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Show 114 up beside her bed," Bernhard Scadelant was saying, looking as downcast as the rain which dripped from his hood. "And then she counts them, over and over. If we try to make her stop counting the pots, she screams. It makes us frantic, she counts in such a loud voice." "When we placed a crucifix beside Maria's head," the mayor related, "she cried out that the heavens had opened and she could see the mother of God with huge red roses growing from her feet. Yet the baby is not ill at all." "I have heard of a similar sickness in Bohemia," Gast told them. "It relieved the children's suffering if they were allowed to dance." "To dance?" "Musicians were hired, and when they played for the children to dance, the torment lessened." Mayor Gruelhot cleared his throat and tugged at the chain around his neck. "Perhaps if they are not better by tomorrow we could try the dancing. I have never before heard of sickness which struck only the children and spared the adults. Yet my infant daughter is not sick." He shook his head in such bewilderment that I felt a pang of pity for that man whom I had always disliked so much. Master Hermann must have heard their voices from inside the shop because he came out to join them. When he saw me tarrying nearby, he whacked me across the shoulders and yelled for me to get back to work. All that evening as I cleaned the shop I prayed to God that the sickness would go away. Of all the people in Hamelin, only I knew why the children were ill and the grownups were spared. Only I, and Gast. |