Of course at mistress’ advent, I had jumped off the bed. Mrs. Bonstone now looked strangely—almost frightened, as if she had seen something that startled her. With all my intuition, I was far from guessing the truth, but I ran to the door and heard footsteps in the hall, and smelt mystery. Well! it would wait. I was more interested in the child than in anything else.
“Has—has she got them all?” he gulped in mistress’s ear.
“Yes, yes, my boy.”
“Then let me go,” and he clambered off the bed, and dashing away the tears from his poor red eyes, he went over all his heap of toys, selecting about two-thirds of them, and putting them in a heap, while he threw the others under the bed.
The two women sat looking at each other, and at him, with mystified glances. Finally, the child had the toys all assorted, and with his little face disturbed with rage, he jumped up and down on the heap, smashing and demolishing animals, birds and games, and toy-carts and engines.
When they were all in a disfigured, ugly mass, he sprang back into the bed, and nestled against mistress’s breast.
Mrs. Bonstone wonderingly picked up a section of a box. Something was stamped on it, and she read it aloud, “Made in Germany.”
Her face grew scarlet. “The whole war isn’t worth the flame of rage in this one childish breast,” she said furiously. Then almost in the same breath, she calmed down, “But oh! my child—forgive, forgive. They are your enemies, but only more war can come from vengeful feelings. Don’t let us have the hate-song in this country.”
I don’t know whether the child was listening. His head was buried in mistress’s shoulder. Mrs. Bonstone went on, “Your darling mother forgave, for the words she wrote in her anguish all about the room, and on that piece of paper, were: ‘I do not want my boy to be a soldier.’”