St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-08-02
obliged to take him in his arms to lift him


mated with tree trunks. The lower story
was full OF soldiers, playing cards and max,
ing soup over great clear fire. It exhaled
good OdOr of cabbage and pork. How
different from the bivouac of the sharp
shooters! Up stairs were the officers. You
could near them playing the piano and I'M
corklng bottles OF champagne. When the
Parlsians entered a joyful hurrah well
coined them. They delivered their news
for them and talked to them. All the off,
GERS had naughty and cruel look, but the
big boy amused them with his low humor
and his vocabulary of blackguard talk. They
laughed and repeated his words after him.
rolling with delight in the Partisan mud
thus brought to them
Little Stenne would have been clad to
talk, too, TO prove that he was no fool: but
something oppressed him. Opposite him
stood, apart from the others, a Prussian,
older, more serious than his comrades, who
was reading. or rather pretending to read,
for he did not take his eyes off the boy. In
his look were both tenderness and reproach,
as if he had had in his own country child
of Stenne's age, and if he had said to HIM
self:
Il ha6 rather die than see my son ply
such 4 trade"
From that moment Stenne felt as if there
were hand grasping his heart and hinder
ing its pulSation.
TO escape from this anguish he began to
drink. Soon everything Whirled abOuth him.
lie heard vaguely, in the midst of harsh
laughter, his comrades making sport of the
National guards and of their manner of
drill, initiating capture of arms at the
MaraiS, night alarm on the ramparts.
| Then the boy lowered his voice, the officers
hnrpH 1hDnt m ap1 fbair
| sober. The wretch was warning them of
the Sharp-sh0Oters' attack.
| Instantly little Stenne arose, furious.
| brought back to his senses.
Not that. l will not"
| But the other only laughed and went on,
Before he had ended all the officers were on
| their feet. One Of them opened the door
before the boys.
''FIy-the campw said he.
| And they began to talk together very
| rapidly in German. The big boy went out,
proud as king, blinking his money, Stenne
| followed, hanging his head; and when he
passed the Prussian whose look had SO
| panied him, he heard sad voice say:
Not pretty thing, that-not pretty
| thingr'
The tears came into his eyes.
| When they were again on the plain the
! children began to run and returned rapidly.
Their bags were full of potatoes which the
Prussians had given them; with these they
| passed the trench of the Sharpshooters'
freely. They were making preparations
for the nights attack. Troops were as
Sembling silently, and more were crowding
behind the walls. The old sergeant was
there, busy placing his men, looking so
happy. When the boys passed he re-
membered them and gave them a kind
smile.
Oh, how that smile hurt poor little Stenne!
For a moment he had mind to exclalm:
do not go; we have betrayed you ~
But the other had told him: eff YOU
speak we shall be shot," and fear restrained
him.
At COurneure they entered an abandoned
house to divide their money. Truth Obliges
me to say that the division was made hon
estly; and by dint of hearing the sound of
the bright crowns under his jacket and of
the games of galOche that lay before him in
the future, little Stenne no longer thought
his crime so fearful.
But when he was alone, unhappy child
When, inside the city gates the big boy had
left him, then his pockets began to grow
very heavy, and the hand that graSped his
heart confined it more strongly than ever.
Paris no longer seemed to him the same
The pasSerS-by regarded him severely, as if
they knew where he had been. The word
spy, he could hear it in the rafting of
wheels, in the beating of drums along the
canal. AT last he came home, and de-
lighted to find that his father had not yet
come i'll, he went up quickly to their cham
Der to hide under his pillow the crowns that
weighed him down So
Father Stenne had never been so kind, so
gay as when he came in on that evening.
News had just come from the provinces;
the country'S affairs were going on better.
While he ate his supper the old soldier
looked at his gun hanging on the wall, and
said to his boy with his kind smile:
''Ah, my boy! how you would go against
the Prussians if you were grOwn?"
Toward o'clock cannon were heard
1T is Aubervilliers. They are fighting
at BOurget," said the good man, who knew
all the forts.
Little Stenne grew pale, and, pleading
great fatigue, went to bed, but not to sleep.
The cannon Numbered on. He pictured to
himself the sharpshoOters going in the night
to surprise the PruSSianS and falling them
selves into an ambuScade. He remembered
the sergeant who had smiled on him, and
saw him stretched there on the SnOw-and
how many others with him The price OF
all this blood was hidden there under his pill
low, and it was he, the son of NJ. Stenne,
the son of soldier. Tears strangled him.
In the next room he heard his fathers step,
heard him open the window. Below, on the
street, sounded the call to arms, and a bat
talon Of militia answered the roll-call before
departing. Decidedly there was a real bat
tie. The unhappy child could not restrain
his sObs.
''What is the matter?' asked Father
Stenne coming in to him.
The boy could stand it no longer. but
sprang from his bed and threw himself at
his fathers feet. In his movement the
crows rolled to the floor.
''What have you there? Have you stolen
them?" cried the trembling old man.
Then, all in one breath, little Stenne told
how he had gone to the Prussians, and
what he had done there. AS he spoke he
felt his heart grow freer-it so comforted
him to confess his guilt Father Stenne
listened with terrible look. When the
tale was told he held his face in his hands
and wept.
Father, fatherl'' pleaded the child.
The old man pushed him away without
reply, and picked up the money.
is this all?n he asked
Little Stenne signiied that that was all.
The old man took down his gun and cart
, ridge-box, and put the money into his pocket.
VERY WELL" said he, 81 am going to
give it back"
And without another word, without even
q looking back, he went down to join the
! militia who were departing in the night.
|, He was never seen again.
No Thinner Than Most Others.