The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1909-06-24

AS he asked the question he looked
sharply at his sons right hand, for he
remembered that to cut off three fingers
of the right hand and so render the use
of rife impossible was common way
of escaping
The refugee saw the look and held
out his hand. It was intact.
No. he said, mot that! found a
better way"
Nicholas Nicholaevitch cut a slice
from the lemon and pressed it into his
tea
II came down the Vistula," he said
briefly.
''In a timber boat ?"
eyes. Hidden among the logs"
"And you paid?"
"SiXty roubles-all | had.'
Then, kneeling before the fire and
drinking his tea, he told something OF
how that timber boat had drifted slow
ly down the river while he lay, pierced
by the cold, among the logs. Day by
day the landscape slipped past, but so
slowly, so terribly slowly. for him who
was in danger, pierced by the cold and
tortured by hunger.
''Many have made that journey beside
you, but have not crossed the frontier"
said his father musingly.
The elder Nicholas had memories of
the past to draw upon. He knew those
big, slow going, fat-bottomed timber
boats so well; he knew the country
through which the river passed-the
fiat, snow-covered Russian landscape,
one immense sheet of white, broken only
lor nj hxr or, o4o11
of woodland. And as he called up that
landscape of which his son spoke, he
was conscious of wishing that some day
he might see it again. For, after all,
it was his own country, his native land,
though he was known as Otto Schmidt
and spoke German. But he knew, of
course, that he would never again see it.
"And at the frontier?" he asked
abruptly.
Nicholas looked up.
''The boat was not searched" he said,
after time, because the owner had
arranged that it should not be. Every
thing in Russia can be arranged. There
were others beside myself On that boat.
And at that frontier station they knew
that we lay there, shivering among the
logs"
"And after the frontier?''
II made my way to the coast and
worked my passage in the first boat
that left for London"
"You have suffered" said the old man
after a pause. You have learnt what
life is, Nicholas Nicholaevitch, just as 1
have learnt, what it is, at any rate, for
a Russian Jew. But to you God has
been good. He has permitted yor to
escape into a free country while you
are still young"
His son smiled
"Life is, of course, still full of its
SAVIOR for me-" he said.
And then, more deeply than he had
done before, the old man realized how
cruelty the writing of suffering was
scrawled over his sons face.
He remembered suddenly that, in his
own thankfulness, he had become selfish
For several years he had known little
of what his sons life had been. But he
knew that he had married
"Your wife, he asked, sis she in a
place of safety?''
Yet, even as he asked, he knew the
answer. For why had his son come to
England alone?
EYES," said the refugee quietly, still
looking into the fire. After a pause he
explained that his wife had died in
childbirth, and that he was thankful
that neither she nor the child lived
And his father, Russian Jew, sham
German and English alien, had nothing
to say. For he felt that the song of
gladness which had sprung to life that
night in his old heart was silenced. He
remembered the day when his son, as
a boy, had boosted that he was Rus
sian as we'll as a Jew He could not
even speak the usual commonplace about
England being haven of refuge For
of what use is haven of refuge when
the joy of life is dead?
It was the son who spoke
LET us not think of what is past"
he said. God is not wholly without
mercy. There is yet some SAVIOR in life.
For here, in England, we are together"
Once again the old mans heart be-
came glad.
YES he said. "and let us remember
that you are safe. Just now, while you
were sleeping, a newspaper boy was
shouting his papers in the street. Do
you know what his cry was? It was
this: Japanese victory! Hundreds of
Russian dead!' I listened to that shout
ing. Then I listened to the sound of
your breathing as you lay there o.; my
bed in this attic refuge"
For the old man knew now that, when
the time came, he would not die alone,
and that, perhaps for many years, he
and his son would live together-Ed-
ward Cecil in Sketch.