ake my books, Em my
stones. Now I say nothing. The things are mine: it is not righteous, God
knows? But I am silent. Let it be. But I feel it, I must say I feel it.

"Do not cry too much for the old man. He goes out to seek his fortune,
and comes back with it in a bag, it may be.

"I love my children. Do they think of me? I am Old Otto, who goes out to
seek his fortune.

"O.F."

Having concluded this quaint production, he put it where the children
would find it the next morning, and proceeded to prepare his bundle. He
never thought of entering a protest against the loss of his goods; like
a child, he submitted, and wept. He had been there eleven years, and it
was hard to go away. He spread open on the bed a blue handkerchief,
and on it put one by one the things he thought most necessary and
important--a little bag of curious seeds, which he meant to plant some
day, an old German hymn-book, three misshapen stones that he greatly
valued, a Bible, a shirt and two handkerchiefs; then there was room for
nothing more. He tied up the bundle tightly and put it on a chair by his
bedside.

"That is not much; they cannot say I take much," he said, looking at it.

He put his knotted stick beside it, his blue tobacco bag and his short
pipe, and then inspected his coats. He had two left--a moth-eaten
overcoat and a black alpaca, out at the elbows. He decided for the
overcoat; it was warm, certainly, but then he could carry it over his
arm and only put it on when he met some one along the road. It was more
respectable than the black alpaca.

He hung the greatcoat over the back of the chair, and stuffed a hard bit
of roaster-cake under the knot of the bundle, and then his preparations
were completed. The German stood contemplating them with much
satisfaction. He had almost forgotten his sorrow at leaving in his
pleasure at preparing. Suddenly he started; an expression of intense
pain passed over his face. He drew back his left arm quickly, and then
pressed his right hand upon his breast.

"Ah, the sudden pang again," he said.

His face was white, but it quickly regained its colour. Then the old man
busied himself in putting everything right.

"I will leave it neat. They shall not say I did not leave it neat," he
said. Even the little bags of seeds on the mantelpiece he put in rows
and dusted. Then he undressed and got into bed. Under his pillow was
a little storybook. He drew it forth. To the old German a story was
no stor