It was all very rough, for
there was no one to teach him anything But it was all life-like, and
kept the whole troop of children shrieking with laughter, or watching
breathless, with wide open, wondering, awed eyes.
They were all so happy: what did they care for the snow outside? Their
little bodies were warm, and their hearts merry; even Dorothea,
troubled about the bread for the morrow, laughed as she spun; and
August, with all his soul in his work, and little rosy Ermengilda's
cheek on his shoulder, glowing after his frozen afternoon, cried out
loud, smiling, as he looked up at the stove that was shedding its head
down on them all:
"Oh, dear Hirschvogel! you are almost as great and good as the sun!
No; you are greater and better, I think, because he goes away nobody
knows where all these long, dark, cold hours, and does not care how
people die for want of him; but you--you are always ready: just a
little bit of wood to feed you, and you will make a summer for us all
the winter through!"
The grand old stove seemed to smile through all its iridescent surface
at the praises of the child. No doubt the stove, though it had known
three centuries and more, had known but very little gratitude.
It was one of those magnificent stoves in enamelled faience which so
excited the jealousy of the other potters of Nuernberg that in a body
they demanded of the magistracy that Augustin Hirschvogel should be
forbidden to make any more of them--the magistracy, happily, proving
of a broader mind, and having no sympathy with the wish of the
artisans to cripple their greater fellow.
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