Story of Daniel

Part 4

At that little Daniel sprang to his feet in a rage, thoroughly sober:
"Not that! I won't have it!"
But the other simply laughed and kept on. Before he had finished, all the officers were standing. One of them pointed to the door and said to the children:
"Clear out!"
And they began to talk among themselves very rapidly, in German.
The tall youth went out as proud as a prince, jingling his money. Daniel followed him, hanging his head; and when he passed the Prussian whose glance had embarrassed him so, he heard a sad voice say:
"Not a nice thing to do, that. Not a nice thing."
Tears came to his eyes.
Once in the field, the children began to run and returned quickly to the city. Their bag was full of potatoes which the Prussians had given them. With them they passed unhindered to the trench of the sharp-shooters. There they were preparing for the night attack. Troops came up silently and massed behind the walls. The old sergeant was there, busily engaged in posting his men, with such a happy expression. When the children passed, he recognised them and bestowed a pleasant smile upon them.
Oh! how that smile hurt little Daniel! For a moment he was tempted to call out: "Don't go there; we have betrayed you."
But the other had told him: "If you speak we shall be shot"; and fear restrained him.
At La Courneuve, they entered an abandoned house to divide the money. Truth compels me to state that the division was made honestly, and that little Daniel's crime did not seem so terrible to him when he heard the coins jingling under his blouse, and thought of the games of galoche which he had in prospect.
But when he was alone, the wretched child! When the tall fellow had left him at the gate, then his pockets began to be very heavy, and the hand that grasped his heart grasped it tighter than ever. Paris did not seem the same to him. The people who passed gazed sternly at him as if they knew whence he came. He heard the word "spy" in the rumbling of the wheels, in the beating of the drums along the canal. At last he reached home, and, overjoyed to find that his father was not there, he went quickly up to their room, to hide under his pillow that money that weighed so heavily upon him.
Never had Father Daniel been so joyous and so good-humoured as when he returned that night. News had been received from the provinces: affairs were looking better. As he ate, the old soldier looked at his musket hanging on the wall, and said to the child with his hearty laugh:
"I say, my boy, how you would go at the Prussians if you were big!"
Above eight o'clock, they heard cannon.
"That is Aubervilliers. They are fighting at Bourget," said the good man, who knew all the forts. Little Daniel turned pale, and, on the plea that he was very tired, he went to bed; but he did not sleep. The cannon still roared. He imagined the sharp-shooters arriving in the dark to surprise the Prussians, and themselves falling into an ambush. He remembered the sergeant who had smiled at him and he saw him stretched out on the snow, and many others with him. The price of all that blood was concealed there under his pillow, and it was he, the son of Monsieur Daniel, of a soldier—tears choked him. In the adjoining room he heard his father walk to the window and open it. Below on the square, the recall was sounding; and a battalion was forming to leave the city. Evidently it was a real battle. The unhappy child cloud not restrain a sob.