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Show WHAT HAPPENED IN HAMELIN Chapter 1 I was the first one who saw him. All the other townsfolk of Hamelin were in church praying to God and Saint Boniface for relief from rats and rain. The priest had said that every person in town must come to the church, but my master Hermann Meinersing hardly considered me a person. He'd ordered me to stay in the shop and take the loaves out of the oven, regardless of what the priest instructed. So I was the first one to see him. I had just pulled the bread out of the oven, and was busy hitting at the rats with a stick to keep them away from the new bread, when I glanced up and he was there. I took one look at him and I stood still. It seemed that even the rats stopped their scurrying to stare at the stranger. Afterward they asked me what it was about him that made the young folks act as they did. Was it his eyes - those black,black eyes which glowed with secrets? Was it his voice - soft, yet seeming to come from depths far deeper than his slight body? I told them that it was not only one thing about him, but the sum of him put together- His hair black as soot, his bronze skin, the high, curving cheekbones, his cloak colored like earth, the hands with long, thin fingers... everything about him was so.... So that when he looked at me that day and said, "I am hungry," I handed him one of the loaves, knowing full well that Master Hermann would beat me when he counted nineteen fresh loaves instead of twenty. |