That was why soldiers were copied in tin and you got them on your
birthday in boxes. But police went by themselves, without music, without
beautiful colours on their uniforms, looked stern and threatening, and
had a stick in their hands. Nobody dreamt of copying them in tin. I was
very much annoyed to find out, as I soon did, that I had been misled by
the explanation and that it was a question of soldiers only.
Not a month had passed before I began to follow eagerly, when the grown-
up people read aloud from the farthing newspaper sheets about the
battles at Bov, Nybboel, etc. The Danes always won. At bottom, war was a
cheerful thing.
Then one day an unexpected and overwhelming thing happened. Mother was
sitting with her work on the little raised platform in the drawing-room,
in front of the sewing-table with its many little compartments, in
which, under the loose mahogany lid, there lay so many beautiful and
wonderful things--rings and lovely earrings, with pearls in them--when
the door to the kitchen opened and the maid came in. "Has Madame heard?
The _Christian VIII_. has been blown up at Eckernfoerde and the
_Gefion_ is taken."
"Can it be possible?" said Mother. And she leaned over the sewing-table
and burst into tears, positively sobbed. It impressed me as nothing had
ever done before.
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