After all, if father, mother, brother, and sister can still cling to each other and love each other, it makes little difference where they are, for love is the best thing in the universe, and nothing is good without it.
They lived for many days in the ship, and the children, after a little time, were not afraid to run about the deck and talk with the sailors, who were always very kind to them. And Louise felt quite at home sitting in her little chair beside the great mast, while she knit upon her stocking,—a little stocking now, one for the baby.
Christian had brought his flute, and at night he played to them as he used at home, and, indeed, they were all so loving and happy together that it was not much sorrow to lose the home while they kept each other.
Sometimes a hard day would come, when the clouds swept over them, and the rain and the great waves tossed the ship, making them all sick, and sad too, for a time; but the sun was sure to come out at last, as I can assure you it always will, and, on the whole, it was a pleasant journey for them all.
It was a fine, sunny May day when they reached the land again. No time, though, for them to go Maying, for only see how much is to be done! Here are all the trunks and the linen-chests, and all the children, too, to be disposed of, and they are to stop but two days in this city. Then they must be ready for a long journey in the cars and steamboats, up rivers and across lakes, and sometimes for miles and miles through woods, where they see no houses nor people, excepting here and there a single log cabin with two or three ragged children at play outside, or a baby creeping over the doorstep, while farther on among the trees stands a man with his axe, cutting, with heavy blows, some tall trees into such logs as those of which the house is built.
These are new and strange sights to the children of the River Rhine. They wonder, and often ask their parents if they, too, shall live in a little log house like that.
How fresh and fragrant the new logs are for the dwelling, and how sweet the pine and spruce boughs for a bed! A good new log house in the green woods is the best home in the world.
Oh, how heartily tired they all are when at last they stop! They have been riding by day and by night. The children have fallen asleep with heads curled down upon their arms upon the seats of the car, and the mother has had very hard work to keep little Hans contented and happy. But here at last they have stopped. Here is the new home.
They have left the cars at a very small town. It has ten or twelve houses and one store, and they have taken here a great wagon with three horses to carry them yet a few miles farther to a lonely, though beautiful place. It is on the edge of a forest. The trees are very tall, their trunks moss-covered; and when you look far in among them it is so dark that no sunlight seems to fall on the brown earth. But outside is sunshine, and the young spring grass and wild flowers, different from those which grow on the Rhine banks.
But where is their house?