“Get the salt, Seedney!” Mrs. Schmitz cried; “you are stupid to forget!”
Sydney knew well this hardness was only assumed to shield the other boy. Looking from the pantry he saw her go swiftly behind the captive, put her big arm round his shaking shoulders, and smooth back the tangled dark hair. But her words were rough; she knew it was a dangerous time for sympathy.
“Stop this already! By me nobody cries. Everybody laughs. Keep still the shoulders, I tell you! They pump up and down like a windmill in a big wind. Also like old windmills with rust on ’em; I can hear ’em squeak already. Stop the noise mit your mouth and put something in it.”
So she rattled on with rude words, but her hand never ceased its soothing, hypnotic motion above the too white brow; and in a moment it seemed to Sydney the boy was quiet, and she had unbound him.
“Seedney, will you stay hunting salt till to-morrow already? What keeps you, dumkopf?”
Sydney’s face was flushed when he entered. He did not relish being called a blockhead even in German. And back of that resentment was another emotion he did not then recognize—jealousy. This fly-by-night, this sneak thief, was to come right into the family, to share what he, Sydney, had so long enjoyed as all his own.
A little sullenly and noisily he put the salt-cellar on the table. Mrs. Schmitz, looking up, caught the meaning on his face. At the moment she forgot that Sydney’s feeling was natural; forgot that a boy cannot understand the instinct that makes the mother ready to sacrifice the child that is safe for the one that is in danger.
“Go you, Seedney, bring some wood. It iss cold here as north pole.”