A DISCOVERY
The next sun brought a busy day to the Brinkers.
In the first place the news of the thousand guilders had of course to be told to the father. Such tidings as that surely could not harm him. Then while Gretel was diligently obeying her mother's injunction to "clean the place fresh as a new brewing," Hans and the dame sallied forth to revel in the purchasing of peat and provisions.
Hans was careless and contented; the dame was filled with delightful anxieties caused by the unreasonable demands of ten thousand guilders' worth of new wants that had sprung up like mushrooms in a single night. The happy woman talked so largely to Hans on their way to Amsterdam, and brought back such little bundles after all, that he scratched his bewildered head as he leaned against the chimneypiece, wondering whether, "bigger the pouch, tighter the string" was in Jacob Cats, and therefore true, or whether he had dreamed it when he lay in a fever.
"What thinking on, Big-eyes?" chirruped his mother, half reading his thoughts as she bustled about, preparing the dinner. "What thinking on? Why, Raff, would ye believe it, the child thought to carry half Amsterdam back on his head. Bless us! he would have bought as much coffee as would have filled this fire-pot; 'no—no—my lad,' says I, 'no time for leaks when the ship is rich laden'—and then how he stared—aye—just as he stares this minute. Hoot lad! fly around a mite. Ye'll grow to the chimney-place with your staring and wondering. Now, Raff, here's your chair at the head of the table, where it should be, for there's a man to the house now—I'd say it to the king's face. Aye, that's the way—lean on Hans; there's a strong staff for you! growing like a weed too, and it seems only yesterday since he was toddling. Sit by, my man, sit by."
"Can you call to mind, vrouw," said Raff, settling himself cautiously in the big chair, "the wonderful music-box that cheered your working in the big house at Heidelberg?"
"Aye, that I can," answered the dame, "three turns of a brass key, and the witchy thing would send the music fairly running up and down one's back—I remember it well—but, Raff," (growing solemn in an instant) "you would never throw our guilders away for a thing like that?"
"No, no, not I, vrouw—for the good Lord has already given me a music-box without pay."
All three cast quick, frightened glances at one another and at Raff—were his wits on the wing again?
"Aye, and a music-box that fifty pouch-full would not buy from me," insisted Raff; "and it's set going by the turn of a mop handle, and it slips and glides around the room, everywhere in a flash, carrying the music about till you'd swear the birds were back again."