ones that he had lost all his money; the beautiful great house and gardens were no longer his, and they must all leave their pleasant home near the Rhine, and cross the great, tossing ocean, to find a new home among the forests or the prairies.
As you may suppose, the children didn't fully understand this. I don't think you would yourself. You would be quite delighted with the packing and moving, and the pleasant journey in the cars, and the new and strange things you would see on board the ship, and it would be quite a long time before you could really know what it was to lose your own dear home.
So the children were not sad; you know their mother said they would not be. But when they were safely tucked up in their little beds, and tenderly kissed by the most loving lips, Louise could not go to sleep for thinking of this strange moving, and wondering what they should carry, and how long they should stay. For she had herself once been on a visit to her uncle in the city, carrying her clothes in a new little square trunk, and riding fifty miles in the cars, and she thought it would be quite a fine thing that they should all pack up trunks full of clothing, and go together on even a longer journey.
A letter had been written to tell Christian, and the next day he came home from the school. His uncles in the city begged him to stay with them, but the boy said earnestly: "If my father must cross the sea, I too must go with him."
They waited only for the winter's cold to pass away, and when the first robins began to sing among the naked trees, they had left the fine large house,—left the beautiful gardens where the children used to play, left the great, comfortable arm-chairs and sofas, the bookcases and tables, and the little beds beside the wall. Besides their clothes, they had taken nothing with them but two great wooden chests full of beautiful linen sheets and table-cloths. These had been given to the mother by her mother long ago, before any of the children were born, and they must be carried to the new home. You will see, by and by, how glad the family all were to have them.
Did you ever go on board a ship? It is almost like a great house upon the water, but the rooms in it are very small, and so are the windows. Then there is the long deck, where we may walk in the fresh air and watch the water and the sea-birds, or the sailors at work upon the high masts among the ropes, and the white sails that spread out like a white bird's wings, and sweep the ship along over the water.
It was in such a ship that our children found themselves, with their father and mother, when the snow was gone and young grass was beginning to spring up on the land. But of this they could see nothing, for in a day they had flown on the white wings far out over the water, and as Louise clung to her father's hand and stood upon the deck at sunset, she saw only water and sky all about on every side, and the red clouds of the sunset. It was a little sad, and quite strange to her, but her younger brothers and sisters were already asleep in the small beds of the ship, which, as perhaps you know, are built up against the wall, just as their beds were at home. Louise kissed her father and went down, too, to bed, for you must know that on board ship you go down stairs to bed instead of up stairs.