The Golden Treasure

								
The drummer's wife went into the church. She saw the new altar
with the painted pictures and the carved angels. Those upon the canvas
and in the glory over the altar were just as beautiful as the carved
ones; and they were painted and gilt into the bargain. Their hair
gleamed golden in the sunshine, lovely to behold; but the real
sunshine was more beautiful still. It shone redder, clearer through
the dark trees, when the sun went down. It was lovely thus to look
at the sunshine of heaven. And she looked at the red sun, and she
thought about it so deeply, and thought of the little one whom the
stork was to bring, and the wife of the drummer was very cheerful, and
looked and looked, and wished that the child might have a gleam of
sunshine given to it, so that it might at least become like one of the
shining angels over the altar.

And when she really had the little child in her arms, and held
it up to its father, then it was like one of the angels in the
church to behold, with hair like gold--the gleam of the setting sun
was upon it.

"My golden treasure, my riches, my sunshine!" said the mother; and
she kissed the shining locks, and it sounded like music and song in
the room of the drummer; and there was joy, and life, and movement.
The drummer beat a roll--a roll of joy. And the Drum said--the
Fire-drum, that was beaten when there was a fire in the town:

"Red hair! the little fellow has red hair! Believe the drum, and
not what your mother says! Rub-a dub, rub-a dub!"

And the town repeated what the Fire-drum had said.

The boy was taken to church, the boy was christened. There was
nothing much to be said about his name; he was called Peter. The whole
town, and the Drum too, called him Peter the drummer's boy with the
red hair; but his mother kissed his red hair, and called him her
golden treasure.

In the hollow way in the clayey bank, many had scratched their
names as a remembrance.

"Celebrity is always something!" said the drummer; and so he
scratched his own name there, and his little son's name likewise.

And the swallows came. They had, on their long journey, seen
more durable characters engraven on rocks, and on the walls of the
temples in Hindostan, mighty deeds of great kings, immortal names,
so old that no one now could read or speak them. Remarkable celebrity!

In the clayey bank the martens built their nest. They bored
holes in the deep declivity, and the splashing rain and the thin
mist came and crumbled and washed the names away, and the drummer's
name also, and that of his little son.

"Peter's name will last a full year and a half longer!" said the
father.

"Fool!" thought the Fire-drum; but it only said, "Dub, dub, dub,
rub-a-dub!"

He was a boy full of life and gladness, this drummer's son with
the red hair. He had a lovely voice. He could sing, and he sang like a
bird in the woodland. There was melody, and yet no melody.

"He must become a chorister boy," said his mother. "He shall
sing in the church, and stand among the beautiful gilded angels who
are like him!"

"Fiery cat!" said some of the witty ones of the town.

The Drum heard that from the neighbors' wives.

"Don't go home, Peter," cried the street boys. "If you sleep in
the garret, there'll be a fire in the house, and the fire-drum will
have to be beaten."

"Look out for the drumsticks," replied Peter; and, small as he
was, he ran up boldly, and gave the foremost such a punch in the
body with his fist, that the fellow lost his legs and tumbled over,
and the others took their legs off with themselves very rapidly.

The town musician was very genteel and fine. He was the son of the
royal plate-washer. He was very fond of Peter, and would sometimes
take him to his home; and he gave him a violin, and taught him to play
it. It seemed as if the whole art lay in the boy's fingers; and he
wanted to be more than a drummer--he wanted to become musician to
the town.

"I'll be a soldier," said Peter; for he was still quite a little
lad, and it seemed to him the finest thing in the world to carry a
gun, and to be able to march one, two--one, two, and to wear a uniform
and a sword.

"Ah, you learn to long for the drum-skin, drum, dum, dum!" said
the Drum.

"Yes, if he could only march his way up to be a general!" observed
his father; "but before he can do that, there must be war."

"Heaven forbid!" said his mother.

"We have nothing to lose," remarked the father.

"Yes, we have my boy," she retorted.

"But suppose he came back a general!" said the father.

"Without arms and legs!" cried the mother. "No, I would rather
keep my golden treasure with me."

"Drum, dum, dum!" The Fire-drum and all the other drums were
beating, for war had come. The soldiers all set out, and the son of
the drummer followed them. "Red-head. Golden treasure!"

The mother wept; the father in fancy saw him "famous;" the town
musician was of opinion that he ought not to go to war, but should
stay at home and learn music.

"Red-head," said the soldiers, and little Peter laughed; but
when one of them sometimes said to another, "Foxey," he would bite his
teeth together and look another way--into the wide world. He did not
care for the nickname.

The boy was active, pleasant of speech, and good-humored; that
is the best canteen, said his old comrades.

And many a night he had to sleep under the open sky, wet through
with the driving rain or the falling mist; but his good humor never
forsook him. The drum-sticks sounded, "Rub-a-dub, all up, all up!"
Yes, he was certainly born to be a drummer.

The day of battle dawned. The sun had not yet risen, but the
morning was come. The air was cold, the battle was hot; there was mist
in the air, but still more gunpowder-smoke. The bullets and shells
flew over the soldiers' heads, and into their heads--into their bodies
and limbs; but still they pressed forward. Here or there one or
other of them would sink on his knees, with bleeding temples and a
face as white as chalk. The little drummer still kept his healthy
color; he had suffered no damage; he looked cheerfully at the dog of

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