50 ; Hans Brinker

asked for it again. Just as he opened his lips to say more,
Broom Klatterboost came flying in with word that the dike
was in danger. Ah! the waters were terrible that holy Pinx-
ter-week. My man, alack! caught up his tools, and ran out.
That was the last I ever saw of him in his right mind. He
was brought in again by midnight, nearly dead, with his poor
head all bruised and cut. The fever passed off in time, but
never the dulness: that grew worse every day. We shall
never know.”

Hans had heard all this before. More than once he had
seen his mother, in hours of sore need, take the watch from
its hiding-place, half resolved to sell it: but she had always
conquered the temptation.

“No, Hans!” she would say, “ we must be nearer starving
than this before we turn faithless to the father.”

A memory of some such scene came to the boy’s mind
now; for, after giving a heavy sigh, and filliping a crumb of
wax at Gretel across the table, he said, —

“© Ay, mother, you have done bravely to keep it: many a
one would have tossed it off for gold long ago.”

“ And more shame for them!” exclaimed the dame, indig-
nantly. ‘J would not do it. Besides, the gentry are so hard
on us poor folks, that if they saw such a thing in our hands,
even if we told all, they might suspect the father —”’

Hans flushed angrily.

“They would not dare to say such a thing, mother! If
they did, I’d—”

He clinched his fist, and seemed to think that the rest of
his sentence was too terrible to utter in her*presence.

Dame Brinker smiled proudly through her tears at this
interruption.