Too Many Stars in the Sky
“Help!” roared Konrad, holding his hand out to Walter. Walter grabbed it and pulled while Otto, standing behind Konrad, put his shoulder against him. But Konrad only got wedged in tighter, and he cried: “I’m suffocating! Let go of me!”
“Give it all you’ve got!” shouted Walter, and almost tore his arm out.
“I can’t! I’m too fat!” groaned Konrad.
Now Walter pressed his shoulders against him while Otto did the pulling until Konrad once more stood helpless at the entrance of the gorge with water roaring up to his knees.
“Perhaps you can crawl through the hole?” yelled Otto.
“Into that boiling rapid?” Konrad called out, worried.
“Why don’t you try?” Otto encouraged him.
Konrad was fat, but he was no coward, so, with desperate determination, he dove headfirst into the hole where the Hollebrook came roaring out. Immediately the current pushed him downstream, and like a small barrel, he drifted against a boulder. The water splashed over his head, and he shouted: “I’m drowning! I can’t get up!”
Otto quickly waded up to him and pulled him free. “Try again!” he called.
“No,” gurgled Konrad, and spouted a quart of water.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the gorge, Walter and Willy had an idea how to help Konrad.
“The only way,” Walter suggested, “would be to pull him through with something.”
“How about my fishline?” shouted Willy with eagerness. He pulled the line out of his pocket.
“Is it strong enough?” Walter asked skeptically.
“Boy,” exclaimed Willy, “and how! I can catch the biggest pike on it.”
“Let’s have it!” said Walter. To make sure, he doubled it. Then he hurried back to the gorge and called: “Hey, Konrad, we’ll pull you through the hole with Willy’s fishline!”
“I’m no fish,” answered Konrad indignantly.
“If you don’t want to, you’ll have to go home alone,” shouted Walter.
“No!” Konrad shouted back in horror. “Throw it to me.”
Walter let the water carry the free end of the string to Konrad. Konrad picked it up and held onto it with both hands. Then he crouched and waited for the pull.
Willy, Walter, Gretel, and Erna all took hold of the fishline and began to pull. The line parted, and all four fell backwards into the water. They jumped out and shook themselves. Erna and Gretel shrieked: “Ugh, ugh!” Lottie clapped her hands and squealed with delight. Even Mo could not help laughing.
“Stop your laughing!” snorted Erna in a rage. “What’s so funny about it?” Her beautiful red hair clung to her face like a wet mop.
Lottie and Mo were frightened and stopped laughing. Gretel tried to squeeze the water out of her dress like a sponge. Willy met Walter’s angry look with a sheepish smile.
“Your fishline isn’t worth a hoot,” Walter snarled.
“Konrad isn’t a pike either,” protested Willy.
“If only we had a strong rope …” sighed Walter, rubbing his soaked hair. His eyes fell on Mo’s coat. He stumbled over to her and asked: “Mo, do you still need your coat?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Mo. “Don’t you remember? It belongs to the doll in the museum. I am obliged to bring it home.”
“Too bad,” said Walter, “because it might have served to help Konrad. We could make a strong rope out of it and save him.”
At once Mo took off the coat and handed it to Walter. “Please, please,” she begged, “save Konrad! Konrad is a good human. I will tell my father that we had to help him. After all, the doll is just a doll. It is not alive, is it?”
“No,” said Walter. He was very touched. With great effort he tore the coat and the remaining sleeve into strips and knotted them securely together.
“Willy, give it a good pull to see if it will hold,” he ordered.
Willy heaved with all his might, and Walter was pleased. The rope held. He walked up to the gorge and shouted: “Konrad, we have a firm rope, guaranteed to hold!”
“Let me have it! I’ll hang myself with it!” Konrad called back. He had lost all confidence.
“You’re a drip,” Gretel called in a fury.
“Who?” Konrad yelled.
“You!” answered Gretel.
“Wait, I’m coming!” roared Konrad in anger, and seized the rope of cloth that Walter had thrown to him. Again, Willy, Walter, Gretel, and Erna heaved, backing up step by step until at last Konrad’s head appeared. He snorted like a seal. Walter let go of the coat and quickly grabbed Konrad by his hair, while the others took him by his hands and arms. Then they happily got him through the hole. Exhausted, Konrad slumped on a rock. He tilted his head from one side to the other to let the water run out of his ears. His rage had cooled off.
“I’ll show her who’s a drip,” he muttered faintly.
Gretel laughed tauntingly. “Why don’t you try,” she hissed. “I’ll scratch and bite!”
Now it was still up to Otto to squeeze through the gorge. He was short and had a hard time of it. The water came almost to his thighs. But he was tough and skillful and worked his way through slowly, but surely. In fact, all would have gone smoothly if the jacket containing the shoes and stockings, which he carried on his back, had not got caught on a sharp ledge. He jerked it in desperation, and the sack burst open, spilling the shoes and stockings into the roaring brook.
“Holy catfish!” howled Otto. “There go all our shoes and stockings.”
“My sandals! Save my sandals!” cried Gretel.
Otto vanished, but after a while he returned and announced: “They’re gone! I can’t see them anywhere!”
The children were terrified. This was an awful catastrophe. Although they were used to going barefoot out-of-doors, they realized only too well that shoes and stockings cost a lot of money.
“Mommy will scold us terribly!” wailed Gretel. “How can she buy us new ones!”
Erna was the most upset. “Mother bought my shoes at Wurmbach’s in Pocksburg,” she cried.
“Anyway, they were much too stylish for you,” remarked Willy, but he was no longer quite his cheerful self.
“They were not too stylish,” sulked Erna tearfully.
“We’ll have to proceed barefoot,” Walter said, shaken.
“On all those pebbles?” said Konrad gruffly. “After all, I’m no fakir!”
“Did my shoes and stockings drown too?” asked Mo anxiously.
“I’m afraid so,” confessed Walter.
Mo was very perturbed. “Now the doll has no coat, no shoes, and no stockings any more,” she said sadly.
Walter pulled Mo’s red cap out of his pants pocket and put it on her head. “But the doll still has the cap,” he said shyly.
Otto got a cool reception.
“Why didn’t you pay more attention?” Gretel jumped at him, speaking with fury.
“Why didn’t you carry the jacket?” Otto replied hotly.
“My shoes had rubber soles,” Lottie said, worried.
All the reproaches were of no use. Meanwhile, it had grown quite dark, and many stars had already appeared in the sky. The children cast a last glance in the direction of the fatal gorge and then moved on. From here, the bridge was no longer distant, but the approach to it was tiresome and painful because of the many big and small rocks.
Mo, with her small, tender feet, could hardly walk at all on the loose stones. Gretel and Erna had to help her by holding her arms. It was only after they had climbed the slope to the Easter path that they all drew a deep breath of relief.
“It isn’t as bad here,” observed Walter.
“Like this it’s very nice,” agreed Mo, finding grass on the path instead of rocks.
“But be careful not to step on a thorny twig!” Walter warned her. “It is dark. Better follow close behind me.”
Confidently, though with a wary eye to the ground, Mo trotted behind him. At last, they saw the big clearing where they had discovered Mo in the morning glimmering through the trees and excitedly ran toward it.
The first thing Otto did was to climb under the tree to look for the mushrooms that he had left behind in the morning.
“The mushrooms are still here,” he reported with joy.
“Bring them here!” Konrad called eagerly. “We’ll eat them.”
However, Walter would have none of it. “They’re too old,” he explained. “Besides, we have no time. We still have to find the big meadow where Mo’s father will arrive.” He took Mo by the hand and led her to the middle of the clearing from where they could have a good view of the stars.
“Where is Asra?” he asked tensely.
The children rushed up and stared at Mo, full of expectancy.
Mo contemplated the sky at length. She turned in a circle and looked and looked. Her face grew longer, her eyes bigger, and finally she stammered: “I don’t know where Asra is.”
“What?” cried the children, dumbfounded.
“How … why not?” Walter blurted, completely unnerved. “You surely must know!”
“There are too many stars in the sky,” Mo said faintly. She sat down in the grass and glanced uneasily at the others.