(Adapted from Ouida)

Part One

An heirloom is as precious as a member of a family, and should not be disposed of lightly.

August lived in a small town in Germany. He was a little fellow only nine years old. He had rosy cheeks, big brown eyes and lots of curls the color of ripe nuts. His mother was dead, his father was very poor, and there were many mouths to feed.

The winters were long and cold where August lived, and snow covered the roads and fields everywhere. One evening he had to go out for a mug of beer for his father. It was so cold that his fingers almost froze, but he hurried along thinking about the big porcelain stove that stood in the big barren room of his home and that gave out so much heat that it made the room feel like summer.

August burst in the room and put the beer on the table.

“You dear old Hirschvogel!” he cried. “How warm you are!” and he ran up to the great stove and touched it tenderly. Now, Hirschvogel was the name of the man who had made this stove many years before. All the children loved it dearly, for their mother sat by it when she was alive, and they had all played around it when they were babies. It was a wonderful stove, fit for the house of a king, and when it glowed on a cold night it looked like a palace lighted up for the queen’s birthday.

August warmed himself by the stove, and then his sister gave him his supper. The children were playing games and telling stories when the door opened and in walked Karl, their father. He seemed out of sorts that night, and ashamed of himself. Finally he said, “I have sold Hirschvogel.”

The children were aghast with dismay. “What? Sold our old stove, father? Mother’s stove! Why it has been in our family for so many years—you surely do not mean it,” they all cried.

“I have sold the stove! I need the money—now off to bed—all of you. To-morrow the men come to take it away,” said Karl.

The children went to bed. August could not sleep for grief. Late in the night he came down and lay beside the stove until daybreak, crying to himself because the stove was sold.

Early in the morning the men came and packed the stove in a big crate full of hay and took it away. When August saw them hauling it away he resolved to follow the stove as far as he could. He went to the railroad station and saw the men put the crate on the platform. Then they put it in a big box car and were making ready to start when August slipped into the car and hid himself just as the train started.

He soon found a way to get into the great stove when he curled up into a little bundle and went fast to sleep. Hirschvogel was on its way to its new master, but August was inside going along, too. What happened to him we shall see in the next story.