Golden Treasure

With song and hurrah, and wearing the green leaves of victory, the regiment marched home, when the war was over and peace had come. The regimental dog jumped and ran in wide circles, as though trying to make the journey three times longer.

Days passed and weeks passed, and at last Peter entered his parents' room; he was as brown as a hermit, his eyes bright, and his face as radiant as the sunshine. His mother held him in her arms and kissed his lips, his eyes, his red hair. She had her boy home again; he had no silver decoration on his breast, as his father had dreamed, but then he was unharmed, which his mother had not dreamed. And there was great joy; they laughed and they wept. And Peter embraced the old fire drum. "The old thing is still standing here!" he said. And his father beat a tattoo on it. "There's as much fuss as though there were a big fire in town!" said the drum to itself. "Fire in the roof, fire in the hearts! Golden Treasure! Dr-rum, dr-rum, dr-rum!"

And then? Yes, what then? Just ask the state musician. "Peter has outgrown the drum," he said. "He'll be a bigger man than I." And remember he was the son of a royal servant! But what had taken him a lifetime to learn, Peter had learned in half a year. There was something cheerful about him; his eyes sparkled, and his hair shone - that cannot be denied.

"He ought to dye his hair," said their next-door neighbor. "The policeman's daughter did, and look what it did for her; she was engaged at once!"

"Yes, but a little later her hair turned as green as duckweed, and she has to dye it again and again!"

"Well, she can afford to," said the neighbor woman, "and so can Peter. Doesn't he go into the best houses, even the mayor's, to teach Miss Lotte the harpsichord?"

Yes, play he could, play right out of his heart, the most charming pieces that had never been written down in notes. He played on moonlit nights and stormy ones as well. It was difficult to put up with, said the neighbors and the fire drum. He played until his thoughts soared strongly upward, and great plans for the future took shape before him.