Margaret stood still; her glances became anxious. The boy looked as though he had shrunk together. His clothes were not the same either; no, that was not her child! And. yet—"Frederick, Frederick!" she cried.
A closet door in the bedroom slammed and the real Frederick came out, with a so-called clog-violin in one hand, that is, a wooden shoe strung with three or four resined strings, and in his other hand a bow, quite befitting the instrument. Then he went right up to his sorry double, with an attitude of conscious dignity and independence on his part, which at that moment revealed distinctly the difference between the two boys who otherwise resembled each other so remarkably.
"Here, John!" he said, and handed him the work of art with a patronizing air; "here is the violin that I promised you. My play-days are over; now I must earn money."
John cast another timid glance at Margaret, slowly stretched out his hand until he had tightly grasped the present, and then hid it stealthily under the flaps of his shabby coat.
Margaret stood perfectly still and let the children do as they liked. Her thoughts had taken another, very serious, turn, and she looked restlessly from one to the other. The strange boy had again bent over the coals with an expression of momentary comfort which bordered on simple-mindedness, while Frederick's features showed the alternating play of a sympathy evidently more selfish than good-humored, and his eyes, in almost glassy clearness, for the first time distinctly showed the expression of that unrestrained ambition and tendency to swagger which afterwards revealed itself as so strong a motive in most of his actions.
His mother's call aroused him from his thoughts which were as new as they were pleasant to him; again she was sitting at her spinning-wheel. "Frederick," she said, hesitating, "tell me—" and then stopped. Frederick looked up and, hearing nothing more, again turned to his charge. "No, listen!" And then, more softly: "Who is that boy I What is his name?"
Frederick answered, just as softly: "That is Uncle Simon's swineherd; he has a message for Huelsmeyer. Uncle gave me a pair of shoes and a huckaback vest which the boy carried for me; in return I promised him my violin; you see, he's a poor child. His name is John."
"Well?" said Margaret.
"What do you want, mother?"
"What's his other name?"