III.

Above, Kaspar Bernstein was searching frantically for the location of his lost home. As the bells died away, with the full force of his strong lungs he shouted, “Josepha! Josepha! Jo-se-pha!”

Franziska heard, and, with the cry--“Oh, Gretchen! hear you? it is ‘der Vater’s’ voice,”--answered him with all her strength, but her voice failed to reach the outer air.

Still shouting he wandered to and fro, now near them, now more remote.

“Gretchen!” she called, “answer ‘der Vater’; perhaps he can hear you through the little star.”

Gretchen only moaned.

“Gretchen, you _must_ answer! ‘der Vater’ will not find us; he will go away and leave us here to die,--Gretchen darling--shout as loud as you can--for the love of God, Gretchen!” And the little one lifted her feeble voice and called, “Vater! Vater!”

Overwhelmed by sorrow, as Kaspar stood a moment motionless, that faint cry reached him like a whisper from God. Oh, how desperately he dug, throwing the earth and stones in all directions in his eager haste to reach his darling, while he shouted words of hope and comfort to her.

It was not long before he came upon the front room of his ruined home. There, beside the crushed cradle, lay his dead wife, little Fritz clasped in her arms. He lifted them tenderly, and laid them carefully down out in the open air. He would go back to them later; there would be time for grieving, but not now. A little further on lay Gretchen, under a pile of dirt and stones. She was badly bruised, and her hip was broken. As he raised her in his arms, the blue eyes opened; a slight smile flitted over the pale face as she whispered “Vater.”

The tears which had not started when he beheld his dead wife and baby now ran down his cheeks, and he felt as though he could never let her go; but there was still work to do, so placing her in the arms of a kind-hearted Frau from a neighboring village, he carefully dug his way towards Franziska. As the light entered her prison she looked about her. Some of the beams and boards of the house were jammed together about six inches above her head, and held back the earth that must otherwise have crushed her. When Kaspar reached her, he found her so wedged in between great stones and beams, he could not dig her out alone; so bidding her keep her hope and courage a little longer, he went for help.

The earth, which had so recently been disturbed, now and then fell in small quantities into the opening; and occasionally a stone rolled over the edge.

Franziska’s strength began to desert her;--how long it was since “der Vater” had left her;--what if the earth should cave in upon her before he returned;--the beams above her head,--she surely saw them move; and when at last help reached her she was unconscious.

The kind-hearted Frau who had taken Gretchen opened her heart and home to Franziska also; but many weeks passed before she knew any one. In her delirium she was constantly talking to Gretchen, telling her stories, begging her not to be afraid,--not to cry so; until the good Frau would turn away her head, and with her apron wipe her eyes. But, one day, when the ground was white with snow, she awoke and knew them, and when little Gretchen, who had grown quite well and strong, climbed up on the bed and kissed her over and over again, Franziska thought she must have died and waked up in heaven, such a wave of happiness rolled over her.

It was many days before Frau Brinkerhoff told her how on that never-to-be-forgotten day tons and tons of earth and stones broke away from the Rossberg, and came sweeping into the valley, burying four villages and five hundred souls; how the earth filled up one end of the lake, and the water rose in a great wall and swept out onto the land wrecking all before it; how Frau Bernstein and baby Fritz lay in the quiet church-yard, and how the beautiful laughing valley was beautiful no longer, but oh, so desolate!

[Illustration]