"But Liesel!" cried the young woman with the baby in her arms. "We will die without Liesel!"
"Liesel will stay in Gross Anspach. She will be the perpetual property of the Gross Anspach babies."
George Reimer spoke next. He sat with his arms folded across his breast, within them his precious flute. Tears were in his eyes and in his voice as he said:--
"_I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me._"
The company broke up without music. There were those who must go home to tell wives or mothers; there were those who wished to talk to John Conrad in private. There was Catrina, with her husband, weeping and distressed, who did not dare to trust her babies to the sea. She must plan with her sisters the bundles which should be packed for each to carry, the food which must be gathered to last as long as possible. To her and her husband John Conrad forgave a large debt, and his kindness and their inability to pay made the parting more heartbreaking. John Conrad still had a little store of German gulden, long hoarded against the coming day.
When all was done and the children were asleep, John Conrad took his oldest son by the hand and led him up the winding street between the ruined houses to the little Lutheran church which had been saved in the great destruction. The moon shone quietly upon it and the little walled-in space behind it. Thither John Conrad led his son, and beside a new-made grave they paused.
"It is not good to dwell on grief when one lives in the world and has still the work of half a lifetime," said he solemnly. "But there are moments when it is right that we should yield ourselves to our sorrow. The others will come here in the morning, but you and I will then have no time for shedding tears. Your mother looked into the future. She begged me to go when the time came, even though I must leave her here."
"My lad,"--John Conrad laid his arm across the boy's shoulders,--"there are many things I would say to you. You were, as you know, her darling. But she knew your faults, that you are strong-headed and strong-willed. As you are of all my children the quickest to learn, so are you the least obedient and steady, the most impatient and impetuous. Your mother prayed for you daily. Will you remember her counsels, lad?"