BY DAVID KER.
Many years ago, when Peter the Great was Czar of Russia, and when the improvements that he was making all over the country gave foreign workmen a fine chance of earning high wages, a number of emigrants landed one cold winter morning at one of the Russian ports on the Gulf of Finland, to see if they could find work, as so many others had done.
A curious mixture they were—men, women, and children from every country on either side of the Baltic. Tall, fresh-colored Swedes, in gray frocks and thick blue stockings; stout, light-haired Germans, and ruddy, blue-eyed Danes; big-boned Pomeranians, with low foreheads and shaggy brown beards; and short, squat Finns, whose round puffy faces and thick yellow hair gave them the look of overboiled apple-dumplings.
But their first taste of Russia was not at all a pleasant one. At the port where they had landed it was the rule that all emigrants who came ashore should be kept in one place till the Czar's agents came to examine them; and the place where they were kept was an old warehouse, very bare and dismal-looking, with nothing in it but a few old sails and some heaps of straw. Here they remained for two days, while the snow fell and the wind roared outside, their food being brought them by the soldiers of the port. The men smoked their pipes and played cards, the women knitted stockings or mended the clothes of their husbands and children, while the little people played hide-and-seek in and out of the dark corners, and made the gloomy old place quite merry with their shouts and laughter.
But there was one boy (a bright-eyed little fellow with brown curly hair) who took no part in the fun, but sat in a corner by himself, chalking curious figures on the wall, which he seemed to copy from the book in his other hand. Any one who had looked closely at these figures would have seen that they were letters—Russian letters—and that sometimes he would write a whole word at once, and then put the meaning opposite it in German. In fact, he was teaching himself the language of this new country that he had got into, and seemed to be pretty well on with it, for every now and then he would leave off writing, and read a page of his book without meeting a single word that he could not master.
"Look at Karl Osterman yonder, slaving away at that book of his!" said one of the men. "Much good that'll do him! As if one could saw a plank or hammer a rivet any better for knowing that crack-jaw lingo!"
"He's going to teach the Russians their own language—that's what he's at!" grinned another. "A regular professor, ain't he? far too clever for poor fellows like us!"
"Ay, he'll be a great man one of these days," chimed in a third, with a hoarse laugh, "and then perhaps he'll be kind enough to give us a job."
Little Karl's eyes sparkled, and he set his lips firmly, as if making up his mind that he would be a great man yet, somehow or other; but he said nothing, and went quietly on with his work.
Suddenly the door flew open, and in came a Russian soldier in a shabby green uniform trimmed with faded gold lace. He was a very tall and powerful man, with a dark, weather-beaten face framed in close-cropped hair, and great black eyes that seemed to pierce right through any one whom they looked at.