“Mine,” said Bess. “But I never thought of the bark as ‘silver rags’; nor of the trees as princes.”
“Why not have a silver-rag story as well as pine-cone stories?” asked Randolph. “We can throw on bits of bark to keep the fire up, just as we did the cones; we only want a little blaze, anyway.”
“I was afraid of it, I was afraid of it!” exclaimed Mr. Percival in mock dismay. “I think I have an engagement in the lower pasture!”
An immediate assault followed, from which the good-natured old man rescued himself at last, breathless and rumpled, on promise of a story. Several broad sheets of birch bark were drawn from a little cupboard beside the fireplace and given to the girls, who tore them into thin, silky strips, to be tossed on the fire during the progress of the story.
CHAPTER VI.
A SMALL HERO.
“DID you ever hear how a small boy—a very small boy indeed—saved Holland?” began Mr. Percival, after reflecting a moment.
“O no, sir. Is it a true story?”
“Absolutely true, with the exception, perhaps, of the name.”
“We never heard of him, anyway.”
“If you were a set of Dutch young people, you would have! The boy Hans, that did this brave deed, was a far finer fellow than Casabianca, who ‘stood on the burning deck,’ and supposed his father wanted him to burn to death for nothing but sheer obedience. For Hans accomplished something by his grand courage and endurance; he saved a whole nation!”