AN HEROIC RUSSIAN GIRL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2046, 20 July 1885, Page 2

AN HEROIC RUSSIAN GIRL.

' It was a hard winter, all over Europe, but especially hard'was it away, in the eastern forests of. Russia: The white snow lay deep over roads, and fields and forests, and it lay .so long, mid it froze so hard that all.springs were solid as rock. In the forest was a hut, and close by the hut. new baked' bread was filling the air withitssweetsmell, andthere prowledabou a gaunt shei-wolf and her two famished cubs. .. _ ' • Two young children lived in. the hut, one a little baby of a few months bid,, and one a girl of ten-. She was a little house- ; wife, and took.care of her father and the baby. Her father was a woodman, and her mother was dead. She has just laid baby down on her little bed in the corner, of the room, asleep, and she is doing her brave little best to bake some bread. In the corner above the bed, is a little come cupboard; in tlie middle of the room a long brick .oven, which is made hot by putting fire into it, not under; on the other side a larger bed, where the man slept; and before the oven a little table and a couple of stools. And this was the only hut for miles around. Behind the hut was a great pile of wood for the winter,fuel. The girl thought the oven wanted more wood to make it hot enough to bake the bread ; it had cooled while she was getting baby, to sleep, ao she went over the snow round the . corner of the hut, under the snowy boughs of the treeß, and picked, out a nice long piece of wood. When she went she left the door of the hut-just pulled to, and as she turned the corner, the hungry wolf saw her chance, and took it. She trotted up to the door, thrust in her nose, and then entered, her cubs following. When the girl came back with her clump of wood over her shoulder, as she was about to go into, the- hut, there she saw the wolf with teeth set ready to fly at her. She had all the terror of a ten year-old child at such a 'sight, and would have turned and run away, but one thought suddenly struck her—the baby! and in that thought she forgot herself utterly, she only remembered the baby, and the terrible savage nature of the wolf. She forgot she had nothing to protect either herSelf or the baby with but the clump of wood. She kept her eyes, those eyes of desperate love fixed on the wolf, she struck it, she belaboured it with .all her little might with, her club, and was actually driving it .through the doorway into the lorest again, when she caught sight of the. cubs by the bed sniffing at the bundle with the baby in it.' Two! she had no idea of them before, for her back had been turned on them, "Oh, the baby !" she cried in her heart, and turned upon cubs she began to belabor them ; and the wolf followed her ; the whole three were now at the 1 child, one at her wrists, another at her shoulder, and another at her throat. She knew then that to save herself was hopeless, and a desperate resolution took possession of her. Her club fell from her hands, and with all the wild strength of her love for baby, shookthe wolves almost off her, lifted up the bundle, stood on the bed and thrust the baby into the corner ; cupboard, shut too the door, and amid all ' her agony of oxcitement and horror had [ but one thought, that she should fasten [ the button safely. It was .done, but not one second too soon, while her bleeding fingers were fastening the door the wolves i were at her again, she was diagged backwards and fell to the ground. When the woodsman caine home he found the wolyes on the body of his [ heroic child. He drove them off, took an axe and killed them. She had i just breath left to tell him how it t happened, and point to the cupboard ! where the baby was safe. Deatli was , very near, but even in her. terrible pain i she smiled when she saw him take the baby out all safe. She motioned to him > to let her kiss it, and'she kissed it and > died. So you see, even a little girl may I stand side by side with the heroes of all > time, through her entire self-forgetful-f ness.