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Title: The little Barefoot
       A tale

Author: Berthold Auerbach

Translator: Eliza Buckminster Lee

Release Date: February 28, 2023 [eBook #70159]

Language: English

Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
             produced from images made available by the HathiTrust
             Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE BAREFOOT ***





THE LITTLE BAREFOOT.


[Illustration: THE CHILDREN KNOCK--PAGE 8.]




  THE
  LITTLE BAREFOOT.

  _A TALE._

  BY
  BERTHOLD AUERBACH.

  TRANSLATED BY ELIZA BUCKMINSTER LEE.

  ILLUSTRATED.

  BOSTON:
  H. B. FULLER AND COMPANY,
  (SUCCESSORS TO WALKER, FULLER, & CO.,)
  245 WASHINGTON STREET.
  1867.




  Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by

  H. B. FULLER,

  In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of
    Massachusetts.

  Stereotyped by C. J. Peters & Son, 13 Washington Street, Boston.

  Printed by John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.




CONTENTS.


  _CHAPTER I._

  THE CHILDREN KNOCK                    7


  _CHAPTER II._

  THE FAR-OFF SPIRIT                   16


  _CHAPTER III._

  THE TREE BY THE PARENTS’ HOUSE       25


  _CHAPTER IV._

  OPEN THE DOOR                        31


  _CHAPTER V._

  UPON THE HOLDER COMMON               53


  _CHAPTER VI._

  HER OWN COOK                         74


  _CHAPTER VII._

  THE SISTER OF CHARITY                92


  _CHAPTER VIII._

  SACK AND AXE                        112


  _CHAPTER IX._

  AN UNBIDDEN GUEST                   123


  _CHAPTER X._

  ONLY ONE DANCE                      142


  _CHAPTER XI._

  AS IT IS IN THE SONG                159


  _CHAPTER XII._

  HE HAS COME                         168


  _CHAPTER XIII._

  OUT OF A MOTHER’S HEART             183


  _CHAPTER XIV._

  THE HORSEMAN                        196


  _CHAPTER XV._

  BANISHED AND SAVED                  205


  _CHAPTER XVI._

  SILVER TROT                         223


  _CHAPTER XVII._

  OVER MOUNTAIN AND VALLEY            232


  _CHAPTER XVIII._

  THE FIRST FIRE UPON THE HEARTH      248


  _CHAPTER XIX._

  SECRET TREASURES                    260


  _CHAPTER XX._

  FAMILY WAYS                         268




[Illustration]




THE LITTLE BAREFOOT




CHAPTER I.

THE CHILDREN KNOCK.


Early in the morning of an autumnal day, when the morning mist lay
upon the ground, two children, a boy and a girl of six and seven years
old, went hand in hand through the back, or garden path, out of the
village. The girl appeared the oldest, and carried slate, books, and
a writing-book under her arm; the boy had the same in a gray linen
satchel, which was slung over his shoulder. The girl wore a cap of
white drill that reached only to the forehead, and made the full arch
of her brow the more conspicuous. The boy was bareheaded. The footstep
of the boy only could be heard, for he had strong shoes on his feet;
but the girl was barefoot. Where the path permitted, the children went
close together; but, when the hedges made it too narrow, the girl
always went first.

Upon the yellow leaves of the shrubbery lay a white frost, and the
berries of the hawthorn, the tall stems of the wild brier, looked as
though they were silvered over. The sparrows in the hedges twitter
and fly in uneasy flocks close to the children, then light again not
far from them, twittering and chirping, till at length they fly to a
garden, where they light upon an apple-tree, so that the dry leaves
rustle, and fall to the ground. A magpie flies quickly up from the path
across the fields, and then rests upon the great pear-tree, where the
ravens still cawed. This magpie must have told them a secret, for the
ravens flew up and crossed over the tree, and an old one let himself
down upon the topmost wavering branch, while the others found for
themselves, upon the lower branches, good places, where they could rest
and look out. They appeared to desire to know why the children, with
their school-books, struck into the side street, and wandered out of
the village. One of the ravens flew like a scout, or spy, and placed
himself upon a stunted willow by the fish-pond. But the children went
quietly on their way by the alders near the pond, till they came out
again into the street; then crossed to the other side of the street
where stood a small, low house. The house is entirely closed, and
the children stand at the door and knock softly. Then the girl calls
courageously, “Father! Mother!” and the boy timidly repeats, “Father!
Mother!” At length the girl seizes the door-latch, and presses it
softly up; the boards rustle and she listens, but nothing comes. Now
she ventures in quicker strokes to press the latch up and down, but
only the sound echoes from the deserted house. No human voice answers.
The boy places his lips upon a crack in the door and calls again,
“Father! Mother!” Inquiringly he looks up to his sister; and when he
looks down again his breath upon the door-latch has become hoar-frost.

From the mist-covered village sound the measured strokes of the
thresher; now rapid and loud, falling confusedly, and now with slow
and wearied strokes; then again clear and vivid; then stifled and
hollow. The children stand as though bewildered. At length they cease
to call and knock, and sit down upon scattered logs of wood. These lay
piled around the stem of a mountain-ash, overshadowing the side of the
house, and now ornamented with its red autumn berries. The children
rivet their eyes upon the door of the house; but all remains silent and
closed.

“Father brought this wood from Moosbrunnenwood,” said the girl,
pointing to the log upon which she was sitting; then she added, with a
wise look, “it gives good warmth, and there is a great deal of rosin in
it that burns like a torch, but it costs a great deal to split it.”

“If I was grown up,” said the boy, “I would take father’s great axe and
the two iron wedges and split it into pieces as smooth as glass, and I
would make a beautiful pile of it, like that of the coal-burner Mathew,
in the forest; and then when father comes home he will be glad, and he
will say, ‘Who did that?’ Don’t you dare to tell him,” and he pointed
his finger threateningly at his sister.

The latter appeared to have a dawning perception that it would be of no
use to wait for father and mother, and she cast a melancholy glance at
the boy; and then, looking at his shoes, she said, “Then you must also
put on father’s boots. But come, we will skip stones in the lake, and
see if I can throw farther than you; and, as we go, I will give you a
riddle to guess. What wood is that which warms without burning?”

“The master’s ruler when the palms catch it,” said the boy.

“No, I don’t mean that. The wood that they split makes one warm without
burning it.” When standing by the hedge she asked, “It sits upon a
little stem, hath a little red coat, and its belly is full of stones.
What may that be?”

The boy knit his brows and cried out, “Hush! Don’t tell me what it is.
It is a hip-berry.”

The girl nodded applause, and made a face as though she told him the
riddle for the first time, whereas she had often told it before to
divert him from sorrow.

The sun had now scattered the fog, and the little valley came out in
clear shining sunlight as the children turned towards the pond and
began to make the flat stones dance through the water.

In passing, the girl lifted the latch again many times, but the door
did not open, and nothing appeared at the window. They soon played,
full of joy and laughter, at the pond, and the girl seemed especially
glad that her brother was always the most skilful, and, beating her at
the sport, he became wholly gay. She, indeed, made herself less skilful
than she really was, for her stones plumped, at the first throw, deep
into the water, at which the boy laughed loud. In the zeal of their
sport, both children forgot where they were, and why they had come
there, and yet to both it was melancholy and strange.

In that house, now so silent and closed, had dwelt for some time back
Josenhans, with his wife and two children, Amrie (Anna Maria) and
Dami (Damian). The father was a wood-cutter in the forest, but also
handy at any work; for the house which he had purchased in a neglected
condition, he had repaired himself, and wholly covered in the roof. In
the autumn he intended to whiten the wall of the interior. The chalk
for that purpose was lying in a pit covered with brushwood. His wife
was one of the best workwomen in the village. Day and night, in sorrow
and in joy, she was a helper to every one; always willing, always
ready, for she had early taught her children, especially Amrie, to take
care of themselves. Industry, contentment, and domestic competency made
the house one of the happiest in the village. An insidious illness
prostrated the mother, and the next evening the father also, and after
a few days two coffins were borne on the same evening from the humble
house. The children were taken into one of the neighbor’s houses during
the illness of their parents, and they learnt their death only on
Monday, when they were dressed in their Sunday clothes, to follow in
the funeral procession.

Neither Josenhans nor his wife had relations in the place, and yet loud
weeping and praise of the dead were heard at the grave; and the Mayor
of the village led both children by the hand, as all three followed in
the procession. At the grave both children were still and quiet; they
were even cheerful, although they often asked, “Where were their father
and mother?” They ate at the table of the Mayor, and everybody was kind
to them. When they left the table, they received little tarts wrapped
in paper to take with them.

As the evening came on, the Mayor ordered a man of the name of
Krappenzacher to take Dami home with him, and a woman, called Brown
Mariann, to take care of Amrie; but now the children would not be
separated. They wept aloud, and insisted upon being taken to their
parents. Dami, at length, was coaxed by false pretences, but Amrie
could not be forced to leave her brother. At length the foreman of the
Mayor took her in his arms and carried her, by main strength, to the
house of Brown Mariann. There she found her own bed from the parents’
house; but she would not lie down upon it, and wept herself to sleep
upon the floor, when they laid her all dressed as she was upon her bed.
Dami was also heard weeping and screaming aloud, but soon he was still.
The much defamed Brown Mariann showed this evening how considerate and
tender she was for the orphan intrusted to her care. For many years
she had been bereft of her children, and as she stood by the sleeping
girl she said in a low voice, “Ah! happy sleep of childhood; it weeps
and instantly falls asleep without the twilight of hope, without the
anxiety of dreams.” She sighed deeply.

The next morning, early, Amrie went to dress her brother and to console
him for what had happened. “As soon as father comes back,” she said,
“he will take you home and pay the Krappenzacher.” Then both the
children went out to the parental house, knocked on the door and wept
aloud.

At length Mathew, the coal-burner, who lived near, came and carried
them both to school. He asked the schoolmaster to make the children
understand that their parents were dead, for Amrie especially appeared
incapable of believing it. The teacher did all that was possible, and
they became more quiet and resigned. But from the school they went
again to the parents’ house, and waited there, hungry and thirsty, till
some compassionate person carried them away.

The person who had a mortgage upon the Josenhans house took it, and the
payment which Josenhans had already made was lost; for, according to
the custom of the village, whatever had been paid was forfeited. There
were many houses in the village beside the Josenhans that remained
untenanted. All the possessions of their parents were sold, and a small
sum obtained for the children, but not sufficient to pay their board.
Thus they became parish orphans, and were of course boarded with those
who would take them at the lowest price.

Amrie informed her brother one day with delight, that she had found out
where the cuckoo clock of their parents was. Mathew, the coal-burner,
had bought it; in the evening they went and stood near the house and
waited till the clock cried _cuckoo_,--then they looked at each other
and laughed.

The children continued every morning to go to their parents’ house,
knock at the door, call and wait. Then they played at the fish-pond, as
we have seen them to-day. Afterwards they listened to a call which they
used not to hear at this season of the year, for the cuckoo at Mathew’s
called eight times.

“We must to the school,” said Amrie, and hastened with her brother
through the garden paths into the village. As they passed behind the
barn of Farmer Rodel, Dami said, “Our guardian has had a great deal
of threshing done to-day,” and he pointed to the straw that hung as a
trophy over the half door of the barn. Amrie nodded silently.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER II.

THE FAR-OFF SPIRIT.


Farmer Rodel, whose house, ornamented with red striped beams, and a
pious sentence, enclosed in the form of a heart, stood not far from
the Josenhans dwelling, had himself appointed by the Mayor, guardian
of the orphan children. His guardianship consisted in nothing more
than in preserving the unsold clothes of their father, and when he met
or passed one of the children in the street he would ask, “Have you
clothes enough?” and, without waiting to be answered, he would pass
on. Yet the children felt a strange pride in having that great farmer
called their guardian. They often stood by the great house and looked
longingly at it, as though they expected something, they knew not what,
and they sat often down by the ploughs and harrows at the corner of the
shed and read over again and again the pious sentence on the house. The
house spoke to them if all others were silent.

The Sunday before _All Souls_, the children played again before
their parents’ deserted house. They seemed, as it were, banished to
this place. There came along the wife of Farmer Landfried from the
Hochdorfer Road. She had a red silk umbrella under her arm and a dark
hymn-book in her hand. She had come to make her last visit in the place
of her birth. Yesterday, her servant in a four-horse wagon had taken
all her furniture out of the village, and early this morning with her
husband and three children she would move to their lately purchased
estate in the far-off district of Allgäu. When at some distance she
nodded to the children; but they saw nothing but the melancholy
expression upon the face of the woman. As she now stood by them she
said, “God bless you, children! what do you do here? to whom do you
belong?”

“To the Josenhans,” answered Amrie, pointing towards the house.

“Oh! you poor children,” she cried, striking her hands together; “I
should have known you, lass! exactly so did your mother look, when
we went to school together. We were good comrades and friends, and
your father worked with my cousin, Farmer Rodel. I know all about
you--but tell me, Amrie, why have you no shoes on? You will take cold
in this wet weather. Say to Mariann that Farmer Landfried’s wife, from
Hochdorf, said it was not right to let you run about in this manner;
no--you need say nothing. I will speak to her. But, Amrie, you must now
be sensible and prudent, and take care of yourself. Think of it--what
if thy mother knew that in this time of the year you went about
barefoot!”

The child looked earnestly at the woman as though she would say, “Does
not my mother then know it?”

“Ah, that is the worst of it,” she said, answering the thought of
the child, “that you can never know what good and honest people
your parents were; _that_ must elder people tell you. Think of it,
Amrie, that it will make your parents happy in heaven when they hear
people say, ‘There are the Josenhans children, they are a proof of
all goodness. There they see plainly the blessing of good and honest
parents.’”

At these last words big tears ran down the cheeks of the farmer’s wife.
Painful emotions (that had, indeed, a wholly different source), at
these thoughts and words, made them continue to flow. She laid her hand
upon the head of the girl, who, at the sight of her tears, began to
weep violently. She felt that a good soul had turned towards her, and a
dawning belief that her parents were really lost became clearer to her.

The countenance of the women suddenly lighted. She raised her eyes
filled with tears to heaven and said, “_Thou_, good God, has sent this
thought to me!” Then she turned to the child and said, “Listen! I will
take you with me! My Lisbeth was taken from me at your age. Speak! will
you go with me to Allgäu, and always remain with me?”

“Yes,” said Amrie, resolutely.

She felt herself seized from behind, and a slight blow upon her
shoulder.

“You dare not,” said Dami, embracing her, and trembling from head to
foot.

“Be quiet,” said Amrie, “the good lady will take you also. Is it not
so?” she said, timidly. “My Dami may go with us?”

“No, child, that cannot be; I have boys enough at home.”

“Then I must remain here,” said Amrie, and took hold of her brother’s
hand.

There is sometimes in the soul an emotion where fever and frost
contend. It has been so with the stranger, and now she looked upon the
child with a species of relief. Through strong emotion, and influenced
by the purest benevolence, she would have undertaken a duty whose
significance and difficulty she had not sufficiently considered; and
especially as she did not know how her husband would take it. Now,
as the child herself refused, there intervened a sufficient reason;
all was clear again, and she turned quickly from the duty. She had
satisfied her heart by proposing it, and now that the objection came
not from herself, she had a kind of satisfaction in having _offered_,
without herself taking back her word.

“As you please,” said the stranger; “I will not urge you. Who knows?
perhaps it would be better that you should grow up first. It is well
to learn to suffer in youth; the good comes easier after we have
learnt the evil. Be only honest and good, and never forget that, on
account of your parents, as long as God spares my life you shall have
a shelter with me. Remember, if it does not go well with you, that you
are not left alone in the world. Think of the wife of Farmer Landfried,
in Zusmarshofen, in Allgäu. A word more. Don’t say in the village that
I would have taken you. It is the way with people--they would blame you
because you did not go--but it is as well so. Wait, I will give you
something to remember me by.” She sought in her pocket, then suddenly
putting her hand to her neck she drew out a five stringed garnet
necklace, to which there was fastened a Swedish ducat, and, throwing
the ornament over the neck of the child, she kissed her. Amrie looked
as one enchanted upon all these proceedings. “For thee, alas! I have
nothing,” she said to Dami, who stood with a little switch in his hand
which he continued to break into small pieces; “but I will send you
a pair of leather trousers of my John’s--they are not entirely new,
but you can wear them when you are taller. Now God protect you, dear
children! If it is possible I will come to see you again, Amrie. In
the mean time send Mariann to me in the church. Remember always to be
good, pray constantly for your parents, and never forget that you have
a protector in heaven and also upon earth.”

For convenience in walking she had turned up her outer garment; now,
at the entrance of the village, she let it down and went on with quick
steps without once turning back.

Amrie kept her face bent down in order to see the keepsake upon her
neck, but the necklace was too short. Dami was chewing the last piece
of his stick when his sister, observing tears in his eyes, said, “We
shall see--you will have the most beautiful pair of trousers in the
village.”

“I will not take them,” said Dami, and spit out the last piece of stick.

“And I will ask her to give you a knife. I will stay at home the whole
day; perhaps she will come to us.”

“Yes! if she were there already,” said Dami, without knowing what he
said. His anger, and the feeling of being rejected, had excited these
suspicious reproaches.

At the first stroke of the bell they hastened back to the village.
Amrie gave over, with few words, her new ornament into the hands of
Mariann, who said, “Thou art fortune’s child! I will take good care of
it. Now hasten to the church.”

During the service both children looked constantly at their new friend,
and when it was over they waited for her at the door of the church; but
the respectable matron was so surrounded by men and women, all claiming
her notice, that she could only turn in the circle to answer, sometimes
here, sometimes there; thus for the waiting glances of the children
she found no attention. She held Rose, the youngest daughter of Farmer
Rodel, by the hand. She was a year older than Amrie, and thrust herself
constantly before the latter, as though pressingly to take her place by
the matron. Had, then, the respectable matron eyes only for Amrie by
the last house in the solitude of the village, but in the midst of the
people she did not know her? Amrie was frightened, when this thought
just dawning in her mind was spoken aloud by Dami; but while she, with
her brother, followed at a distance the great crowd that surrounded
the matron, she gave utterance herself to the same thought. The matron
vanished at last into the house of Farmer Rodel, and the children
turned quietly back.

“When she comes,” said Dami, “tell her that she must go to
Krappenzacher and tell him that he must treat me better.”

Amrie nodded, and the children separated, each to go to the house where
they had found shelter.

The fog that had been so great in the morning now came down in pouring
rain. The great red umbrella of Madam Landfried moved here and there
in the village, and the form that was under it could scarcely be seen.
Mariann had not met her, and at coming home she said, “She can come to
me--I shall not seek her again.”

The two children wandered out again, and sat down together upon the
threshold of their parents’ house. They waited silently, and again the
thought came to them, that their parents would never return to them.
Dami would count how many drops fell from the roof. But they came all
too quickly, and he shouted out at once, “A thousand million.”

“She must pass here as she goes home,” said Amrie, “and we will call to
her. Only cry out at the same time with me, and then she will speak to
us again.”

So said Amrie, for the children waited here only for the Landfried to
pass.

A whip snapped in the village; they heard the quick step of a horse
upon the road, and a carriage rolled by. Their friend sat within it.

“Our father and mother will come in a carriage to fetch us,” said Dami.
Amrie cast a melancholy glance at her brother. “Do not chatter so,” she
said. As she turned again, the wagon was close to them, and some one
nodded from beneath the red umbrella. It rolled on, only Mathew’s dog
barked after it, and made as though he would seize the spokes of the
wheels with his teeth. At the fish-pond he turned back, barked once
more, and then slipped into the house.

“Hurrah! she has gone,” cried Dami with triumph. “That was the
Landfried. Did not you know Farmer Rodel’s black horse?”

“Don’t forget my leather trousers,” he shrieked with all the strength
of his lungs, although the wagon had already vanished in the valley,
and was creeping up the little height of the Holder Meadow. The
children turned back silently to the village.

Who can tell how this bitter experience struck a tiny root into the
inner being of a child, and what may hereafter spring from it? Other
feelings may immediately overpower the consciousness of this heavy
disappointment, but the bitter root has struck into the soul.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER III.

THE TREE BY THE PARENTS’ HOUSE.


The day before “All Souls” Mariann said to the children, “Go and
find the mountain-ash berries; to-morrow we shall want them for the
churchyard.”

“I know where I can find them,” said Dami, with a truly avaricious joy,
and ran out of the village with such haste that Amrie could scarcely
overtake him. When she arrived at the parental house, he was already
upon the tree, and signed proudly to her that she should also come up,
because he knew that she could not. He plucked the red berries and
threw them down into the apron of his sister. She prayed him to break
off the stems with the berries, and she would weave a crown. “That I
shall not,” he answered, and yet there came no berry down afterwards
without a stem.

“Listen, how the sparrows scold,” cried Dami from the tree. “They are
angry because I take their food from them.” When he had plucked them
all, he said, “I will not go down again from this tree, but will stay
up here day and night, till I fall down dead. I will never go down to
you, Amrie, unless you promise me something.”

“What then?”

“That you will never wear the present that the Landfried gave
you--never, as long--as long as I can see it.”

“No!”

“Then I will never come down.”

“Not on my account?” said Amrie, and went and sat down at a little
distance, behind a pile of wood, and began to weave a crown, peeping
out, however, every moment, to see if Dami was coming. She placed the
crown upon her head, but suddenly an inexpressible anxiety, on account
of Dami, overcame her. She ran back. Dami sat upon a branch, his back
against the trunk of the tree, and his arms crossed before him.

“Come down,” she said, “Oh! come down; I will promise every thing you
wish.” In a second Dami was at her side, upon the ground.

They went home, and Mariann scolded the foolish children because they
had made crowns from the berries which were needed at the graves of
their parents. She tore the crowns apart--at the same time saying some
mysterious words. Then she took both children by the hand, and led them
out to the churchyard. Pointing to the two graves lying together, she
said, “There are your parents!”

The children looked amazed at each other. Mariann made, with a stick, a
deep cross upon both the graves, and showed the children how to strew
the berries therein. Dami was the more nimble, and triumphed because
his red cross was ready before his sister’s. Amrie looked at him with
tears, and when Dami said, “That will make father glad,” she gave him a
little blow and said, “Be still!”

Dami wept, more perhaps because he had become serious. Then Amrie cried
aloud, “for Heaven’s sake forgive me--oh! forgive me that I did that.
Yesterday I promised, that for my whole life long I would do for you
all I can, and give you all that I have. Say, Dami, that I have not
hurt you. Can you not forget it? It shall never happen again as long
as I live. Oh never! never again! Never! Oh, mother! Oh, father! I
will be good! I promise you, Oh, mother! Oh, father!” She could say no
more, but wept silently, and they say that one deep sob after another
convulsed her. Then as Brown Mariann wept aloud, Amrie wept with her.

They went home, and as Dami said, “Good-night,” she whispered softly in
his ear, “Now I know that we shall never see our parents again in this
world!” Yet in this communication there mixed a certain childish joy, a
child’s pride in knowing something, a consciousness that the parents’
lips are closed forever. When death closes the lips of one who must
call thee child, a living breath has vanished which can never again
return.

As Mariann sat by the bed of Amrie, the child said to her, “I feel as
though I were falling and falling forever! Let me have your hand.”
She held her hand fast and began to slumber, but as often as Mariann
withdrew her hand she caught it again. Mariann understood what that
feeling of endless falling signified to the child. By the inward
consciousness of the death of her parents, which she had gained to-day,
they seemed to her to hover in an undefined distance,--she knew not
whence, nor where. Not before midnight could Mariann leave the bed of
the child, and after she had repeated her prayers, who knows how many
times?

A stern scorn lay upon the countenance of the sleeping child. One hand
was crossed upon her breast. Mariann took it softly away, and said, as
though to herself, “If always an eye could watch over thee, and a hand
help thee, as now, in thy sleep, and without thy knowledge could lift
the weight from thy heart! But this can no mortal do--only He! Do thou
to my child in a strange country as I do for this.”

Brown Mariann was a person whom people feared--she was so austere
and crabbed in appearance. It was eighteen years since she lost her
husband, who was shot as he made an attack with other companions
upon the post-wagon. Mariann bore child beneath her heart, when her
husband’s corpse was brought into the village with his blackened face.
But she suppressed her agony, and washed the black from the face of
the dead, as though she could thereby wash the guilt from his soul.
Her three daughters died in close succession, after the last child was
born. He had become a smart little fellow, although with a strange dark
face. He was now a journeyman mason, out upon his wanderings in some
distant place; and his mother, who for her whole life had never been
out of the village, and never had any desire to wander, often said,
“That she was like a hen who had hatched one egg, but clucked always
secretly at home.”

It would scarcely be believed that Mariann was one of the most cheerful
persons in the village. She was never observed to be melancholy. She
would not allow people to pity her, and therefore she was disliked
and solitary. In winter she was the most industrious spinner in the
village, and in summer the most diligent wood-gatherer, so that she was
able to sell a good part of it.

“My John,”--so she called her son,--“My John,” was heard in every
sentence from her lips. The little Amrie, she said, she had taken not
out of compassion, but because she would have a living being near her.
She was rough and cross outwardly, and to other people, and enjoyed
secretly the pride of being kind, and doing right.

Exactly the opposite of this was Krappenzacher, with whom Dami had
found a shelter. Before the world he showed himself one of the most
good-humored benefactors; in secret he ill treated his dependants and
especially Dami, for whom he received but a very small compensation.
His true name was Zacharia. He received his nickname because he
once brought home to his wife what he called a daintily-prepared
roast, of a pair of doves. They were but a pair of plucked ravens,
here in the country named Krappen. Krappenzacher spent the most of
his time knitting woollen stockings and jackets, and sat with his
knitting-needles in any part of the village where tattling was to be
had. This gossip in which he heard every thing, served him to meddle
with the business of his neighbors. He was the so-called match-maker
of the place. When any of his marriages were really brought about,
he played the violin at the wedding. In this he was really a country
amateur. He also played the clarionet and the horn, when his arm was
weary with the fiddle. He was, indeed, a “Jack-of-all-trades.”

Thus were both scions, which had sprung from the same root,
transplanted into very different soil. Position and culture, and
the nature which they severally possessed, would lead them to very
different fortunes.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER IV.

OPEN THE DOOR.


All Souls’ Day, it was dark and foggy. The children were among the
people collected in the churchyard. Krappenzacher had led little Dami
by the hand, but Amrie had come alone without Brown Mariann. Many of
the people scolded at the hard-hearted woman, and some touched upon the
truth, when they said, “Mariann could gain nothing by a visit to the
churchyard, for she knew not where her husband was buried.”

Amrie was quiet, and shed no tears; while Dami, through the pitying
speeches of the people, wept freely, and especially because
Krappenzacher secretly scolded and cuffed him.

Amrie stood a long time dreamily forgetting herself, looking fixedly at
the lights at the head of the graves, how the flame consumed the wax,
the wick burnt to coal, till at last the light was wholly burnt down.

Among the people, there moved around a man in a respectable city dress,
with a ribbon in his button-hole. It was Severin, the Inspector of
Buildings--upon a journey, who had come to visit the graves of his
father and mother. His sister and her family surrounded him continually
with a certain reverence, and indeed the attention of every one was
directed towards this respectable visitor.

Amrie observed him, and asked Krappenzacher, “If he were a bridegroom?”

“Why?”

“Because he has a ribbon in his button-hole.”

Instead of answering the child, Krappenzacher hastened towards a group
to say what a stupid speech the child had made. And around among the
graves echoed loud laughter at such silliness.

But the wife of Farmer Rodel said, “I find it not so very foolish.
If Severin wears it as an honorable distinction, it is yet strange
that he should wear it in the churchyard; here where all are equal,
whether in life they have been dressed in silk or fustian. It had
already displeased me that he wore it in the church. We must lay
aside something before we go into the church; how much more in the
churchyard!”

The question of little Amrie must at length have reached the ear of
Severin, for he was seen hastily to button his overcoat, and nod
towards the child. He asked who she was, and scarcely had he heard the
answer, than he hastened towards the children at the fresh graves, and
said to Amrie, “Come, child, open thy hand. Here, I give thee a ducat;
buy thyself whatever you want.”

The child stared at him, and did not answer. But when Severin had
turned away, she said half aloud, “I take no presents,” and threw the
ducat after him. Many of the people who saw this came up to Amrie
and scolded her, and were on the point of ill treating her, had not
Madame Rodel, who had already protected her with words, now saved her
from their rough hands. She, also, desired that Amrie should at least
hasten after Severin and thank him; but Amrie was silent, and remained
obstinate, so that her protectress left her. After much search, the
ducat was found. The Mayor took it immediately into his possession, to
give it over to the guardian of the child.

These incidents brought the little Amrie a strange reputation in the
village. They said she had been only a few days with Brown Mariann, and
had already acquired her manners and her character. It was unheard of,
they repeated, that a child of such poverty should have so much pride;
and while they reproached her whole bearing on account of this pride,
it was the more apparent that this principle of independence in the
young childish soul was there to protect her. Brown Mariann did all
she could to strengthen this disposition. She said, “No greater good
fortune can happen to the poor than that they should be called proud.
It is the only safeguard; for every one would trample upon them, and
then expect that they should thank them for doing it.”

In the winter, Amrie was often at the fireside with Krappenzacher,
listening eagerly to his violin. Yes, Krappenzacher once gave her great
praise. He said, “Child, you are not stupid;” for after listening a
long time Amrie had said, “It is wonderful how a fiddle can hold its
breath so long. I cannot do it.” And at home in the quiet winter nights
when Brown Mariann related exciting or horrible tales, or magical
histories, Amrie, drawing a long breath when they were ended, would
say, “Oh, Mariann, I must now take breath, for as long as you are
speaking I cannot breathe; I must hold my breath.”

Was not that a sign of deep devotion to what was present, and yet a
remarkable free observation of the same, and of her own relation to it?

No one took much notice of Amrie, and she was left to dream of whatever
came into her mind. The school-teacher once said, in the sitting of
the Parish Council, “That he had never met with such a child; that she
was proud, but gentle and submissive; dreamy, and yet wide-awake; and
in fact she had already, with all her childish self-forgetfulness,
a feeling of self-reliance; a certain self-defence in opposition to
the world, its favor and its wickedness.” Dami, on the contrary, at
every little occasion, came weeping and complaining to his sister. He
always had great pity for himself; and when, in the rough play of his
companions, he was thrown down, he would say, “Yes, because I am an
orphan, they hurt me. Oh, if only my father or my mother knew it!”

Dami would take presents of food from anybody who offered them, and was
therefore always eating, while Amrie was satisfied with very little,
and accustomed herself to be very moderate in every thing. Even the
rudest and wildest boy feared Amrie without knowing why; while Dami
ran from the youngest. In the school, Dami was always uneasy, moving
his hands and his feet, and the corners of his book were dog’s-eared.
Amrie, on the contrary, was always neat, active, and diligent. She wept
often in the school, not because she was punished, for that was very
rare, but because Dami often received correction.

Amrie could please her brother best when she told him riddles. Both
children sat often near the house of their rich guardian; sometimes by
the wagon, sometimes by the oven at the back of the house, where they
warmed themselves, especially in the autumn. And Amrie asked, “What is
the best thing about the oven?”

“You know that I can’t guess,” said Dami, complainingly.

“Then I will tell you. The best of the oven is, that it does not eat
the bread that is put into its mouth;” and, pointing to the wagon
before the house, she said, “What is nothing but holes, and yet holds
fast?” Without waiting for the answer, she said, “That is a chain.”

“Now you have given me two riddles?” said Dami. And Amrie answered,
“Yes, but you give them up. See, there come the sheep; now, I know
another.”

“No,” cried Dami. “No! I can’t hold three; I have enough with two.”

“No, you must hear this, else I take the others back;” and Dami
repeated anxiously to himself, “chain,” “self-eating,” while Amrie
asked, “Upon which side have the sheep the most wool?”

“Baa, baa! upon the outside,” she added, gayly singing, while Dami
sprang away to tell the riddles to his comrades. When he reached them,
he had forgotten all but the chain, and Rodel’s eldest boy, whom he did
not ask, immediately cried out the solution. Then Dami came weeping
back to his sister.

The little Amrie’s knowledge of riddles could not long remain concealed
from the village; and even the rich, serious farmers, who scarcely
spoke with any one, especially not with a poor child, often stopped
from their work, and asked the little Amrie to give them a riddle. That
she knew a great number which she might have heard from Mariann, was
easy to believe, but that she could always answer new ones, excited
universal wonder. She could not cross the street or the field without
being stopped. She made it a rule that she would give no man the
solution of her riddles, and they were ashamed at once to give them
up. She knew how to turn from them, so that they were banished, as it
were. Yet never in a village was a poor child so much respected as the
little Amrie. But as she grew to womanhood, she excited less attention;
for men observe the blossom and the fruit with a sympathizing eye, but
not the long ripening process from one stage to the other. Before Amrie
left school, destiny gave her a riddle to guess whose solution was very
difficult.

The children had an uncle who lived about seven hours’ journey from
Holdenbrunn, a wood-hewer in Fluorn. They had seen him once, at the
funeral of their parents; he walked behind the Mayor, who led the
children by the hand. Since then the children had often dreamed of
their uncle in Fluorn. They were often told that he looked like their
father, and since they had given up the hope that father and mother
would come back again, they were more curious to see their uncle. But
as years passed, and they every year strewed the mountain-ash berries
on their graves, and they had learned to read the names of their
parents upon the same dark cross, they forgot the uncle in Fluorn.
In all these years they had heard nothing of him. Both children were
called one day into the house of their guardian. There sat a man large
and tall, with a brown complexion.

“Come here, children,” cried the man, at their entrance. He had a
rough, harsh voice. “Do you not know me?”

The children looked at him with open eyes. Did there awake in them the
recollection of their father’s voice? The man continued, “I am your
father’s brother. Come here, Lisbeth! And you, also, Dami.”

“I am not Lisbeth; my name is Amrie,” said the young girl, and wept.
She gave her uncle no hand; a feeling of estrangement made her tremble,
because her uncle had called her by a false name. How could there be
any true dependence on him, when he had forgotten her name?

“If you are my uncle, why did you not know my name?” she asked many
times.

“Thou art a stupid child; go immediately and give him thy hand,”
ordered Farmer Rodel; then he added half aloud to the stranger, “She is
a strange child; Brown Mariann has put wonderful things into her head,
and you know that all is not right with her.”

Amrie looked deeply wounded, and tremblingly gave the uncle her hand.
Dami had already done it, and now asked, “Uncle, have you brought us
any thing?”

“I had not much to bring. I bring myself--and you will go home with me.
Do you know, Amrie, it is not right that you will not know your uncle.
You have no one else in the whole world. Whom have you beside? Come,
think better of it; sit near me--still nearer; do you see that Dami is
much more sensible? He looks more like our family--but you belong to us
also.”

A maid came and brought in some garments. “These are thy brother’s
clothes,” said Rodel to the stranger; and turning to Amrie he
said,--“Do you see, these are thy father’s clothes; we will take them,
and you also, will go first to Fluorn, and then over the brook.”

Amrie touched, tenderly and tremblingly, first the coat of her father,
and then his blue striped waistcoat. The uncle held the clothes up, and
pointing to the worn elbows, said to Farmer Rodel,--“They are not worth
much; I don’t know whether I could wear them over there in America
without being laughed at.”

Amrie seized convulsively the sleeve of the coat. That they should
say the dress of her father was of little value; that, which she had
thought of inestimable worth; and that this dress should be worn in
America, and there laughed at, confused and confounded all her ideas,
especially those about America.

It was soon made clear to her, for Madame Rodel came in, and with her
Brown Mariann. Madame said,--

“Listen, for once, husband; this I think must not go on so quickly. The
children must not be sent in such haste with this man to America.”

“He is their only living relation, the brother of Josenhans.”

“Yes indeed, but he has not till now shown that he is a relation, and
I think they cannot do this without leave of the Parish Council. The
children have in the Parish a right of home, and they cannot take it
away in their sleep; the children cannot say themselves what they will
do, and that I call taking them in their sleep.”

“My Amrie is wide-awake enough. She is just thirteen, but as wise as
another of thirty years,” said Mariann.

“You both should be counsellors,” said Rodel.

“But I also am of opinion that children should not be taken away
like calves with a halter. Good! Let the man speak with them alone;
afterwards, let them decide what they will do. He is their natural
guardian, and has the right to take the father’s place. Listen; go with
thy brother’s children a little out of the village while the women
remain here--there speak to them alone.”

The wood-hewer took both children by the hand and left the house with
them.

“Where shall we go?” he asked the children in the street.

“If thou wouldst be our father, go home with us. There is our house,”
said Dami.

“Is it open?”

“No! but Mathew has the key. He has never let us go in. I will spring
before and fetch the key;” and Dami withdrew his hand and sprang
before. Amrie followed, as though fettered to the hand of the uncle,
who now spoke with more confidence and interest. He told her as an
excuse that he had an expensive family; that he and his wife with
difficulty supported five children. But now, he informed her, a man
who possessed large forests in America had offered him a free passage,
and after the forest was felled, a good number of acres from the best
land as a free possession. In gratitude to God, who had thus provided
for him and his children, he had immediately thought it would be a good
deed to take his brother’s children with him. He would not constrain
them, and would take them only with the condition that they could look
upon him as their second father.

Amrie, after these words, looked earnestly at him. If she only could
make out to love this man! But she feared him, and knew not what to
do. That he had fallen, as it were, out of the clouds so suddenly, and
desired her love, only excited her opposition to him.

“Where then is thy wife?” asked Amrie. She might well feel that a woman
had been milder and more suitable for this business.

“I will tell thee, honestly,” answered the uncle, “that my wife will
have nothing to do in this affair. She says, ‘she will say nothing for
nor against it.’ She is a little harsh, but only at first; and if you
are amiable towards her, you are so sensible that you can wind her
round your finger. If any thing should occur that you do not like,
think that you are with your father’s brother, and tell me alone, and
I will do all I can to help you. But you will see that now you begin
first to live.”

Amrie stood with tears in her eyes, and yet she could say nothing. She
felt this man was wholly strange to her. His voice, like her father’s,
moved her; but when she looked at him, she would willingly have fled
from him.

Dami came with the key. Amrie would have taken it from him, but he
would not give it up. With the peculiar pedantic conscientiousness
of a child, he said he had sacredly promised Mathew’s wife that he
would give the key only to his uncle. He received it, and to Amrie it
appeared as though a magical secret was to open when the key, for the
first time, rattled and then turned in the lock. The bolt bent back
and the door opened. A peculiar tomb-like coldness breathed from the
dark room that had formerly served as a kitchen. Upon the hearth lay
the cold heaped ashes, and upon the door were written the first letters
of “Caspar Melchior Balthes.” Underneath, the date of the death of the
parents written with chalk. Amrie read it aloud. “Father wrote it,”
said Dami. “Look, the 8’s are made just as you make them; such as the
teacher will not suffer. Look, from right to left.” Amrie winked at him
to be quiet. To her it was fearful and sinful that Dami should talk so
lightly here where it seemed to her like a church; yes, as though they
were in eternity; quite out of the world, and yet in it. She opened
the door. The little room was dark and gloomy; for the shutters were
closed, and only a trembling sunbeam pressed through a crack, and fell
upon an angel’s head upon the door of the stove, so that the angel
appeared to laugh. Amrie, frightened, could scarcely stand, but when
she looked again, her uncle had opened one of the windows, and the
warm air from without pressed into the room. There was no furniture in
the apartment, except a bench nailed to the wall. There had the mother
spun, and there had she pressed the little hands of Amrie together, and
taught her to knit.

“So, children, now we will go,” said the uncle. “There is nothing good
here. Come with me to the baker’s. I will buy for both a white loaf; or
would you rather have a cracknel?”

“No, no, stay a little longer,” said Amrie, always stroking the place
where her mother had sat. Then pointing to a white spot on the wall she
said in a low voice, “There hung our cuckoo clock, and the soldier’s
reward of our father; and there is the place where the skeins of yarn
hung, that our mother spun. She could spin finer than Brown Mariann.
Yes, Mariann said so herself; always quicker, and more out of a pound
of wool than any other; and all so even, there was not a single knot in
it; and see there is the ring there upon the wall. That was beautiful
when she had finished a skein. If I, at that time, had been old enough,
I would never have consented that they should sell my mother’s distaff;
it was my inheritance. But there was nobody to care for us. Oh, dear
mother! oh, dear father! if you only knew how we are thrust about, it
would make you sorry even in your blessedness!”

Amrie began to weep aloud, and Dami wept with her. Even the uncle
dried a tear, and pressed them to go now. It seemed to him that this
unnecessary heart-rending did neither himself nor the children any
good. But Amrie said decidedly, “If you go now, I will not go with you.”

“How do you mean that? You will not go with me?”

Amrie was frightened. She now thought of what she had said. And indeed
it might be taken as consenting; but she immediately answered,--

“No, of other things I know nothing now. I only meant that I would not
go out of this house till I had seen every thing again. Come, Dami,
thou art my brother. Come with me to the garret; you know where we used
to play hide, behind the chimney. And then we will look out of the
window where we dried the mushrooms. Don’t you remember the beautiful
gold piece father received for them?”

Something shook and rolled over the ceiling. All three were frightened.
But the uncle quickly said, “Stay here, Dami; and you also, Amrie. Why
would you go up there? Do you not hear how the mice rattle?”

“Come with me,” urged Amrie; “they will not eat us.” But Dami declared
he would not go, and though Amrie was secretly afraid, she took heart
and went up alone to the garret. She soon came back as pale as death,
and had nothing in her hand but a basket of straw.

“Dami will go with me to America,” said the uncle, as she entered
again. She was breaking up the straw in her hand. “I have nothing
against it. I do not know what I shall do; but he can go alone,” she
said.

“No!” cried Dami, “that I will not. Thou didst not go with Madame
Landfried, when she would have thee; and so I will not go alone; but
with thee!”

“Now, then, think of it; you are sensible enough to do so,” concluded
the uncle, bolting again the window-shutters, so that they stood in
the darkness. He pressed the children to the door, and then out of the
house; locked the house door, and went to Mathew’s with the key, and
then with Dami alone, into the village. He called out from a distance
to Amrie, “You can have till the morning, early, to decide. Then I
shall go, whether you go with me or not.”

Amrie was alone. She looked after him as he went on, and it seemed
strange to her that one man could go away from another, if that other
belonged to him. There he goes, she thought, yet he belongs to thee,
and thou to him.

Strange! as it sometimes happens in dreams that come we know not how.
So it now seemed to Amrie in her waking dream. Wholly accidentally, had
Dami spoken of her meeting with Madame Landfried.

The meeting had almost faded out of her recollection, and now it awoke
clear and distinct as a picture from out of her past dreamed life.
Amrie said, indeed, aloud to herself, “Who knows whether she also does
not suddenly, she cannot say why, think of me; and perhaps now, just
at this minute, for there in that spot, she promised that she would
be my protector whenever I went to her. There by the willow-trees she
promised. Why do the trees remain standing so that we may always see
them, and why not also a word, like a tree, that stands firm so that
we can hold by it, and why not by a word? Yes, it comes only from
this, that they WILL; a word would be as good as a tree, and what
an honorable woman said must be as firm and as true. She also wept,
because she had left her home. But it was long before, that she was
married from this village, and now has children. One is called John.”

Amrie stood by the mountain-ash tree, and laid her hand upon its stem
and said,--

“Thou! why then dost thou not go forth? Why do not men call upon thee
to wander away? Perhaps it would be better for thee in another place?
But thou didst not place thyself here. Who knows whether thou didst not
come from another place. Stupid stuff! Yes, if he were my father I must
go with him. He would not ask me. He who asks much, goes often wrong.
Nobody can advise me--not even Mariann, and with our uncle it will be
thus. If he does thee good, thou must pay him again. If he should be
severe to me, and against Dami (because Dami is not sensible), after we
have gone with him--where should we turn in that wild strange world?
Here every man knows us. Every hedge, every tree, has a well-known
face. Ah, ha! thou knowest me,” she said again looking up at the
tree. “Oh, if thou couldst only speak! Thou wert created by God! Oh,
why canst thou not speak? Thou hast known my father and my mother so
well--why canst thou not tell me what they would advise? Oh, dear
father! Oh, dear mother! to me it is so sad that I should go away--yet
I have nothing here, and no one to care for me, and yet it would be as
though I must get out of a warm bed, into the cold snow. Is that, which
makes me so sorry to go, a sign that I should not go? Is it a right
conscience, or is it only a foolish anxiety? Oh, dear Heaven! I know
not. Oh, if only a voice from Heaven would come and tell me.”

The child trembled like a leaf, from the deepest anxiety; and from
this conflict of life, which now made its voice heard within her. Again
she half spoke, half thought--but now more resolved.

“If I were alone I know certainly that I would not go. I would remain
here. It is too hard to go; and I could, if alone, take care of
myself. Ah, let me remember that! With myself I am perfectly agreed.
I am one! Yes, but what a foolish thought. How can I think I am
one--alone--without Dami! I am not alone. Dami belongs to me and I
to him. For Dami were it better,--better for him if he were under a
father who would tell him, and teach him what is right. But canst thou
not care for him thyself, when it is necessary? I see plainly that
if he were once at home there, he would remain there his life long,
and be nothing but a servant, a dog for strange people to kick. Who
knows how the children of the uncle would treat us? As they are poor
people themselves, would they not play the master towards us? No, no,
they are certainly good, and it would be beautiful if they would say,
‘Good-morning cousin,’ or ‘good-day, aunt.’ If our uncle had only
brought one of the children with him, then I could have understood it
all much better, and spoken much easier. Oh, dear! How is it all at
once so difficult?”

Amrie sat down at the foot of the tree. A chaffinch came tripping
about, picked up a little seed here and there, looked around, and then
flew away. She felt something creeping over her face. She swept it off
with her hand. It was a little winged beetle. She suffered it to creep
around upon her hand, between the mountains and valleys of her fingers,
till it came upon the point of her finger, and flew away. “Perhaps he
would tell thee where he has been,” thought Amrie. “Ah, it is well with
such a little animal, wherever he flies, he is at home. And, listen!
how the larks sing. It is well with them also; they need not think what
they must say, and what they have to do. There drives the butcher,
with his dog, a calf, out of the village. The butcher’s dog has a very
different voice from the lark, but, indeed, they could not drive a calf
with the song of the lark.”

“Where are you going with the foal?” cried Mathew, out of his window,
to a young fellow who had a beautiful foal by a halter. “Farmer Rodel
has sold it,” sounded the answer, and soon they heard the foal neigh in
the valley beneath.

Amrie, as she heard this, must again think. “Yes, an animal is sold
away from its mother, and the mother scarcely knows it, or who has
taken it away. But they cannot sell a man; for him there is no halter.
There comes Farmer Rodel with his horses, and the great foal springs
after his mother. A man is not sold; he belongs to himself alone. An
animal receives for his work no other reward than eating and drinking,
and needs, indeed, nothing else; but a man gains money as a reward for
his work. Ah, yes! I can be a servant, and from my wages I can have
Dami taught, and he can be a mason. But if we were with our uncle, Dami
would be no longer mine as he is now. Listen! the starlings are flying
home--there, above, in the house father set up for them, and they sing
gayly. Father made the house out of old boards. I know now what he
said, ‘that a starling would not fly into a house made of new boards.’
So it is with me!--Thou, tree, now I know! If thou shouldst rustle
while I am sitting here by thee, I will remain here.”

Amrie listened breathless. Soon it seemed as though the tree rustled.
She looked up at the branches, but they were motionless. She could not
tell what she heard. A noisy cackling was heard on all sides; it came
nearer, preceded by a cloud of dust. It was the flocks of geese driven
home from the Holden Meadows. While the noise lasted, Amrie looked
after them.

Her eyes closed. She was slumbering. A whole spring of flowers opened
within this soul, with the blossoming trees in the valley that absorbed
the cooling night dew, sending their perfume over to the child, who was
sleeping upon the hearth of the home she could not leave.

It had long been night when she awoke as a voice cried, “Amrie,
where art thou?” She rose up, but did not answer. She looked round
astonished, and then at the stars, and it seemed to her that the voice
came from Heaven. As it was repeated, she knew it was the voice of
Mariann, and answered, “Here I am.” Now came Brown Mariann nearer and
said, “Oh, it is well that I have found thee. The whole village is, as
it were, gone mad! One said, ‘I have seen her in the woods;’ another,
‘I met her in the field;’ and to me it seemed as though thou hadst
thrown thyself into the fish-pond. Thou needst not fear, dear child!
thou needst not fly! No one can force thee to go with thy uncle!”

“Who has said that I will not go?” Suddenly a quick wind breathed
through the tree, so that the branches rustled powerfully. “But
certainly I will not,” said Amrie, and laid her hand upon the tree.

“Come home! a severe shower is rising, and we shall have a high wind
immediately; come home,” urged Brown Mariann.

Giddily Amrie went with Mariann into the village. The night was
pitch dark, and only by the sudden flashes of lightning could they
see the houses which shone as in clear daylight, so that their eyes
were blinded, and they stood still in the darkness when the lightning
vanished. In their own village home they seemed bewildered as in a
strange place, and stepped uncertain, and confusedly forwards. Bathed
in perspiration they toiled forwards, and came at last under heavy
drops of rain to their own door-stone. A gust of wind tore open the
door, as Amrie cried, “Open!” She might have thought of a fairy tale
where, at an enigmatical word, an enchanted castle opened.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER V.

UPON THE HOLDER COMMON.


The next morning when her uncle came, Amrie declared that she should
remain at home. There was a strange mixture of bitterness and
benevolence when her uncle said, “Indeed, thou tak’st after thy mother,
who would never have any thing to do with us. But I cannot take Dami
alone, even if he would go. For a long time he would do nothing but eat
bread. Thou couldst have earned it.”

Amrie urged, “that for the present they would remain here in their
village, and later, if her uncle remained of the same mind, she, with
her brother, could go to him.”

The resolution of Amrie was somewhat shaken by the manner in which her
uncle expressed his sympathy for the children, but she did not venture
to say so, and only answered, “Greet your children and say to them,
that it is very hard for me never to have seen my nearest relations,
and as they are going over the sea, I shall probably never see them in
my whole life.”

Their uncle only said, “Greet Dami from me; I have no time to bid him
farewell,” and he was gone.

As soon as Dami came in, and learned that he was gone, he would have
run after him, as indeed Amrie was almost inclined to do, but she
constrained herself again to remain. She spoke and acted as though some
one had ordered every word and every motion, and yet her thoughts flew
on the way that her uncle had taken. She went with her brother, hand in
hand, through the village, and nodded to every one she met. She had now
returned to them all. She was on the point of being torn away, and she
thought they must all be as glad as herself that she did not go. But,
alas! she soon remarked that they not only would have willingly parted
with her, but they were angry that she did not go. Krappenzacher opened
his eyes and said, “Yes, child, you have a proud spirit, and the whole
village is angry with you for thrusting your fortune away with your
foot. Every one says, ‘Who knows but it might have been a fortune for
thee,’ and then they calculate how soon you will come upon the Parish.
Do something, therefore, that you may not come upon the public alms.”

“Yes, ah! what shall I do?”

“Madame Rodel would have willingly taken you into service, but her
husband would not consent.”

Amrie felt, that from henceforth she must be doubly brave, that she
might meet no reproach from herself or from others, and she asked
again, “Do you then know of nothing that I can do?”

“Indeed you must be afraid of nothing but of begging. Have you not
heard that the foolish little Fridolin yesterday killed two of the
Sacristan’s geese? The goose-herd’s service is now open, and I advise
you to take it.”[A]

This soon happened, and by noon of that day Amrie was driving the geese
upon the Holder Green, as they called the pasture-ground upon the
little height by Hungerbrook. Dami helped his sister faithfully in this
work.

Brown Mariann was very much dissatisfied with this new servitude, and
asserted, not without some truth, “that the odium followed a person
their life long, who once held such an office. People never forget it.
If you attempt any thing else they say, ‘Ah, that is the goose-herd;’
and if, even out of pity, they should take you, you will receive a poor
reward, and bad treatment. They will say, ‘Ah, it is good enough for a
goose-herd.’”

“That will not be so very bad,” answered Amrie; “and you have related
many hundred histories where goose-herds have become queens.”

“That was in the olden time. But who knows, thou art of the old world;
many times it appears to me that thou art not a child. Who knows then,
thou ancient soul! perhaps some miracle will happen to thee!”

This opinion, that she was not on the lowest step of the ladder of
honor, but that there was something upon which she could step down,
made Amrie suddenly pause. For herself she could gain nothing more at
present, but she would no longer suffer Dami to herd the geese with
her. He was a man, and he should be one. It might injure him if it
could afterwards be said that he had formerly kept the geese. But with
all her zeal she could not make it clear to him. He was angry with
her. It is always so. At the point where the understanding ceases,
there begins an inward obstinacy; inward imbecility passes into outward
injustice, and sometimes into injurious action.

Amrie rejoiced, that Dami could be for so many days angry with her; she
hoped he would learn to stand up against others and assert his own will.

Dami also received an office. He was apprenticed by his guardian as
Scarecrow. He turned the rattle the whole day in the quiet garden of
Rodel’s farm to scare the sparrows from the early cherries, and from
the salad-beds. But this, which in the beginning was only play, he soon
gave up.

It was a pleasant, but also a troublesome office, that Amrie had
undertaken. It was especially often painful that she could do nothing
to attach the animals to her. Indeed, they were scarcely to be
distinguished, one from another; and was it not true what Brown Mariann
had once said to her as she came out of the Moosbrunnenwood?

“Animals that live in herds, are all, each for himself, stupid.”

“I think,” added Amrie, “that geese on this account are stupid; that
they can do too much. They can swim, and run, and fly, but they are
neither in the water, nor on the ground, nor in the air, expert, or at
home, and that makes them stupid.”

“I will stand by this,” said Mariann, “in thee is concealed an old
hermit.”

In fact there formed itself in Amrie a disposition to solitary
dreaminess, which was rarely interrupted by the occurrences of life.
But, as through all the dreaming and observation of nature she
continued industriously to knit, and to let no stitch drop; and as on
the corner by the service-tree, the deepening night shadows and the
refreshing strawberries were so near each other, that they appeared to
sprout from the same root:--thus were the distinct representations of
nature and the dreamy twilight of life near each other in the heart of
the child.

Holder Green was no solitary, secluded place, filled with fairy
tales that the curious world only would willingly seek. In the midst,
through the Holder Pasture, led a field-path, to Endringen, and not
far from it stood the different colored boundary pillars, with the
armorial bearings of the two gentlemen proprietors whose lands joined
each other. Peasants passed through with every species of agricultural
implements; men, women and girls went by with hatchets, sickles and
scythes. The bailiffs of both estates often came through, and the
reflection of their rifles glittered long before and long after they
passed. Amrie was always greeted by the several bailiffs when she
sat by the way, and was often asked whether this one or that one had
passed by, but she never betrayed any one. Perhaps this concealment was
from that inward dislike that the people, and especially the village
children, have for the bailiff, who is always represented as the armed
enemy of the peasantry, going about to seek whom he can insnare.

Old Manz, who was employed to break stones on the road, never spoke a
word to Amrie. He went sadly from one heap of stones to another, and
the sound of his pick was incessant as the tapping of the woodpecker,
or the shrill chirp of the grasshoppers in the meadows and clover-field.

Notwithstanding all these human influences, Amrie was often borne into
the kingdom of dreams. Freely soared her childish soul upwards and
cradled itself in unlimited ether. As the larks in the air sang and
rejoiced without knowing the limits of their field, so would she soar
away beyond the boundaries of the whole country. The soul of the child
knew nothing of the limits placed upon the narrow life of reality.
Whoever is accustomed to wonder, will find a miracle in every day.

“Listen,” she would say; “the cuckoo calls! This is the living echo of
the woods which calls and answers itself. The bird sits over there in
the service-tree. If you look up, he will fly away. How loud he calls,
and how unceasingly! That little bird has a stronger voice than a man!
Place thyself upon the tree and imitate him,--thou wilt not be heard as
far as this bird, who is no larger than my hand. Listen! Perhaps he is
an enchanted prince, and suddenly he may begin to speak to thee. Yes,”
she said, “only tell me thy riddle, and let me think a little, and I
will soon find the meaning of it; and then I will disenchant thee, and
we will go into thy golden castle and take Mariann and Dami with us,
and Dami shall marry the princess, thy sister, and we will then seek
Mariann’s John through the whole world, and whoever finds him shall
conquer thy kingdom. Ah! were it then all true? And why could I think
it all out if it were not true?”

While the thoughts of Amrie thus soared beyond all limits, the geese
also felt themselves at liberty to stray and enjoy the good things of
the neighboring clover or barley field. Awaking out of her dreams, she
had heavy trouble to bring the geese back; and, when these freebooters
came in regiments, they had much to tell of the promised land where
they had fed so well. To their gossiping and chattering there seemed
no end. Here and there was heard an old goose holding on, after all
the others had ceased, with a drowsy or significant word, while others
stuck their bills beneath their wings, and continued to dream of the
goodly land.

Again Amrie soared, “Look! there fly the birds. No bird in the air goes
astray; even the swallows, in their continually crossing flight, are
always safe, always free! Oh! could we only fly! How must the world
look above where the larks soar. Hurrah! always higher and higher,
farther and farther! Oh, could I fly! I would fly into the wide world
and to the Landfried, and see what she does, and ask her whether she
ever thinks of me.

  ‘Thinkest thou of me in distant lands?’”

Thus she sang herself suddenly away from all the noise and from all her
thoughts. Her breath, which by the thought of flight had become deeper
and quicker, as though she really hovered in the higher ether, became
again calm and measured.

But not always glowed her cheek in waking dreams; not always did the
sun shine clear in the open flowers and in the bending grain. In the
spring came those cold, wet days, in which the blossoming trees
stood like trembling foreigners, and all day long the sun scarcely
beamed upon them. A sterile frost pierced through the natural world,
interrupted only by gusts of wind that tore and scattered the blossoms
from the trees. The larks alone kept jubilee, high in the air, above
the clouds; and the finches’ little complaining note was heard from
the wild pear-tree, against which Amrie leant. Now, in white stripes,
rattled down the hail, and the geese pointed their beaks upwards, that
the tender brain might not be hurt. There above, behind Endringen,
it is already clear, and the sun will soon break through the clouds
and the hills; the woods and the fields will look like the human
countenance, which has been bathed in the tears of grief, but now
shines out with beams of joy. The geese, which through the shower had
pressed close together, and turned their bills upward, now venture to
spread themselves apart and graze, and gaggle of the passing storm to
the young, tender, downy brood, who have never before lived through
such an experience.

Immediately after Amrie had been overtaken by the hail-storm, she
endeavored to provide for the future. She took with her, out upon the
green pasture, an empty corn-sack, which she had inherited from her
father. Two axes, crossed with the name of her father, were painted
upon it. When the showers came down, she covered and folded herself
within it, and looked out from a protecting roof upon the wild
conflict in the sky. A cold shower of snow would end in melancholy,
which would sometimes overpower her. Then she would weep over the
destiny which left her so alone--deprived of father and mother--thrust
out, as it were, from her fellows. But she early gained a power that
trial and difficulty teaches one to exert, to swallow down her tears.
This makes the eyes sparkle, and to be doubly clear in the midst of all
trouble.

Amrie could conquer her melancholy, especially when she recollected
a proverb of Brown Mariann’s. “Who will not have his hands frozen in
the cold, must double his fist.” Amrie did so, both spiritually and
physically. She looked proudly into the world, and soon cheerfulness
came over her face. She rejoiced at the beautiful lightning, and held
her breath till the thunder followed after. The geese pressed close
together, and looked strangely at the lightning.

“They,” said Amrie, “experience only good. All the clothing they need
grows upon their bodies; and for that which is pulled out in the
spring, other is already provided. When the shower is over, there is
joy in the air and in the trees, and the geese rejoice in the rare
luxuries it has left, pressing upon each other, greedily consume the
snails and the young frogs that venture forth after it is over.”

Of the thousand-fold meanings that lived in Amrie’s soul, Brown
Mariann received only, at times, the intimation. Once, when she came
from the forest with her load of wood, and imprisoned in her sack
May-bugs and worms for Amrie’s geese, the latter said to her,--

“Aunt, do you know why the wind blows?”

“No! do you know?”

“Yes; I have remarked every thing that grows must move about. The
bird flies, the beetle creeps; the hare, the stag, the horse, and all
animals, must run. The fish swim, and frogs also. But there stand the
trees, the corn, and the grass; they cannot go forth, and yet they must
grow. Then comes the wind and says, ‘Only remain standing, and I will
do for you what others can do for themselves. See, how I turn, and
shake, and bend you. Be glad that I come; I do thee good, even if I
make thee weary.’”

Brown Mariann said nothing, except her usual speech:

“I maintain it; in thee is concealed the soul of an old hermit.”

Once only Mariann led the quiet observation of Amrie upon another trace.

The quail began already to be heard in the high rye-fields; near Amrie,
the field-larks sang the whole day incessantly. They wandered here and
there, and sang so tenderly, so into the deepest heart, it seemed as
though they drew their inspiration from the source of life--from the
soul itself. The tone was more beautiful than that of the skylark,
which soars high in the air. Often one of the birds came so near to
Amrie, that she said, “Why cannot I tell thee that I will not hurt
thee? Only stay!” But the bird was timid, and removed farther off. Then
Amrie considered quickly, and said, “It is well that the birds are
timid, else we could not drive away the thievish starlings.”

At noon, when Mariann came to her, she said, “Could I only know what a
bird, all through the live-long day, has to say; and, even then, he has
not sung it all out.”

Mariann answered, “Look, an animal can keep nothing back to reflect
upon and resolve it in himself. But in man something is always
speaking; it does not cease, although it is never loud. There are
thoughts that sing, weep, and speak, but quietly; we scarcely hear them
ourselves. Not so the bird--when he ceases singing, he is ready to eat
or sleep.”

As Mariann turned and went forth with her bundle of wood, Amrie looked
smiling after her. “There goes a great singing bird,” she thought. None
but the sun saw how long the child continued to smile and to think.

[Illustration: AMRIE.--PAGE 64.]

Thus, day after day, Amrie lived. Long she sat dreaming, as the wind
moved the shadows of the branches around her. Then she gazed at the
motionless banks of clouds on the horizon, or upon the flying clouds
that chased each other through the sky. As without, in the wide space,
so in the soul of the child the cloud-pictures arose and melted away,
receiving, for the moment only, existence and form. Who can tell how
the soul of the child interpreted and gave life to the cloud, within or
without?

When spring breaks over the earth, thou canst not comprehend the
thousand-fold seeds and sprouts spread over the ground--the singing and
jubilee upon the branches and in the air. A single lark seizes upon eye
and ear. It soars aloft. For a time thou canst follow it as it spreads
its wings; for a time thou canst not determine whether that dark point
is thy vanishing lark. Now it is gone from thy eye, and soon from thy
ear; for thou canst not tell if the singing thou hearest comes from thy
vanished lark. Couldst thou listen for a whole day to a single lark in
the whole wide heaven, thou wouldst hear that the morning, the mid-day,
and the evening song, are wholly different; and couldst thou trace it
from its first trembling pipe, through the whole year, thou wouldst
find what various tones mingle in its spring, its summer, and its
harvest song. Over the first stubble-field sing a new brood of larks.

When the spring breaks in a human soul,--when the whole world opens
before it and within it,--thou canst not understand the thousand voices
that make themselves heard. Thou canst not seize nor hold the thousand
buds and blossoms that perpetually unfold and extend themselves; thou
only knowest that there it sings, and that it expands.

How quietly spring appeared again in the firmly rooted plant. There,
by the meadow-hedge and the pear-tree, the sloe blossomed early, and
was only rarely ripe. What a beautiful bloom has the whortleberry, and
what a powerful perfume it has! The little pears are quite formed, and
glow with a faint red; and the poisonous night-shade already looks
dark. Soon will come those clear, sharp-cut, harvest days, when the
atmosphere is of so clear and cloudless a blue, that during the whole
day the half-moon can be seen in the sky; then we mark how it fills
itself, and how it wanes, till only a finely-cut side, like a little
cloud, stands in the horizon. In nature, and in the human soul, there
is a pause before the goal is reached.

There was soon life upon the road that led through the Holder Green.
Quickly rattling went the empty peasants’ wagons, where sat women and
children, and laughed,--shaken by laughing as well as by the rolling
of the wagons. Then they came, sheaf-laden, slowly back, creaking
homewards. Reapers, both men and women, passed very near Amrie.

She gained of the rich harvest only what her geese, who boldly followed
the laden wagons, robbed from their hanging sheaves.

There often comes into men’s souls, with all their joy over the
harvested fields and the harvest blessing, a certain timidity.
Expectation has become certainty; and where all was so moving and
transitory, it is now quiet. The season has changed. Summer has turned
to frost.

The brooks upon Holder Green, in whose flood the geese contentedly
struggled, had the best water in the place. The passer-by often paused
at the broad channel to drink, while their animals ran before. Then,
rinsing their mouths, they ran, shrieking after them. Others, returning
from the fields, watered their beasts here.

Amrie gained the favor of many through a little earthern cup which she
had begged from Mariann. Often, when the passers came to the brook,
Amrie offered her cup, saying, “You can drink better with this.” Upon
the return of the cup rested many friendly glances, sometimes a longer,
sometimes a shorter time upon her. This did her so much good, that
she was almost vexed if any one went over without drinking. She would
stand by the brook with her cup full, running over; and, if these
signs failed, she surprised her geese with an unlooked for bath. One
day there came a Berner chaise with two stately white horses. A broad,
Oberland farmer completely filled the double seat. He drew up and
asked, “Girl! hast thou nothing to drink with?”

“Indeed I have--all ready.” Trembling, Amrie brought her cup full of
water.

“Ah,” said the Oberlander, after he had taken a good draught, and with
dripping mouth half in the cup, half out, “in the whole world there is
no such water as that.”

He began again, and winked to Amrie that she should be quiet, for he
had but just begun; and it was particularly disagreeable to speak while
one was drinking. The child seemed to understand this; and, after he
had given back the cup, she said, “Yes, the water is good and healthy.
If your horses would drink, it is for them, especially, good.”

“My horses are warm, and need not drink at present. Are you of
Holderbrunnen, maiden?”

“Truly.”

“And what is your name?”

“Amrie.”

“To whom dost thou belong?”

“To no one now. Josenhans was my father.”

“What! The Josenhans that worked with Farmer Rodel?”

“Yes.”

“I knew him well. It was hard that he must die so early. Wait, child,
I will give you something.” He drew a great leather purse from his
pocket, and felt a long time within it, and said at last,

“See, take that.”

“I do not take any presents, I thank you. I take nothing.”

“Take it. Of me you can certainly take something. Is not Farmer Rodel
your guardian?”

“Yes. Well?”

“He should have known better than to make you a goose-herd. God bless
thee!”

The carriage rolled on, and Amrie held the money in her hand. “‘Of me
you can certainly take something!’ Who, then, is the man who said that,
and why did he not make himself known? Eh! This is a groschen. There is
the bird upon it. Well, it will not make him poor, nor me rich.”

The whole day long, Amrie did not offer her cup to a single passenger.
She felt a secret timidity lest she should have another present.

When she came home in the evening, Mariann told her that Farmer Rodel
had sent to say she was to go to him immediately. She hastened to his
house. Rodel said, as she entered,

“What did you say to the Esquire Landfried?”

“I know no Squire Landfried.”

“He has been to-day on the Holder Green, and has made thee a present.”

“I did not know who it was, and there is his money.”

“That is nothing to me! Tell me instantly, honestly, and truly, did I
persuade you to be goose-herd? If you do not give it up this very day,
I am no longer your guardian. I will not be slandered!”

“I shall inform everybody that it is not your fault,” said Amrie; “but
to give the service up, that I cannot. Till the summer is over I must
remain in it. I must finish what I have engaged to do.”

The farmer’s wife, who lay sick in bed, cried out to her, “Thou art
right. Remain only so, and I prophesy that you will do well. A hundred
years hence they will say of one who is fortunate in this village,
‘This is like Brosis’ Severin and the Josenhans.’ Amrie, take courage!
thy dry bread will yet fall into a honey cup!”

The sick woman was thought crack-brained; and, from fear of madness,
Amrie, without answering, hastened away.

She soon imparted to Mariann that a wonderful thing had happened to
her. The Esquire Landfried, of whose wife she thought so often, had
spoken with her, had said something of her to Rodel, and had made her a
present. She showed her the money.

Mariann cried, laughing, “Ah, that I could have guessed. That is like
the Landfried! That is noble! to give the poor child a false groschen!”

“Why, is it then false?” asked Amrie, and the tears sprang into her
eyes.

“That is a worn-out birds’ groschen, worth only half a kreutzer.”

“He would have given me the other half,” said Amrie, gravely. And now
for the first time she showed an inward opposition towards Mariann. The
latter rejoiced at every thing wicked that she heard of people. Amrie,
on the contrary, ascribed every thing to good motives. She was always
happy. She forgot all realities in the happy dreams of her solitude.
She expected nothing from others. She was therefore surprised if she
received any thing, and was always thankful for the slightest favor.

“He has given me only half a kreutzer; that is enough, and I am
satisfied.” She repeated this proudly to herself, while she ate her
solitary supper, as though she were yet speaking to Mariann, who was
not in the house, but meantime milked her goat.

In the night, she stitched the coin between two pieces of cloth, and
hung it as an amulet around her neck, and concealed it on her breast.
It seemed as though the impression of the bird upon the money waked
the bird in the heart upon which it rested. Full of inward joy, she
sang and hummed her songs all day from morning till evening; and thus
she thought always again of Farmer Landfried’s lady. She had now seen
both, and had of both a memento, and it seemed to her as though they
left her only for a short time there; and that the Berner chaise, with
the two white horses, would come again,--the farmer’s people sitting
within,--and bring her away. And they would say, “Thou art our child;”
for certainly the Landfried would relate at home how he had met her.

With penetrating glances she looked into the autumn sky,--it was so
clear, so cloudless,--and then upon the earth, where the meadows were
yet green; and the hemp, lying in rows, spread out to dry, appeared
like a fine net upon the ground, the autumn flowers looking up
between,--the ravens flying above, their black wing feathers glistening
in the bright sunshine. No wind blew; all was calm. The cows ruminated
upon the stubble-fields; cracking of whips and songs echoed from all
the meadows; and the pear-tree shivered its branches together, and
shook down its leaves; autumn was there.

When at evening Amrie went home, she looked askingly in Mariann’s face;
she thought it must tell her that the Landfried had sent to fetch her.
With a heavy heart, she drove her geese to the stubble-field that was
so far away from the road that led to the Holder Green, where she
longed to return. But the hedges were already leafless. The larks, in
their heavy downward flight, scarcely twittered a single note,--and
yet there came no message; and Amrie felt as timid, in prospect of the
winter, as she would have been before a prison. She consoled herself a
little with the reward she received, which was especially rich. Not one
of her fledglings had fallen--not one was lamed. Mariann not only sold
the feathers that Amrie had collected, at a good price, but advised
her not to follow the old custom,--which, at the time her salary
was paid, for every goose that had been herded, to give a piece of
church-consecrated cake. Mariann advised her to exchange the cake for
good, sound bread. Thus they had bread the winter through, of very old
baking indeed; but, as Mariann said, “Amrie’s teeth were as sound and
white as those of a mouse, and could nip through every thing.”

Throughout the village, nothing was now heard but the thresher’s flail,
and Amrie said, “The whole summer long, the corn in the ear heard only
the song of the lark; now, men bruise its head with the flail, and how
different is the sound!”

“An old hermit’s soul is concealed within thee,” was the final sentence
of Brown Mariann.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER VI.

DIE EIGENBRÄTLERIN--HER OWN COOK.


A woman who led a solitary, reserved life,--who cooked and ate her
food alone,--was called her own cook,--Eigenbrätlerin,--and to such an
one was given all sorts of peculiarities. No one ever had more right,
or more inclination, to be her own cook, than Brown Mariann, although
she never had any thing to cook, except oat porridge and potatoes.
Potatoes and oat porridge were her only food. She lived always retired
within herself, and conversed willingly with no one. Towards harvest
only was she full of excited restlessness. At this time she was heard
talking with herself, and also speaking to all the men, especially
strangers, who went through the village. She inquired of them whether
the masons from here and there had returned home to their winter rest,
and whether they had said any thing of her John. When the linen which
she had been bleaching through the summer was finally ready to wash,
she remained up the whole night, and was heard to murmur to herself.
Nothing was understood, except when she divided the webs she was heard
to say, “That is for thee, and this is for me.” She said, daily, twelve
pater-nosters for John; but, on washing-night, they were innumerable.
When the first snow fell, she was wonderfully cheerful. “Now, when
there is no more work; now, he will certainly come home.”

At this time she told her old white hen, which she kept in a coop, that
she must die, for John was coming home.

Thus she had been for many years. The villagers represented to her that
it was foolish always to be thinking of John’s return. But she did not
change, and was only every year more ungracious to the people.

It was eighteen years, this autumn, since John left her. Every year
there was a notice written in the newspaper to “John Michael Winkler”
to return, even should it be in his fiftieth year. He was now six and
thirty.

The report went about the village, that John had joined the gypsies,
and his mother kept a young gypsy with her, who looked strikingly like
the lost John; he had the same dark face, and was not unwilling to be
regarded as her son. The mother placed a proof before him. She had yet
in her possession the hymn-book and the confirmation certificate of
her son. She tried them in this manner: one who did not know who had
been his god-father, or remember the day when Brosis’ Severin, with
the English woman, arrived; and later, when the new town-house fountain
was opened, and other remarkable things, must be false. Yet Mariann
sheltered the young gypsy, whenever he came to the village; and the
children in the street shrieked after him, “John! John!”

Every year the schoolmaster sent a letter to Mariann, written to John,
which she laid in the hymn-book, not knowing where to send it. It was
well that she knew not how to read, for this year he sent her the
letter of another, instead of the one desired. For now a strange report
was murmured through the whole village. Where two met together they
spoke of it, and whispered, “Say nothing to Mariann. It would kill her!
it would make her insane!”

It was, namely, information that the Ambassador in Paris had received
and imparted through all the higher and lower officers, till the news
reached the village, “That John Winkler, of Holdenbrunn, had fallen,
fighting at one of the outposts in Algiers.”

It was talked of in the village, and every one said how strange that
so many high officers should trouble themselves about the dead John;
and concluded that so certain a stream of information must be true. In
the sitting of the council, it was resolved to say nothing to Brown
Mariann. It was unjust to imbitter the few years she had to live, by
taking from her her last consolation.

But, instead of keeping the information secret, the Mayor hastened to
tattle it out at home, and the whole village, all but Mariann, were
soon in possession of the news. Every one observed her with strange
glances--they were afraid they should betray themselves--they scarcely
returned her greetings.

It would have been better if Amrie also had known nothing; but there
lay a peculiarly seducing charm in coming as near as possible to the
forbidden subject, and of course everybody spoke with Amrie of the
melancholy occurrence, warned her to say nothing of it to Mariann, and
asked “whether the mother had had no warning, no dream? Were there no
strange voices in the house?”

Amrie was full of secret trembling and fear. She alone was near
Mariann, and knew something that she must conceal from her. The people,
also, of whom she hired a small apartment, kept themselves out of her
neighborhood, and signified their compassion by giving her warning to
quit.

How strangely in life things are connected together. Through this
occurrence Amrie experienced both joy and sorrow; for the parental
house was again opened to them. Mariann moved into it. Amrie, although
in the beginning full of fear, accustomed herself to go in and out;
and, when she had kindled the fire, and drawn the water, she believed
her father and mother must come again. At last she felt herself wholly
at home. She spun day and night, till she earned enough to re-purchase
from Mathew the cuckoo clock which had belonged to her parents. She was
now too happy to possess a piece of her old domestic furniture. But the
cuckoo had suffered among strangers, had lost half of his voice, and
the other half remained buried in his throat. He could only say “cuck,”
and as often as he did that, Amrie at first added, unconsciously, the
other “coo,” but she complained of that half-tone, and especially that
it was not so beautiful as in her early childhood. Then said Mariann,--

“Who knows, that if in later years we should receive again what has
made us perfectly happy in childhood, I believe that, like the cuckoo
clock, it would have but half its sound. If I could only teach thee,
child, what cost me so much till I had learnt it--never to wish
for what happened yesterday. That, can no one give. We may try to
purchase it, through sweat and tears shaken together! It can be found
in no apothecary’s shop. Cling to nothing, Amrie--to no man--to no
cause--then canst thou fly alone!”

These speeches of Mariann were at the same time wild and timid. They
came out only in the twilight, like wild animals from the forest.
It was only with difficulty that Amrie accustomed herself to her
misanthropy.

Mariann could not endure the half-word repeating of the clock, and
hung the pendulum wholly outside so that the clock merely ticked, and
no longer gave out the hour. At length the ticking alone disturbed
her, so that at last the poor clock was no longer wound up. She said
she had always a clock in her head. It was wonderful, that although
time was very indifferent to her, she always knew the hour to an
exact minute. There was a singular wakefulness in her, watching and
listening as she always was for news of her son, and although she
visited no one, and spoke to no one, yet she knew every thing that took
place in the village,--even the most secret things that occurred. She
guessed every thing from the manner in which people met her, and from
scattered words; and, as this appeared miraculous, she was feared and
avoided. From one end of the year to the other, she ate daily some
juniper-berries. It was said that was the reason she was so active,
and that she would never see her sixty-sixth year, for no one would
believe that even now both sixes belonged to her age. They said she
milked her black goats, hours long, that gave her indeed much milk,
and she willingly milked these only. She detested milk drawn from the
udder of cows. It was called witchcraft that she succeeded always in
rearing fowls, for where could she find food for them, and how could
she always have eggs and chickens to sell? They saw her, indeed, in
summer, collect May-bugs, grasshoppers, and all kinds of worms; and in
moonless nights she was observed darting like a will-o’-the-wisp among
the graves with a resin torch, collecting the rain-worms, and talking
in a low voice with herself. Yes, it was said, that in the quiet winter
nights, alone by herself, she held wonderful conversations with her
goat and her hens.

Amrie often trembled, in the long quiet winter nights, when she sat
solitary, spinning by Mariann, and heard nothing but the half-sleeping
cluck of the fowls, and the convulsive starts of the goat; for it
appeared like witchcraft that Mariann spun so quickly. “Yes,” she once
said, “I think my John helps me spin”--and yet she complained that
this winter, for the first time, she could not always be thinking of
her John. She reproached herself on this account, and said, she was a
bad mother, for it seemed to her that the features of her son vanished
by degrees, and as though she forgot what he had done here and there;
how he smiled; how he sang and wept; how he had climbed the trees, and
sprung over the hedges.

“It would be frightful,” she said, “if one could thus by degrees vanish
from the mind, so that we could remember nothing rightly about them.”
To Amrie it was dreadful thus perpetually to hear of one that was dead
as though he yet lived. Again, Mariann complained, “It is sinful that I
can no longer weep for my John. I once heard that we could weep for one
that was lost as long as he lived, or till he is buried. When he is
beneath the ground, all weeping ceases.”

“No, that cannot be! That dare not be! My John cannot be dead! Thou
darest not do that to me, Thou, there above! But no! Forgive me, good
God, that I so strive against the wall! But open thou the door; open
it and let my John come in! Oh, the joy!--Come, sit thou there, John!
Tell me nothing! I will hear nothing! I will only know that thou art
there. It is good! It is enough! The long, long years have now become a
minute. What has happened to me? Where hast thou wandered? Where thou
hast been I have not been--but now thou art here, and thou shalt never
again leave this hand till it is cold. Oh, Amrie, my John must wait
till thou art grown. I say no more. Why dost thou not speak?”

Amrie felt as though deprived of breath, her throat was dry. It seemed
to her as though the dead stood there--a spectre. The secret was upon
her lips. She might betray it, and the roof fall in and all be buried.

Sometimes Mariann was talkative in another manner, although all related
to the one subject, the remembrance of her son. Heavily came upon Amrie
the dark questions of the order of Providence.

“Why does a child die for which the mother has waited, trembling--with
her whole soul has waited? I and my Dami, why are we lost children? We
might so gladly seize the hand of our mother, and that hand has become
dust.”

These were dark and misty questions into which the thoughts of the poor
solitary child were driven. She knew no other way to help herself out
of the labyrinth of doubt, than to softly repeat the Multiplication
Table.

On Saturday evening Mariann was willing to talk. From an ancient
superstition she would not spin on Saturday evening. She always knit,
and if she had any thing to relate, she wound off at first a good deal
of her yarn, so as not to be interrupted, and then she went on with the
thread of her story.

“Oh, child,” she always concluded, “remember this, in thee is concealed
the soul of an old hermit; whoever would live a good, exact life, that
person must live alone. Willingly receive of no one. Knowest thou who
is rich? He who needs nothing but that which he has! And who is poor?
He who wants to receive something from friends. There sits one and
waits for the hands that belong to another’s body, and waits for the
eyes that are in another person’s head. Remain alone by thyself; then
thou hast thy own hands; thou needest no other, and canst help thyself.
Hope for any thing to come to thee from another, and thou art a beggar.
Only to expect any thing from fortune, from a fellow-creature, yes,
even from God himself, and thou art a beggar. Thou standest with
outstretched hands for something to fall therein. Remain alone! that is
best--then thou hast all in thyself. Alone! Oh, how good it is to be
alone! Look, in the depths of the ant-hill lies a little tiny sparkling
stone; whoever finds it can make himself invisible, and no one can
know his appearance. But he who seeks it, must creep beneath others.
There is also a secret in this world. But who can understand it? Find
it. Take it to thyself. It gives thee neither fortune nor misfortune.
If a man knows himself and other men aright, he can make himself any
thing he pleases, but only on one condition,--he must remain alone!
Alone,--alone! Otherwise, nothing will help him!”

Thus she gave Amrie dark and half-expressed meanings, which the child
could not understand,--but who knows how much remains forever engraved
in an attentive open soul, through words half understood? Then, often
looking wildly around, she would say, “Oh, could I only be alone. But
one piece of me is under the ground, and another is wandering around in
the world, who knows where? Oh that I were that black goat!”

However gently she began, the conclusion of her remarks led always to
regret and melancholy; and she who would be always alone, and think
of and love no one, lived only by thinking of her son, and loving him
passionately.

At length Amrie thought of an effectual means to save Mariann from
this unhealthy desire to be alone. She proposed that Dami also should
be taken into the house; but Brown Mariann opposed this so violently,
that Amrie threatened herself to leave her alone. She also coaxed her
so lovingly, and presented the advantages so clearly, that at length
Mariann yielded, and gave in.

Dami, who had learnt wool-picking from Krappenzacher, sat now in the
evening in the parents’ apartment, and at night when he and his sister
slept in the store-room, they called to each other when they heard
Mariann flitting from room to room, or talking in her sleep. Through
the removal of Dami there came fresh vexation. He was altogether
dissatisfied that he must pursue this miserable work, which was only
fit, he said, for cripples. He wished to be a mason, and although Amrie
opposed this desire, for she feared her brother would never persevere,
Mariann encouraged him in the wish. She would have had all the young
fellows become masons, so as to send them into foreign countries to
inquire for her John.

She rarely went to church, but she loved to have her hymn-book borrowed
when others were going. It was to her a peculiar satisfaction to have
her hymn-book in church, especially when a stranger apprentice who was
working in the village borrowed it for that purpose. It seemed to her
that her John was praying in his own church, because the words were
spoken and sung out of his own hymn-book, and Dami had to go twice to
church every Sunday, to carry John’s hymn-book.

But although Mariann did not go to church, there was one solemnity at
which she never failed to be present, whether in her own village or in
the neighborhood. No funeral took place at which she was not present
as a mourner; and even at the grave of a young child, she wept as
violently as though she had been its mother, and yet on the way home
she would be especially cheerful. This weeping appeared to be a real
refreshment to her, for during the whole year she suffered so much
silent sorrow, that she seemed thankful when tears came to her relief.

Were her neighbors then to be blamed for looking upon her as something
unnatural, especially as they possessed a secret regarding her, upon
which their lips were closed? Upon Amrie also fell a part of this
avoidance, and in many houses where she offered help or sympathy, they
suffered her to remark that they did not desire her presence. She
did indeed display peculiarities, that appeared wonderful to all the
village. She went barefoot through all except the very coldest winter.
They thought she must possess some secret charm against sickness and
death.

In Farmer Rodel’s house alone, was she willingly received, as he was
her guardian. Dame Rodel, who had always taken her part, had promised
that when she was grown up, she would take her into her service. This
plan could not be carried out, because death first took her friend
away. While many are so happy, as to feel in later life only the
bitterness of existence, when one friend after another leaves us, and
their memory only remains, Amrie learnt this in her early youth, and
she wept more passionately at the funeral of the farmer’s wife, than
any of her children or relatives.

The farmer, indeed, complained that he must now give up the estate,
and yet, neither of his three children were married. But a year had
scarcely passed (it was the second that Dami had worked in the stone
quarry), when a double wedding took place in the village. Farmer Rodel
celebrated the marriage of his eldest daughter, and of his only son. On
the same day, he gave over the estate to his son. This double marriage
was the cause of a new name, and another life to Amrie.

Upon the green enclosure, before the large dancing-hall, the children
were collected, and while their elders danced and waltzed within,
they imitated their example. Strange, no boy or girl would ask Amrie
to dance. It was not known who first said it, but they heard a voice
exclaim: “Nobody will dance with you, because you are barefoot.”
“Barefoot! barefoot! barefoot!” they now shrieked from all sides. Amrie
stood there; the tears rushed to her eyes, but quickly exerting that
power by which she overcame both scorn and injury, she forced back her
tears, and catching up her apron at both sides she danced by herself so
gracefully and charmingly, that all the children stood still and held
back. Soon the grown people nodded to each other around the door, and
a circle of men and women formed themselves about Amrie, applauding
her; especially Farmer Rodel, who, feeling at this time doubly excited,
clapped his hands, and whistled the waltz, while the music within
played louder and louder, and Amrie contrived to dance, and appeared
to be insensible to weariness. At length, the music ceased, the farmer
taking her by the hand said,--

“Thou flash of lightning, who then taught thee to dance?”

“No one.”

“Why do you dance with no one?”

“It is better to dance alone. You need wait for no one, and your
partner is always with you.”

“Have you had nothing yet from the marriage-supper?” he asked simpering.

“No!”

“Come in and eat,” said the proud farmer, and he placed her at the
wedding-table, which continued the whole day to be served afresh. Amrie
ate very little; but the farmer would have continued his amusement by
making her drink wine.

“No,” she said; “if I drink, somebody must lead me home; I could no
longer go alone. Mariann says, ‘One’s own feet is the best carriage--it
is always harnessed.’”

They were all astonished at the wit of the child.

The young farmer came with his wife and asked her, jokingly, “if she
had brought them a wedding-present? All who eat,” he said, “must bring
a present.”

At this question the old farmer, with incredible generosity, secretly
thrust a sixpence into the child’s hand. Amrie, nodding to the farmer,
held the sixpence fast, and said to the young couple,--

“I have now the promise and the fee. Your departed mother promised that
I, and no other, should be nursery-maid to her first grandchild.”

“Yes, that was always her wish,” said the old man. And now, that which,
from fear of the orphan becoming a charge to them, he had denied his
wife, during her life, he consented to now, when it could no longer be
a pleasure to her; while he also gave himself the appearance of doing
it out of regard to her memory. He did not consent from generosity, but
from the well-founded expectation that the orphan would be serviceable
to himself, while the charge of her remuneration would fall upon
another.

The young people looked at each other, and the young farmer said,--

“Bring thy bundle to-morrow morning to our house; you can stay with us.”

“Good,” said Amrie; “to-morrow I will bring my bundle, but now may I
not take a bundle away? Give me that flask of wine, and I will wrap up
this fowl with it, and take it to Mariann and my Dami.”

They consented. Then the old farmer whispered to her, “Give me back my
sixpence. I meant you should give it to them.”

“I take it from you as enlisting money,” said Amrie, slyly, “and you
will soon see that I will quit scores with you.”

The old farmer smiled, although half angrily, and Amrie went gayly away
with money, wine, and food, to poor Mariann and Dami.

The house was shut up, and presented to Amrie the greatest
possible contrast between the music, noise, and feasting of the
wedding-apartment, and the deserted stillness of her home. Upon her way
home she knew where she could expect to find Mariann. She went, indeed,
almost every evening to the stone quarry, and sat alone behind the
hedge, quietly listening to the sound of the hammer and chisel. It was
to her a melody out of long past time, when John had once worked here,
and she had sat and listened to the sound of his pickaxe.

Amrie met Mariann just returning; and half an hour before the close of
work she called Dami, and there, on the rocks, by the quarry, was held
a wedding-feast merrier than that within the house at the sound of the
fiddles.

Dami, especially, shouted loudly. Mariann was also cheerful, but she
took no wine. “Not a drop of wine,” she said, “should pass her lips
till she drank it at the wedding of her John.”

As Amrie, under the influence of this cheerfulness, related that she
had taken service with the young Farmer Rodel, and would enter upon it
in the morning, Mariann rose in the wildest anger, and, picking up a
stone, she pressed it upon her breast, and cried,--

“It were a thousand times better that I had this stone within my breast
than a living heart! Why cannot I always be alone! alone! Why have I
suffered myself to be persuaded to admit another to my heart? But now
it is past, and forever. As I cast this stone away from me, so will I
cast away, henceforth, all dependence upon any human being. Thou false,
faithless child! Scarcely canst thou stretch thy wings, and thou art
gone. But it is better so. I am alone, and my John shall be alone.
When he comes he shall remain alone. What I would have had has come to
nothing.” And she ran forth to the village.

“She is a witch,” said Dami. “I will drink no more wine. Who knows
whether she has not bewitched it?”

“Drink it, nevertheless,” said Amrie. “She is a strange woman, and
has a heavy cross to bear. But I know how to comfort her.” Thus she
consoled Dami.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER VII.

THE SISTER OF CHARITY.


Farmer Rodel’s house was once more full of life. “Barefoot,” for so
they continued to call Amrie, was helpful everywhere, and soon made
herself beloved by all in the family. She could tell the young wife,
who was a stranger in the village, what had been the customs of the
house, and taught her to conform to the peculiarities of her nearest
relatives. She knew how to render little services to the old farmer,
who grumbled all day, and could not forgive himself, for having so
early given up the farm. She represented to him, how much better his
daughter-in-law really was, than she knew how to show; and then, when
scarcely at the end of a year, the first child came, Amrie showed so
much joy, and so much cleverness, in every emergency, that all in the
house were full of her praise; but, after the manner of people, who are
always more ready to find fault, with the smallest mistake, than to
give praise for goodness.

But Amrie expected nothing, and she knew so well when to take the
child to its grandfather, and when to take it away again, that he
should have only pleasure therein. When she took it to show him its
first tooth, the old farmer said,--

“I would make you a present of a sixpence, for the pleasure you have
given me. But stay, the one you stole from me on the wedding-day,--now,
you may honestly keep it.”

In the mean time, Mariann was not forgotten, although it was very
difficult to soften, and bring her round again. She said she would have
nothing more to do with Barefoot, whose new master would not allow her
to continue the intercourse with Mariann, especially to take the child
there, fearing, as they said, “that the witch might do him an injury.”
It needed great skill and patience, to overcome this aversion. But at
last, it succeeded. Yes, little Barefoot knew how to bring it about, so
that at last, Farmer Rodel visited Mariann many times. This was looked
upon as a real miracle by the whole village. The visits were soon again
stopped, for Mariann on one occasion said,--

“I am now near seventy years old, and have done very well, without the
friendship of any great farmer. It is not worth while for me to change
now.”

Dami also wished, very naturally, to be often with his sister; but this
the young farmer would not suffer, for he said, not without justice,--

“That he should have to feed this big, growing youth. In such a house,
he could not prevent the servants from sometimes giving him something
to eat.” He also forbade his coming on Sunday afternoons to visit his
sister. Dami had, in the mean time, anticipated the comfort of being
in so well-stored a home, and his mouth watered to be there, if only
as a servant. The stone-mason’s was a hungry life. Barefoot had much
to overcome. “He must remember,” she said, “that this was his second
craft, and that he must persevere; it was a mistake to think he would
gain any thing by changing. If good fortune came, it would come where
he was, or not at all.” Dami was for a time silenced, and so great
was the influence of Amrie, and so natural the care she took of her
brother, that he was always called, “Little Barefoot’s Dami,” as though
he were her son, rather than her brother, although a whole head taller
than his sister. Meantime, he did not appear to be subject to her.
Indeed, he often fretted about it, that he was not esteemed as much as
his sister, because he had not her tongue. This dissatisfaction with
himself and his position, was always poured out first upon Amrie. She
bore it patiently, and while he, outwardly and ostentatiously, showed
that she must submit to him, she evidently gained still more respect
and consideration. Every one said, “how good it was of Barefoot to do
so much for her brother, and to put up with his bad treatment, while
she worked for him as a mother would for her child.” In fact, she
washed and sewed for him during the night, so that he was always the
neatest-dressed boy in the village. The two pairs of welted shoes that
she received every half-year, as a part of her wages, she exchanged
with the shoemaker for a pair for Dami, and went barefoot herself.
On Sunday, only, was she seen going to church with shoes. Barefoot
was much grieved that Dami had become, they knew not how, the common
centre for all the jokes and ridicule of the village. She blamed him
severely, and told him he should not suffer it. But, he answered, “she
might prevent it, he could not.” This was impossible, and it did not
seriously displease Dami to be so treated. It wounded him, sometimes,
when all in the village laughed at him, and those younger than himself
took liberties with him, but it vexed him much more not to be noticed
by any one, and this led him to make a fool of himself, and expose
himself to perpetual ridicule.

With Barefoot, on the contrary, the danger was that she would become
the Hermit that Mariann had always predicted she would be. She had
once a solitary playmate and confidante, the daughter of Mathew the
coal-burner; but this girl had for some years worked in a factory in
Alsatia, and nothing more was heard of her. Barefoot lived so much
within herself, that she was not reckoned among the young people of the
village. She was friendly and talkative with those of her own age, but
Brown Mariann was her only confidante. Thus because Amrie lived so
apart from others, she had no influence upon the relation which Dami
held to others, who, however much he was joked and laughed at, must
always cling to companions, and could never bear to be alone like his
sister.

At this time, Dami suddenly made himself quite free, and one pleasant
Sunday showed his sister the earnest money he had received. He had
hired himself as farm-servant to Scheckennarr of Hirlingen.

“Had you told me,” said Barefoot, “I had found a better service for
you. I would have given you a letter to Farmer Landfried’s wife, of
Allgäu, and they would have treated you like a son of the house.”

“Oh! say nothing about that,” said Dami. “It is now nearly thirteen
years that she has owed me a pair of leather breeches she promised
me. Don’t you recollect it,--when we were little, and thought if we
knocked, father and mother would open the door? Do not speak of the
farmer’s wife,--who knows whether reminded with a word, she would
remember us? Who knows whether she is alive?”

“Yes, she lives yet. She is a relation of our family, and is often
mentioned there. She has married all her children, except one son, who
will have the farm.”

“Now, you would disgust me with my new service,” complained Dami, “and
tell me I could have had a better. Is that right?” His voice trembled.

“Oh! do not be so tender-hearted,” said Barefoot. “What have I said
against your good fortune? You remind me of the time when the geese
bit you. I will only say, keep to that which thou hast, and take care
that you remain in one place. It will not do to be like the cuckoo, and
sleep every night upon a different tree. I could have another place.
But I will not change. I have succeeded in making this one comfortable.
Look,--he who is every minute changing, is treated like a stranger.
They do not make him a home, because they know that to-morrow morning
he will be gone.”

“I do not need your sermons,” said Dami, turning angrily away. “To me
you are always harsh, but to all the rest of the world gentle.”

“Because you are my brother,” said Amrie laughing; and now she coaxed
the obstinate boy.

There was, indeed, a strange difference between the brother and sister.
Dami was sometimes humble as a beggar, and then suddenly proud, while
Barefoot, though always good-natured and obliging, was sustained by
an inward pride, that with all her readiness to serve, she never laid
aside.

She succeeded in pacifying her brother, and said,--

“Look, something has just occurred to me; but you must first promise
to be good, for upon a bad heart that coat must not lie. Farmer Rodel
has yet the clothes of our father. You are so large, that they will
just suit, and give you a respectable appearance when you enter the
farm-yard with the other servants; they will see that you have had
honest parents.”

Dami was consoled, and in spite of many obstacles, for old Rodel would
not at first give up the clothes, Barefoot brought him at length
to comply. Then she took Dami into her own chamber, where he must
immediately put on the coat and waistcoat. He struggled against it, but
what she had once decided upon must be done! The hat only, he would not
have, but when the coat was on, she laid her hand upon his shoulder and
said,--

“So, now thou art my brother and my father--and now the coat goes, as
at first, over the field; but there is a new man within it. See, Dami!
Thou hast the noblest Sunday dress in the world. Hold it in honor. Be
therein as honest as was our blessed father!”

She could say no more, but laying her head upon the shoulder of her
brother, her tears fell upon the newly recovered dress of the father.

“You say that I am tender-hearted,” complained Dami--“but you are far
more so.”

In fact, Barefoot was quickly and deeply affected by every thing;
her heart was of the tenderest emotion, but she was at the same time
strong, and light-hearted as a child. She was, as Mariann had remarked
at her first sleeping under the roof, of the quickest sensibility.
Waking and sleeping, laughing and weeping, went hand in hand. Every
experience and every emotion was deeply felt, but it was quickly over;
and she was herself again.

She continued to weep.

“You give me a heavy heart,” whimpered Dami, “and it was heavy enough
before, that I must go to find a home among strangers. You should have
cheered me--instead of so----so----”

“Honest thinking is the best cheering,” said Barefoot--“that does not
make one sad. But you are right. You have enough to bear, and a single
pound laid upon a heavy load may break one down. I have been stupid;
but come, I will see what the sun has to say, when the father stands
again before it. No, that was not what I meant to say. Come--now you
shall know where we must go to take leave. If you were only going a
very short distance, you must still go to this place to take leave. I
am also sad enough, that I shall have you no longer with me. No--I mean
that I shall be no longer with you. I would not govern you as people
say. Yes, yes! old Mariann is right. Alone is a terrible word. We do
not at first learn its full meaning. So long as you were there, across
the street,--even if I was a whole week without seeing you,--what did
that matter? I could see you at any moment, and that was as well as
though we had been together,--but now? Ah! well; you will not be out
of the world. But I pray thee take care of thyself. Do not come to any
harm. And if you tear your clothes, send them to me; I will still sew
and mend for you. Now come,--now we will go to the--to the churchyard!”

Dami opposed this, and again, with the excuse that he was sad enough
already, and that it would only make him worse, Barefoot yielded this
point also. He took off his father’s clothes, and she packed them in
the sack that she had once worn as a mantle when she took care of the
geese, and upon which remained the name of her father. She charged Dami
to send it back to her by the first opportunity.

The brother and sister walked on together, till a Hirlingen wagon came
through the village. Dami hailed it, and packed his bundle upon it.
Then he went hand in hand with his sister out of the village, while
Barefoot sought to cheer him.

“Do you remember the riddle I gave you about the oven?”

“No!”

“Think,--what is the best thing about an oven? Try to remember.”

“No!”

“The best thing about an oven is, that it does not eat its own bread.”

“Yes, yes, you can be merry, you can stay at home.”

“It is your own wish. You can also be merry if you do right.” She went
with her brother, till she came to Holder Common. There, by the wild
pear-tree, she said,--

“Here we will take leave. God protect thee--and fear no devil.”

They shook hands heartily. Then Dami went on to Hirlingen, and Barefoot
turned back to the village. Not till she got to the foot of the hill,
where Dami could not see her, did she venture to raise her apron to
her eyes, to dry the tears that rolled down her cheeks. Then she cried
aloud, “God forgive me for saying what I did, about being alone. I
thank thee, O God! that thou hast given me a brother. Leave him only to
me as long as I live!”

As she came into the village, how empty it seemed to her, and in the
twilight when she rocked the Rodel children to sleep, she could not
bring a single song to her lips, although she usually sang like the
lark. She could not help thinking, “Where now is my brother; what are
they saying to him; how do they receive him;” and yet she could not
imagine how it was. She would have hastened after him to tell them all
how good he was, and that they must be good to him. Then she consoled
herself with thinking that no one could entirely, and at all times,
protect another, and she hoped it would be good for Dami to have to
take care of himself.

It was already night. She went into her chamber, bathed herself anew,
braided her hair, and dressed herself freshly, as though it were
morning, and with this extraordinary renewing of the day, it seemed as
though she began a fresh morning.

When all in the house were asleep, she went over to Mariann, and sat
long hours by her bed, in the dark room. They talked to each other of
the feeling of having one away in the wide world, who was yet a part
of one’s self. Not till Mariann was asleep did Barefoot slip away. But
first she took the pail, and brought water for the old woman, and laid
the wood in order upon the hearth, so that in the morning she would
only need to kindle the fire. Then she went home.

What is that generosity which consists in spending money? It is a
power given into our hands to be again diffused, and afterwards
abdicated. It is far otherwise with that original faculty which is a
part of ourselves. To part with this, is to give a part of our life,
and perhaps a part of all that remains to us. The hours of rest, and
the freedom of Sunday, were all that Barefoot could call her own, and
these she sacrificed to Mariann. She permitted herself to be blamed
and scolded if any thing crossed the old woman’s peculiarities, never
allowing herself to think or to say,--

“How can you scold me when I give you all I possess?” Indeed she
was not conscious that she was making a sacrifice, only on Sunday
evenings, when she sat in the solitude before the house, and heard
for the thousandth time, “What a brave young fellow John had been
on Sunday;” and when the young men and girls of the village went by
singing all manner of songs, then would she become aware that she was
sacrificing her own amusement, and she would sing softly to herself
the songs the others were singing in earnest. But when she looked at
Mariann she was silent, and thought to herself that it was well Dami
was not in the village. He was no longer the butt of their scorn, and
when he returned he would certainly be a young fellow whom all would
respect.

On winter evenings, when, at Farmer Rodel’s, there was spinning and
singing, Barefoot would venture to sing with them, and although she
had a clear, high voice, she always took the second part. Rose, the
farmer’s unmarried sister, who was a year older than Barefoot, sang
always the first part, and it was understood, as a matter of course,
that Barefoot’s voice must help hers. Rose was a proud, imperious
person, who looked upon and treated Amrie almost like a beast of
burden, but less before people than in secret; and as, in the whole
village, Amrie was considered of the greatest service,--the person who
kept every thing in the farmer’s establishment in complete order,--it
was the principal concern of Rose to glorify herself by telling people
how much patience was necessary to get along with Barefoot; how the
goose-girl in every thing imitated her; and how she bore with her
merely out of compassion, and that she might not expose herself to
others.

One great object of banter, and of not always well-chosen jokes, was
Barefoot’s shoes. She continued to go barefoot, or in winter only
she wore low-cut peasant’s boots; yet she took every half-year the
customary addition to her wages, of two pairs of welted shoes. They
stood upon a shelf in her chamber, while Amrie bore herself as proudly
as though she wore them all at the same time. Her shoes numbered six
pairs, since Dami left her. They were filled with straw, and from time
to time oiled to keep them soft.

Barefoot was now completely grown up; not very tall, but
well-proportioned, strong, and active. She always dressed herself in
poor materials, but neatly and gracefully, for taste is the ornament
of poverty, that costs nothing, and that cannot be purchased. But
as Farmer Rodel held it for the honor of his family, he insisted,
on Sundays, that she should put on a better dress to be seen by the
village. After church, Amrie quickly changed it again, and went to
sit with Mariann in her every-day working-dress, or she stood over
her flowers, which she cherished in pots at her garret-window, where
pinks and the Rose Mariè flourished admirably. Although she had taken
from them many grafts to plant upon the graves of her parents, they
always doubled their growth afterwards. The pinks, indeed, hung down
in pretty spiral tufts to the arbor-walk that went round the whole
house. The wide, inclined, straw-roof of the house, formed an excellent
protection for the flowers. Barefoot never failed, when a warm summer
shower fell, to carry her flower-pots into the garden and leave them
near the rain-softened, motherly earth; in particular a little Rose
Mariè, that grew in an extremely graceful manner, like a little tree.
Barefoot would close her right hand, and strike the palm of the other
hand over it, and say to herself,--“when the wedding of my nearest
friend comes,--yes, when my Dami is married, then I will lay thee out.”
Another thought, one at which she would have blushed in her sleep, sent
the red blood to her cheeks as she bent over the Rose Mariè. She drew
in her breath as though there met her a faint perfume from the future.
But she would not suffer the thought to dwell a moment; wildly and
hastily thrusting the rose behind the other larger plants, so that she
could not see it, she closed the window.

An alarm-bell sounded! “FIRE! at Schecken’s in Hirlingen!” they soon
cried. The fire-engine was drawn out, and Barefoot went upon it, and
the firemen following.

“My Dami! my Dami!” she cried inwardly, all the way; but it was day,
and people are not burnt in the day-time. And, in fact, as they reached
Hirlingen, the house was already burnt to the ground. At some distance
from the house stood Dami, in an orchard, fastening two beautiful
well-formed horses to a tree; while all around were collected horses,
oxen, cows, and heifers.

Barefoot got down, exclaiming, “Thank God, thou art safe.” She ran to
her brother, but he would not speak to her, and with both hands laid
upon the neck of the horse, he concealed his face.

“What is the matter? Why do you not speak? Have you met with any
injury?”

“Not I--but the fire!”

“What has happened, then?”

“All my things are burnt; my clothes and the little money I had saved.
I have nothing now but the clothes I have on.”

“And our father’s clothes, are they burnt?”

“Were they fire-proof?” asked Dami angrily. “How can you ask such
foolish questions?”

Barefoot could scarcely help weeping at her brother’s unkindness, but
she felt quickly that misfortunes naturally make one harsh and bitter,
and she merely said,--

“Well, thank God that your life is spared. The loss of our father’s
clothes can never be repaired, but they would at length have been worn
out--then, so--or so--” and she wept.

“All thy tattle is a cat’s-paw,” said Dami, and kept stroking the
horses. “Here I stand as God made me. If the horses could speak, they
would tell a different story. But I was born to ill luck, however
well I do, it is of no use, and yet--” He could say no more--his voice
failed him.

“What then has happened?” asked Amrie.

“The horses, cows, and oxen--yes, all, not a hoof of them has been
burnt--the swine alone we could not save. Look! the horse there above
tore my shirt as I drew him out of the stall; the near-handed horse
would not have hurt me--he knows me! Ei! thou knowest me, Humple? Ei!
we know each other.” The horse thus spoken to, laid his head over the
neck of the other, and looked earnestly at Dami, who continued,--

“When I went joyfully to inform the farmer that I had saved all the
animals, he said, ‘That was nothing to him; they were all insured, and
he should have been paid more than their worth.’ Then I thought to
myself, ‘Is it nothing that the innocent animals should all be burnt?
Is life nothing when one is paid?’ The farmer must have guessed my
thoughts, for he asked, ‘You have, of course, saved your clothes and
things?’ ‘No!’ I answered, ‘not a thread, for I sprang into the stable
first.’”

“The more fool you,” he said.

“‘How?’ I asked, ‘for if you were insured, and the animals would have
been paid for, my clothes must also be paid for; the clothes also of my
late father, fourteen florins, my watch, and my pipe.’”

“Your pipe is smoked out,” he said; “my things were insured, but not
those of my servants.”

“I answered, ‘That is to be seen; I will try what the law can do.’”

“Oh!” said he, “if that is your sort, you may go at once. He who begins
a lawsuit, has given warning. I would have given you a couple of
florins, but now not a penny. Now be off!”

“And here I am; now I think I might take this near-handed horse with
me. I saved his life, and he would willingly come with me. But I have
not learnt to steal, and I cannot help myself thus. The best thing I
can do is to spring into that water and drown myself. I can never come
to any thing, and can never help myself again.”

“But I have something, and I will help you,” said Barefoot.

“No, that I’ll do no longer--no longer live upon you. You also have to
work hard.”

Barefoot succeeded in consoling her brother, so that he consented to
go home with her. But scarcely had they gone a hundred steps, when the
favorite horse, having broken loose, came trotting after them. Dami had
to drive the animal he loved so much back with stones.

Dami was so ashamed of his ill luck, that he was unwilling to see
any one; for it is the peculiarity of weak natures that they cannot
feel any strength in themselves; when outwardly overcome, they are
conquered inwardly--they look upon ill success as a sign of their own
weakness, and if they cannot conceal that, they conceal themselves.

At the first houses of the village Dami stopped. Mariann sent
him a coat of her husband’s, who had been shot; but Dami felt an
unconquerable repugnance to putting it on. Barefoot, who had praised
her father’s coat as something sacred and holy, now found good reasons
to prove that there was nothing in a coat--that nothing could adhere to
it from its former wearer.

Mathew, the charcoal-burner, who lived not far from Mariann, took
Dami to help him in his wood-splitting and coal-burning. To Dami this
secluded life was most welcome; he was waiting only till he could be
drafted for a soldier; then he would enlist for life, and remain always
a soldier. “In the army,” he said, “is justice and order, and no man
has trouble from his own family; food and clothing are provided, and
when war comes, a soldier’s sudden death is always the best.”

This was the way he talked when Barefoot came on Sundays to the
charcoal kiln to see him, and brought him food, and tobacco for his
pipe. She would often teach him how he could cook better food at the
wood-coals, and little puddings, that he could himself prepare. But
Dami would only have things just as they happened, and insisted,
although he might have improved his housekeeping, upon living
wretchedly, till the time when he would shine out as a soldier.
Barefoot opposed this eternal looking forward to a coming time, and
letting the present slip away. She knew that Dami indulged that secret
idleness which consisted in self-pity, and this she thought would end
in his becoming good-for-nothing. Only with the utmost exertion could
she induce him to buy himself an axe out of his own earnings. This was
his father’s, which Mathew had bought at the sale of Josenhans’ effects.

Barefoot often returned almost despairing from the forest. This did
not last long. The inward trust, and native courageous gayety, which
belonged to her disposition, expressed itself voluntarily in cheerful
songs forever upon her lips; and those who did not know her history
would never have remarked that Barefoot had now or ever a single
sorrow. The cheerfulness that arose from an involuntary consciousness
that her duty was well performed, and all her leisure devoted to the
comfort of Mariann and Dami, impressed upon her countenance a constant
joyousness. None in the house laughed as gayly as Barefoot. Old Rodel
said her laugh was just like the song of the quail. She was always so
helpful and respectful to him, that he gave her to understand that he
should remember her in his will. Barefoot did not trouble herself nor
expect much from this. She relied upon nothing but the wages, which
were justly hers, and whatever she performed beyond this for others,
she did from benevolence and a generous disposition. Was not this to be
a true Sister of Charity?

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER VIII.

SACK AND AXE.


Farmer Schecken’s house was rebuilt handsomer than before the fire.
With the winter came the drawing for recruits, but never was there
such sorrow at drawing an exemption as that Dami displayed. He was in
despair, and Amrie grieved with him, for she thought the soldier’s
discipline an excellent means to make the indolent Dami more firm and
steadfast. But she said, “Take it as a sign that you must from this
time forth support yourself like a man. You are like a little child
that cannot feed himself, but must have his food given him.”

“You would reproach me,” said Dami, “for what you do for me.”

“No, indeed, that I did not mean. Do not stand there so doleful, to see
who will do something for you, either good or bad; act for yourself!”

“That I will,” said Dami, “I will do something that will astonish you.”

For a long time he gave no hint of what he had in his mind; he went
boldly through the village, and talked freely with every one, and
worked industriously in the forest at wood-splitting. He had his
father’s axe, and seemed with it to have gained his father’s strength.

As Barefoot one day, in the early spring, met him returning from the
forest, he said, taking the axe from his shoulder,--

“Where do you think this is going?”

“Into the wood,” answered his sister; “but it cannot go alone--you must
send it there.”

“You are right. But it is going to its brother; one will strike above,
and the other beneath, and then there will be a crashing of trees like
the sound of a loaded cannon; you will not hear it--unless you choose
it. But none in this place will hear it.”

“I do not understand one word,” said Barefoot. “I am too old to guess
riddles; speak plainly.”

“Yes, I am going to our uncle in America.”

“What--to-day?” said Barefoot, jokingly. “Do you know what Martin, the
mason’s son, called to his mother? ‘Mother, throw me a clean shirt out
of the window, for I am going to walk to America.’ Those who would fly
away so easily, stay where they are.”

“We shall see how long I stay here,” said Dami, and turned without
another word into the coal-burner’s house.

Barefoot at first would have made herself merry over Dami’s strange
plan, but it would not succeed. She felt that there was something
serious in it. At night, when all in the house were in bed, she
hastened to her brother in the forest, and declared to him, once for
all, “that she could not go with him.”

She thought thus to turn him from his plan, but he answered shortly,--

“Well, but I am not grown to thee.” He seemed more decided than ever.

Barefoot felt again all the agitation of uncertainty, which she had
experienced in childhood; but she went not now for counsel to the wild
service-tree, as though that could answer her doubts, as out of all
question the conclusion was clear, “It is right for him to go; it is
also right for me to remain here.” She secretly rejoiced that Dami
could take so bold a resolution; it indicated so much manly strength of
mind; and though it affected her deeply to be left alone in the wide
world, she thought it right and noble that her brother should act with
so much healthy courage. Yet she did not entirely trust him, for the
next evening, when she met him, she said in passing--“Say nothing to
any one of your plan of emigrating, for if you should not carry it out,
you will be laughed at.”

“You are right,” said Dami, “but not because other people are to
influence me; for as certainly as I have five fingers on this hand, so
certainly I shall go before the cherries are ripe; even if I must beg
or steal the means to go. Only one thing I am sorry for, that I must go
away and not serve Schecken a trick that he should remember during his
whole life.”

“That is true man’s revenge”--Barefoot hastened to say, “that is real
wickedness of heart, to leave behind one the memory of injury. There,
over there, lie the graves of our parents--come! come with me, and
repeat there, if you can, what you have just said. Do you know who is
the most worthless of men? He who would injure another. Give me the
axe. You are not worthy to hold in your hand what has once been in our
father’s. Give up the axe, or I know not what I shall do. If you do not
instantly tear out that thought, both root and branch, from your soul,
I know not what I shall do! Give me the axe. No one shall have it who
talks of stealing and murder. Give it to me, or I know not what I shall
do!”

Dami said in a whisper, “It was only a thought; believe me, I did not
mean it, I could not do it; but as they always call me milksop, I
thought for once I would curse and threaten. You are right, and if you
wish it I will go to-night to Schecken, and tell him that I harbor no
malice, no bad thoughts in my heart against him.”

“That is not necessary; that would be too much, but since you are
reasonable, I will help you all I can.”

“It were best that you went with me.”

“No, that I cannot--I know not why, but I cannot! I have made no vow
that if you write me you go on well with our uncle, that I will not
follow you; but it is so uncertain, so in the mist, when one knows
nothing; and then I do not willingly change. I am very well here. Now
let us consider about your own affairs.”

It is the case with many emigrants, and it discloses a dark side of
human nature, that they take what they hope may remain unpunished
revenge. With others, the first act in the New World is to write home
to the officers of justice, and reveal secret crimes. It was on this
account that Amrie felt so much excitement lest her brother should
associate himself with those who strike in the dark. She felt doubly
joyful when Dami conquered his desire for revenge. No benevolent deed
is so refreshing to the soul, as that of turning another from vice and
error.

With her usual clearness of intellect, Amrie weighed all the
circumstances. Her uncle’s wife had written that they were doing
well--thus they knew the place of their residence. Dami’s savings
were very small, her own would not go far, and though Dami thought
the parish were bound to pay something, his sister would not hear of
it--“That,” she said, “should be the last recourse, if all others
failed.” She did not explain her intentions, but her first thought
had been to write to Farmer Landfried’s wife. She feared how such a
begging letter would strike the farmer’s wife, who perhaps had no
ready money. Then she thought of Farmer Rodel, who had promised her
a place in his testament: she would ask him to give her now what he
intended for her, if it were ever so little. Then it occurred to her,
that perhaps Schecken, who was now so prosperous, might be moved to
lend her a small sum--she said nothing to Dami of all this, but as she
collected his garments, and with much trouble persuaded Mariann to let
her have upon trust a piece of her treasured linen for shirts, which
she sat up all night to cut out and make,--all these preparations made
Dami tremble,--he had indeed acted as though his plan of emigrating was
unalterable, and yet it seemed to him now as though he was constrained
and forced by the stronger will of his sister to carry his plan into
execution. She even appeared to him hard-hearted, as though she wished
to get rid of him. He did not venture to say this distinctly--he
only brought forward little difficulties, which Barefoot treated as
necessary obstacles to leave-taking that would vanish when he went. She
hastened to Farmer Rodel, expressly desiring that he would give her now
what he promised to leave her in his will.

The old farmer asked, “Why are you so pressing? Can you not wait? What
is the matter?”

“Nothing--but I cannot wait.”

She then told him that she wanted to fit out her brother, who was going
to America.

This was a lucky excuse for the old farmer; he could make his
stinginess pass for wise forethought and consideration for her; he
declared he would not give a single farthing to help her to sacrifice
herself for her brother. Barefoot entreated him to speak to Farmer
Schecken. At last he consented, and boasted that he, a stranger, was
going to beg of a stranger, for a stranger, but he put it off from
day to day. Amrie would not spare him, and he, at last, took the path
to Schecken’s farm. As it might have been foreseen, he came back with
empty hands; for when Schecken asked what he intended to give, and he
answered,--

“For the present, nothing!”

Schecken said, “He was also of the same mind.”

When poor Amrie revealed to Mariann her sorrow at the hard-heartedness
of men, the old woman broke out with angry emotion,--

“Yes,” she said, “just so are men; if to-morrow one were to cast
himself into the water, and he were drawn out dead, every one would
say, ‘Had he only told me what was the matter, what he wanted, I would
so gladly have helped him! What would I not give to bring him back to
life!’ but to help him while he was yet alive, not one would move a
finger!”

Strange as it was, though the whole labor of the thing rested upon
Barefoot, she learnt to bear it cheerfully. One must depend on one’s
self alone, was her inward resolve, and instead of being disheartened
by all her difficulties, she was only made stronger and firmer. She
collected every thing that she could turn to money; she carried the
necklace she had formerly received from Landfried’s wife to the widow
of the former Sacristan, who solaced her widowhood by lending upon
pledges; even the ducat, she formerly threw back from the Surveyor, in
the churchyard, she now demanded back again. Still more surprising,
Rodel himself offered to demand of the village council, in which he
sat, a certain sum for the service of Dami. With the public money he
was always generous, as well as honest.

After a few days, he alarmed Barefoot by telling her that every thing
was settled with the council, upon the condition that Dami should give
up all claims to a home in the village. This had been understood from
the first, but now that it was made a condition, it seemed frightful to
Barefoot, that Dami should no longer have a home with her, or in any
place. She said nothing of her thoughts to him, and he again appeared
gay and good-humored. Mariann especially, encouraged him; she would
gladly have sent the whole village to foreign countries, that they
might learn something of her John. She now firmly believed that he had
crossed the sea. Raven Zacky told her that the salt flood of the sea
prevented the tears from flowing for one who was upon the other shore.

Amrie obtained permission from the farmer to go with her brother to the
next town, to make arrangement with the agent for his passage. They
were astonished to find it had already been done. The village council
had settled every thing, and while Dami enjoyed the privilege of
poverty, its duties were exacted from him. From the deck of the ship,
before it sailed into the wide sea, he must sign a certificate of his
departure; not till then was the money paid.

The brother and sister returned full of sadness; they went silently
into the village. Dami was oppressed with the feeling that something
would happen, because he had once said so, and Barefoot was deeply
grieved that her brother, at last, seemed to be thrust hastily away.

When they reached the entrance of the village, and the sign-post, upon
which were the names of the village and the district, Dami said aloud,
“Thou that standest here, God keep thee! Thou wilt be no longer my
home, and all the people here will be no more to me than thou art.”

Barefoot wept. She determined it should be the last time till after
Dami had gone. She kept her resolution, and the village people said,
“Barefoot had no heart, for her eyes were dry when her brother
departed!” They would have seen her weep. What were the tears that
were shed in secret to them? She took care to keep strong and active.
Only on the few last days, when Dami’s departure was delayed, did she
neglect her usual work. She would be always with her brother. When Rose
scolded her, she said only, “You are right,” and ran again to Dami. She
would not lose a minute while he was there. Every hour she thought she
could do something, or say something that would last him his life long;
then she tormented herself that she could say only common things, and
that she had so often disagreed with him.

Oh, those hours of leave-taking! How they press upon the heart; how all
the past and the future is crowded together into one agonizing moment,
and only one look, and one embrace, must express all!

Amrie gained time for more words. When she counted her brother’s new
shirts, she said, “These are good clean shirts; keep thyself good and
pure within them.” As she packed every thing into the sack upon which
their father’s name was marked, she said,--“Bring this back again full
of money, and we shall see how gladly they will restore to you all
your rights. The farmer’s Rose, if she remains single, will spring
over seven houses after thee.” When she laid her father’s axe in the
great chest she said,--“Oh! how smooth the handle is, how often has
our father’s hand gone over it. It seems as though I felt his hand
still upon it. So, now, I have a good motto,--‘Sack and Axe,’ working
and saving--with these, one becomes hearty, and healthy and happy. God
protect thee! Say often to yourself, ‘Sack and Axe.’ I will also often
say it. This shall be our mutual thought; our call to each other when
we are far,--far apart,--till you write to me, or come to fetch me,
or--as God will have it. ‘Sack and Axe.’ This contains all. All that we
think, and all that we gain.”

When Dami sat in the wagon, and for the last time she gave him her
hand, which she could not draw away till he started, then, in a clear
voice, she cried after him,--

“Remember, ‘Sack and Axe!’” He looked back, nodded, and he was gone!

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER IX.

AN UNBIDDEN GUEST.


Praised be America! cried the night-watch, when he called the hour of
the night, to the amusement of the village, many nights after Dami
went, instead of the usual “Praised be God!”

Raven Zacky, who was not well off himself, and always scolding about
the poor, said at going out of church on Sunday, and also when sitting
on the long bench before the village inn,--“Columbus was a true savior
for us. Yes, America is the slop-pail for the Old World. We shake
into it what cannot be used in the kitchen. Cabbage and turnip--all
will answer for those who dwell in the castle behind the house, and
understand French, _oui! oui!_ It makes good food for them.”

Through poverty of other materials, the departure of Dami was for a
long time the subject of conversation in the village, and those who
belonged to the village council praised its wisdom in freeing itself of
one who would certainly have become a charge to the parish. For he who
drives many trades will certainly at last drive to ruin.

There were naturally many good-natured people who repeated all they
said of her brother, and their ill-natured jokes to Barefoot. But she
only laughed, and when there came from Bremen a beautiful letter from
Dami (they could not believe he could have written it so correctly),
she had her triumph in the eyes of all, and read her letter many
times over to them. In her heart she was sad at having lost such a
brother, perhaps forever. She also reproached herself that she had
not put him more forward, as now he showed what a brave fellow he
was, and, moreover, so good. Now, he who would have taken leave of
the whole village as he would of the sign-post, filled a whole page
with greetings for every one. He called them the “dear,” the “good,”
the “brave.” Barefoot gained much praise whenever she showed these
greetings. She always pointed to the place, with “See, there it stands
in black and white.”

Amrie was for a long time quiet and reserved; she appeared to repent
that she had let her brother go, or that she had not gone with him.
Formerly, whether in the house or the barn, in the kitchen or the
chamber, she was always singing, and when she went out with the scythe
on her shoulder, she was still singing. Now they heard no sound from
her lips. Some burthen held back her melody. Yet there was a time when
her songs were heard again; when she put the Rodel children to sleep,
she sang softly; and long after they were asleep, her voice was heard
in tender melodies. Then she would hasten to Mariann, and fetch her
wood and water, and all else that she needed.

On Sunday afternoons, when all were seeking amusement, Barefoot
remained still and motionless at the house door, looking far into the
wide space, and into the sky. She saw where the birds were flying, and
lost herself in dreams,--sometimes of Dami, where he was, and how it
was with him; then she would fix her glance upon an over-turned plough,
or upon a hen that buried itself in the sand. When a carriage passed
through the village, she would look up and say, as to herself,--“They
are going to some one; but upon all the streets of the wide world there
is nobody coming to me--nobody thinks of me. Could I not hear them even
here?” And then it seemed as though she expected something. Her heart
beat quicker, as though somebody was coming, and involuntarily came
from her lips,--

  “The little brooks, they freely take
    Their courses to the sea;
  But ah! no friend upon the earth
    Can share his heart with me.”

“I would I were as old as you are,” she said one day, when, dreaming
thus, she entered Mariann’s cottage.

“Be glad that your wish is not the truth,” said the other. “When I
was of your age, I was merry, and weighed down at the Plaster Mill a
hundred and thirty-two pounds.”

“You are always the same, always cheerful. It is not so with me.”

“Ah, simpleton! Do not fret away your youth; no one can give it back to
you. Age comes of itself.”

Mariann easily succeeded in consoling Barefoot. Only when she was alone
an unwonted timidity oppressed her. What could it be?

Strange rumors were in the village. For some days it had been said,
that in Endringen there was to be a wedding, such as there had not been
in the memory of man. The eldest daughter of Dominic and Amelia was to
marry a rich timber-merchant of Murgthal, they said, and there were to
be gay doings, such as they never had before.

The day came ever nearer. When two girls met, one would draw the
other behind the hedge, or the haystack, and there was no end to the
talk, although they were both in a prodigious hurry. They said people
were coming from Oberland and from Murgthal, and from thirty leagues
distant, for the family had extensive connections. At the village
fountain there was lively excitement. No young girl would acknowledge
that she was going to have a new dress, that she might enjoy the
surprise the next day when it appeared. In the hurry of question and
answer, they forgot to draw their water, and Barefoot, who came last,
went first away, bearing her full bucket. What was the dance to her?
And yet she seemed to hear music in the air all around her.

The next day she had much to do in the house, and constant running,
for she had to dress Rose. Rose had a quantity of hair, and the most
was to be made of it. To-day she would try something new; something in
the Maria Theresa style, as here in the country they called a braid of
fourteen strands. Barefoot succeeded in accomplishing this difficult
work of art; but scarcely was it finished, when Rose, in a rage, tore
it down, and looked wildly out from the hair hanging over her face.
Still, she was beautiful and stately in this disorder, and she knew
it. “I will never marry into a family where they keep less than four
horses,” she said, haughtily. In fact, she had many suitors among
the farmers’ sons, but she seemed not inclined to choose among them.
She now decided upon the country custom of two braids down her back,
ornamented with red ribbons reaching to the ground. She stood there
ready dressed, and wanted only a nosegay to complete her adornment.
She had allowed her own flowers to wither; and, spite of all Barefoot
could say, she must rob all the blossoms from the beautifully cherished
flowers in the window. At length she also demanded the little dwarf
Rose-Mariè; but Barefoot would be torn to pieces before she would cut
that. Rose scoffed and laughed, scolded, and called her “only a simple
Goose-girl, who was now so selfish, though they had taken her into the
family through charity.” Barefoot said not a word, but she gave Rose
a look which made her cast down her eyes. Just then a red rosette had
become loose upon her left shoe, and Amrie knelt down to fasten it;
when partly in joke, and partly through repentance of her ill-nature,
Rose exclaimed, “I have taken a fancy, Barefoot, that you shall also go
to the dance to-day.”

“Do not laugh at me,” said Barefoot. “What have I done?”

“I am not laughing,” Rose declared. “Once in a life you shall dance,
for you are also a young girl, and there will be some of your condition
there. Our stable-boy is going, and some peasant’s son will dance with
you. I will see that you have a partner.”

“Leave me in peace,” said Amrie, still kneeling, “or I will prick you.”

“Rose is right,” exclaimed the farmer’s wife, who had till now been
silent; “I will never say a good word for you again, if you do not
consent to go to this dance. Come, sit down, and I, for once, will be
your dressing-maid.”

Crimson blushes succeeded each other over Barefoot’s face, as she sat
there, served by her mistress; and when she turned her hair back from
her forehead, she felt as though she should sink down for shame. Her
mistress said, “I will dress your hair as the Algäuer girls wear it.
That will be very becoming to you, for you look like an Algäuer--so
plump and brown. Yes, you look like one of the daughters of Farmer
Landfried of Zusmarshofen.”

“Why so! How like her?” asked Barefoot; and her whole frame trembled.
Why was it that she should just now be reminded of this friend that,
from a child, she had never forgotten; and who, from that time, had
remained in her memory like a benevolent fairy in a fairy tale. She had
no ring that she could turn to make her appear. In her mind only could
she conjure her hither, and that only involuntarily.

“Keep quiet, or I shall pull thy hair,” said her mistress. Barefoot
sat motionless,--scarcely breathing. As she sat there with her hands
pressed together, and her mistress sometimes bending over her, she felt
her warm breath on her face--she seemed to herself as though she were
suddenly enchanted. She said not a word, and sank her glances humbly to
the ground, lest she should scare away the enchantment.

“Would that I could dress you thus for your own wedding,” said her
mistress, who to-day overflowed with benevolence. “I would give thee
a right honest farmer, and no one would be taken in by thee. But
now-a-days things do not happen thus. Money runs after money. However,
do not be discouraged; as long as I live, you shall want for nothing;
and if I should die--for I have sad thoughts when I think of my heavy
hour--promise that you will never leave my children, but be a mother to
them.”

“Oh, Heavens! how can you have such thoughts?” cried Barefoot, and
tears ran down her cheeks. “It is a sin! for it is sinful to allow bad
thoughts to come into one’s mind.”

“Yes, yes! you are right,” said her mistress. “But wait--sit still! I
will fetch my necklace. You must wear that on your neck.”

“Oh, no, no! I can wear nothing which is not my own. I should sink to
the earth with shame.”

“Yes! but you cannot go thus. Perhaps you have something of your own
that you can wear.”

Barefoot related that she had once a necklace which she received
when a child, from Madam Landfried; but to provide funds for Dami’s
emigration, she had pledged it to the Sacristan’s widow.

Her mistress exacted a promise that she would not move, nor look at
herself in the glass, till she came back, and hastened forth to reclaim
the ornament, and herself became surety for the payment.

What timidity ran through the soul of Barefoot, as she sat there
waiting. She, the servant, so humbly served--and, in fact, she sat as
though enchanted. When she thought of the dance she trembled--she was
treated so kindly; and who could tell that she might not be thrust out
of the dance, with none to care for her, and all her outward ornaments
and her inward pleasure be in vain. “No,” she said to herself, “if
I have only that which I now enjoy, it is sufficient. If I must
immediately undress and remain at home, I have still had the pleasure.”

Her mistress came in with the necklace in her hand. Praise of the
ornament, and blame of the Sacristan’s widow, who could take such
shameful interest from a poor girl, were strangely blended together.
She promised herself to pay the pledge, and gradually deduct it from
Barefoot’s wages.

Now, at last, she was permitted to look at herself. Her mistress held
the glass before her, and from the expression of both there shone, as
it were, a mutual hymn of joy.

“I do not know myself! I do not know myself!” cried Barefoot, pressing
both hands upon her face. “Oh, that my mother could see me thus! But
she will certainly bless you for being so good to me. Yes, from Heaven
she will support you in your heavy hour. You need fear nothing.”

“Ah, a different face, not that melancholy one, must go to the dance,”
said her mistress. “But it will come when you hear the music.”

“I think I hear it now,” said Barefoot. “Yes--listen--there it is.” In
fact, there now came on through the village the leading wagon, covered
with green branches, in which sat all the musicians. Raven Zacky stood
up in the midst and blew a trumpet.

It was time to go, and all the village hastened after. Bernese
chaises, with one horse and with two, from this village and from the
neighborhood, passing through, were driven as though running for a
wager. Rose sat on the front seat with her brother, while Barefoot went
in the basket behind. As long as they were in the village she kept
her eyes cast down; only when passing the house of her parents she
looked up, as Mariann stood there to greet her. The old cock upon the
wood-pile crowed, and the service-tree nodded a “God bless you, on the
way.”

Now they pass through the valley where old Manz was breaking stones,
and now over the Holder Common, where an old woman took care of the
geese. Barefoot gave her a friendly nod. “Oh, Heavens,” she thought,
“how did I come to this--that I can sit here so proud and well dressed.
It is but an hour’s ride to Endringen. It seems as though we had but
just started, and we must already alight.”

Rose was immediately surrounded and greeted by friends. “Is that a
sister of your brother’s wife that you have brought with you?” her
friends asked.

“No! it is only our maid,” said Rose. Some beggars from Holdenbrunn,
who were there, looked astonished; and after observing her a long time,
cried “Ei! yes; that is Barefoot.”

These little words, “only our maid,” sunk deeply into Barefoot’s mind;
but she recovered herself, and smiling, said to herself, “Let not a
little word spoil thy pleasure. If you begin so, you will continually
tread upon thorns.”

Rose took her aside and said, “Go now upon the dancing-platform, or
wherever you find acquaintance. By and by when the music begins, I will
see you again.”

Yes, there stood Barefoot, as though deserted. It seemed to her as
though she had stolen her clothes, and had no right to be there. She
was an intruder. “What was I thinking of,” she asked herself, “when
I consented to come to a marriage-feast?” and she gladly would have
returned home. She went in and out through the village, and passed the
beautiful house that was built for the Brosis, and where there was much
life to-day; for the mother of the Brosis, with her sons and daughters,
had their summer residence there. Barefoot went again into the village,
walked about, but would not look round, though she longed to have some
one call her, that she might find a companion.

At the end of the village she met a genteel horseman upon a white
horse, who was riding into the village. He wore the dress of a farmer
of another part of the country, and sat on his horse proudly. He
stopped, and while he held out his riding-whip in his right hand, he
patted with the left the neck of his horse. “Good-morning, pretty
maiden,” he said. “Already tired of the dance?”

“Of unnecessary questions I am already tired,” she answered.

The horseman rode on, and Amrie sat a long time behind a hazel-hedge,
where thoughts crowded upon her, and her cheeks crimsoned with shame
and anger at the petulant answer she had given to a harmless question.
Perplexity, and an incomprehensible internal agitation came over her.
Involuntarily the song of the lovers came to her lips:

  “There were two lovers in Allgäu,
  They were to each other so dear.”

Full of joy she had begun the day, and now she wished herself dead.
“Here, behind this hedge,” she said, “to fall asleep and wake no more.
Oh, how delightful that would be. There is no more joy for me on earth.
Why strive to obtain it? How the crickets chirp in the grass, while a
warm perfume arises from it. The hedge-sparrows twitter continually as
though they strove to bring out deeper, and fresher, and more musical
warblings; as though they could not express or say what out of the
whole heart they had to say. Far above sing the larks. Every bird sings
for himself--none listen--no bird checks another, and yet, all----”

Never in her life before had she fallen asleep in the day-time--and
now, to sleep in the bright morning! She had drawn her handkerchief
over her eyes, but the sunbeams kissed her closed lips, that in sleep
were pressed poutingly together, and the light red upon her chin grew
deeper. She slept perhaps an hour, then starting, awoke. The horseman
upon the white horse had ridden back, and the horse was pressing with
both fore feet upon her breast.

It was only a dream. Amrie looked around as though she had suddenly
fallen from heaven. She scarcely knew where she was, but the sound of
the music quickly aroused all her faculties, and she went with new
strength back to the village where increased gayety inspired every
one. She had rested, and all was forgotten that had annoyed her in
the morning. Now should partners come, she could dance till morning,
without rest or weariness.

A fresh bloom, like that of a child, lay upon her cheeks, and every one
looked astonished at her beauty. She went to the dancing-platform. The
music sounded from an empty room. There were no dancers there, only the
girls that had come to wait upon the guests, were twirling round with
each other. Raven Zacky looked long at Amrie--then shook his head--he
appeared not to know her. She met Dominic, the farmer from the Ridge,
who that day was in his glory.

“Pardon me,” he said, “Does the maiden belong to the marriage-guests?”

“No, I am only a maid, and came with the daughter of the house, Rose,
from Rodel Farm.”

“Good. Go up then to the farm to my wife, and tell her that I sent you
to help her. They cannot have too many hands to-day.”

“As you please, willingly,” said Amrie, and went immediately. On
the way she could not help thinking that Dominic had once been a
servant--and now-- But such a thing does not happen once in a hundred
years. It cost much blood also, to elevate him to this rank.

Amelia welcomed the newly-arrived help, and drawing off Amrie’s gay
spencer, she gave her a great apron with a breast cover. She must
refresh herself with food before she began work. Amrie consented, and
with the first word, won the good will of Amelia. “I am hungry,” she
said, “and I will not give you trouble to press me to eat.”

Amrie remained in the kitchen, and gave such excellent assistance to
the waiters, and knew so well how all the dishes should be arranged,
that Dominic’s wife said, “You two Amries, you and my niece Amrie, can
now manage every thing so well, that I will repair to the guests.”

Amrie, from Siebenhöfen, the niece, who by all the neighborhood was
called proud and haughty, was so wonderfully friendly and condescending
to our Amrie, that Amelia said to her, “It is a pity you are not a
young man, for I believe Amrie would marry you at once, and not send
you off as she does all her other suitors.”

“I have a brother at her service,” said Amrie; “but he is in America.”

“There let him stay,” said the other Amrie. “It is a pity we could not
send all the young fellows there, and we remain by ourselves.”

Barefoot would not leave the kitchen till every thing was in its place.
When she drew off her apron, her dress was as clean and unwrinkled as
when she first put it on.

“You must be tired, and not able to dance,” said her friend, as, with a
present, Amrie took leave.

“Why tired? This is only play. Believe me, I am better for having
done something to-day. I could not be happy to pass a whole day in
amusement; this was certainly the reason I was so melancholy this
morning. Something was the matter; but now I am just in the humor for
gayety. I could dance all day, could I but find partners.”

Amelia thought she could show Barefoot no greater honor, than to take
her as an equal all over the house, and into the bride’s chamber,
where she showed her the large chest with the wedding-presents. Then
she opened the tall, blue painted presses, with the name and the year
marked upon them, all filled with the dowry of numerous pieces of
linen tied with gay ribbons, and with borders worked with pinks. In the
clothes-presses were at least thirty dresses, and beside the high beds,
the cradle, the distaff and beautiful spindles, it was hung round with
children’s playthings, presented by her young companions.

“Ah,” said Barefoot, “how happy is such a child, in such a house!”

“Art thou envious?” asked Amelia; then remembering that she was showing
all these things to a poor girl, she added, “Believe me, these things
do not make one happy. Many are happy who have not received even a
stocking from their parents.”

“Ah, yes, I know that. I am not envious of these riches, but rather
that your child has you and so many friends to thank for all these,
and for all she has received from them. Such garments, the gift of a
mother, must keep one doubly warm.”

Amelia showed her benevolence towards Barefoot, by going with her to
the door of the court-yard, and treating her with as much respect as
though she had eight horses in the stall.

All was lively confusion, when Amrie came again upon the
dancing-ground. She remained at first, standing timidly upon the
platform. Where now were the troops of children, who formerly enjoyed
here a foretaste of the joys that awaited them in after-life. Ah!
indeed, all that is now forbidden by the High States Government. The
Church and School Commission have banished the children. They dare not
turn in the waltz, as they did in Amrie’s childhood. This is also a
quiet sword thrust from the green-cloth.

Over the now empty floor, where a guest occasionally passed, walked up
and down a solitary policeman. When he saw Amrie coming, as it were,
beaming with light and joy, he went up to her, and said,--

“Good-evening, Amrie! so you are here also?”

Amrie trembled, and turned pale as death. Had she done any thing wrong?
Had she gone into the stable with a bare lighted candle? She examined
her whole life as far as she could remember, and yet he was as familiar
as though she were already a transported criminal. She stood trembling
as though her guilt were manifest. At last she said,--“Thank you, I
know nothing about it, or why we are so intimate. Do you want any
thing?”

“Oh, ho! How proud we are! I shall not eat you! Will you give me a
plain answer. Why are you so angry?”

“I am not angry. I would not hurt anybody. I am only a stupid girl.”

“Do not pretend to be so innocent.”

“How do you know any thing about me?”

“Because you flaunt round so with the light.”

“Where? When? How do I flaunt round with a light? I always take a
lantern when I go into the stable.”

The policeman laughed, and said,--“There! there, with your brown
sparklers. There you flaunt with the light--your eyes--they are like
two fire-balls.”

“Get out of the way then, lest I burn you. You may be blown up with the
powder in your pocket-flask.”

“There is nothing there,” said the policeman, embarrassed. “But you
have singed me already.”

“I do not see it. You are all whole. Enough of this. Let me go.”

“I do not keep you. You may live to torment some poor man yet.”

“No one need have me,” said Amrie, and escaped as though a chain
which held her had suddenly broken. She stood in the door where many
spectators had gathered, and as a new tune began, she rocked backward
and forward in harmony with the melody. The consciousness of having
trumped the policeman, made her contented with the whole world. He soon
appeared again, however, and placing himself behind Amrie, addressed
every word to her. She did not answer, and appeared not to hear him,
while she nodded to the dancers as they waltzed near her. At length he
said,--“When I make up my mind to marry, I will take thee.”

“How take me?” she answered. “If I give myself, it will not be to thee!”

The policeman was glad to get any answer, and he continued, “If I only
were allowed to dance, I would instantly dance with you.”

“I cannot dance,” said Amrie; and as the music ceased, she pressed
through to find a retired spot, where she could remain unseen. She
heard those behind her say, “She can dance, and better than any girl in
the country.”

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER X.

ONLY ONE DANCE.


Raven Zachy, from the music stage, reached his glass to Barefoot. She
touched it with her lips and gave it back, when he said, “If you dance,
Amrie, I will play with the whole power of my instrument, so that the
angels shall come down to listen.”

“Yes,” said Amrie, half in sport and half in sadness; “but if no angel
come down to ask me, I fear I shall have no partner.” And now she
considered, Why it was necessary to have a policeman at a dance? Then
she thought, “He is a man like other men, although he wears a sword and
a laced hat, and before he became a policeman, he was a young fellow
like the others. It must be vexatious, that he is not allowed to dance.
But what is all this to me? I also must look on, and I am not paid for
it.”

A short time after, they were more quiet and moderate upon the
dancing-ground, for the “English Lady,” (thus in the village they
called Agy,) the wife of Councillor Severin, came with her children
to the dance. The respectable timber-merchant called for champagne;
a glass was presented to Agy, and she drank to the happiness of the
young couple. She knew how to please every one by a graceful word or
two. Upon the faces of all there was an expression of satisfaction.
She touched her lips to many of the flower-crowned glasses, presented
to her by the young fellows. Also the old women in the neighborhood of
Barefoot had much to say in praise of the “English Lady.” They stood up
long before she reached, and exchanged a word or two with them.

As soon as Agy had passed on, the jubilee, with singing, dancing, and
loud music, began again with new strength.

Farmer Rodel’s upper clerk came to Amrie, and she trembled, full of
expectation that he would ask her to dance; but he only said, “Please,
Barefoot, hold my pipe till I have gone through this dance?” Then many
of the young girls from her village came to her; from one she received
a jacket, from another a handkerchief, a neck-ribbon, a house-key.
She held them all, and still larger grew her burthen, as each dance
succeeded the other. She laughed at her own situation, for no one came
for her.

Now there was a waltz played so soft and tender, that it seemed as
though they might float upon it; and now a polka, so wild and gay,
that Hie! away they went springing and stamping, all eyes sparkling,
and all breathing joy. The old women, who sat in the corners,
complained of the heat and dust, but none went home.

See! Amrie started. Her glance is arrested by a handsome young man,
who, in the confusion, walks proudly up the room. It is the horseman
she met in the morning,--the one she answered so peevishly. All eyes
are turned upon him, as with his left hand behind, and with the right
holding a silver-mounted pipe, he walks up and down, his silver
watch-seals swinging here and there. How handsome is his black velvet
jacket, his full, black velvet breeches, and his crimson waistcoat.
But more beautiful than all is his well-shaped head, with close curled
brown hair. His forehead above the eyes is white as snow, although his
face is brown, and a full light beard covers cheeks and chin.

“That is a statesman,” said one of the old women.

“And what heavenly blue eyes,” said another. “They are at the same time
so roguish and so good-hearted!”

“Where can he come from?” said a third. “He is not of these parts.”

And a fourth added, “He is certainly a wooer for Amrie.”

The young man passed more than once up and down through the hall,
apparently searching with his eyes, when suddenly he stopped, not far
from Barefoot. He nodded to her. Amrie trembled, and a burning heat ran
through her veins; but she did not move. Ah, no, he certainly nodded
to some one behind her. He does not mean her. She made room for him to
pass. He seeks another.

“No, it is thee!” said the young man, offering his hand. “Wilt thou?”

Amrie could not speak; but what need of words? She threw quickly
all she had in her hand into the corner,--jackets, handkerchiefs,
tobacco-pipes, house-keys.

They stood side by side, and the young man threw a dollar to the
musicians. When Raven Zacky saw Amrie by the side of the stranger, he
made the walls tremble with his music. Not more joyful can it sound to
the blessed at the day of judgment, than now in the ears of Amrie.

She turned she knew not how. She was borne away by the stranger from
all surrounding objects. She floated upon air, and it seemed as though
they were alone, hovering therein. In truth, they both danced so well,
that involuntarily all the others stopped to look at them.

“We are alone,” said Amrie; and immediately after she felt the warm
breath of her partner, who answered,--

“Oh that we were alone! Alone in the world. Why cannot we dance on so,
till we die?”

“It seems to me exactly,” said Amrie, “as though we were two doves
soaring in the air Ju hu, up in the Heavens!”

“Ju hu!” shouted the young man, so loud, that his voice seemed to rise
in the air like a rocket.

Still more blessedly they swung round, till Amrie said, “Stay; has not
the music stopped? Do they yet play? I do not hear them.”

“Yes, indeed, they are playing still. Do you not hear now?”

“Ah, now, yes,” said Amrie; and she held her breath. Her partner
thought she might be exhausted and dizzy. He led her to a table, and
gave her refreshment, but still held her hand; and taking into the
other hand the Swedish coin that hung by her necklace, he said, “This
is in a good place.”

“It came from a good hand,” answered Amrie. “I received the present
when I was a little child.”

“From a relation?”

“No; the lady is not related to me.”

“That dance has done you good, it seems.”

“Oh, so much! But only think how many may be dancing the whole year,
and without music. And here it is so much better.”

“You are plump,” said the stranger, jokingly. “You must have good food.”

“It is not the food,” said Amrie, “but the appetite for it.”

The stranger nodded; and after a while he said, inquiringly, “You are
the farmer’s daughter--of----?”

“No; I am a servant,” said Amrie; and looked him steadily in the face;
but he would not cast down his eyes--the eyelashes trembled, but he
looked steadily at her. This contest and victory was the image of
what passed within. After this self-conquest, he said, “Come, shall
we have another dance?” He held firmly her hand, and their happiness
was renewed; but this time more calmly and steadily. They both felt
that this elevation of their souls into heaven must come to an end.
Resulting from this thought, Amrie said, “We have been happy together,
even if through our whole life long we should never meet again, and
neither of us know the name of the other.”

The young man nodded, and said simply, “Yes.”

Amrie, embarrassed, said again, after a while, “What we have once
enjoyed, no one can ever take from us; and whoever thou art, never
repent that you have given a poor girl for her life long the memory of
a happy hour.”

“I do not repent,” said the young man. “But you--have you not repented
the short answer you gave me this morning?”

“Ah, yes; there you are right,” said Amrie.

The young man asked, “Will you trust me so far as to walk in the
field?”

“Yes.”

“And will you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“What will your relations say?”

“I am answerable to none but myself. I am an orphan.”

Hand in hand they both left the dancing-hall. Barefoot heard whispering
and tittering behind her, and kept her eyes fixed upon the ground. She
was asking herself, “Have I not been too confident?”

Without, in the cornfield, where the first tender leaves were beginning
to shoot from their protecting sheath, they looked silently at each
other. No word was spoken. At length the young man seemed to ask, as
to himself,--“If I might only know how it happens, that some people at
the first glance can be so--so--confidential, as it were. How they can
understand what the face alone at first reveals?”

“There,” said Amrie, “we have saved a soul; for you know that when two
people have the same thought, at the same moment, a poor soul is saved.
At your first word I had the same thought.”

“Indeed! And do you know why it is so?”

“Yes.”

“And will you tell me?”

“Why not? Listen! I have been goose-herd.”

At this word the young man started, but he made believe rub his eyes,
and Barefoot, unembarrassed, continued,--“When one sits and lies down
so long in the fields alone, they think of a hundred things that never
come into the minds of others, and sometimes there comes a wonderfully
strange idea. Then, only attend, and you will find it is true! Every
fruit-tree looks, especially when you observe it as a whole tree,
just like the fruit it bears. Look at the apple-tree, when it is not
extended or pruned, does it not look like the apple itself? And so the
pear-tree, and the cherry. Observe them attentively, the cherry-tree
has a tall stem like the cherry itself--and so I think--”

“Ah! what do you think?”

“Do not laugh at me. As the fruit-trees look like the fruit they bear,
so is it, also, with men, and we instantly see it in their faces; only
the trees have an honorable, honest look, and men can dissemble. But am
I not talking nonsense?”

“No, you have not been goose-herd for nothing,” said the young man,
with strange mingled emotions. “It is pleasant talking with you. I
would gladly give you a kiss, if I did not fear it would be wrong.”

Barefoot trembled in every limb. She stooped to break off a flower, but
she left it there.

After a long silence the young man said, “We shall never see each other
again,--therefore it is better so.”

They went back to the dancing-hall, and danced again without a word
being spoken. When it was over, he led her to the table, and said,
“Now, I must say farewell! But take breath, and then we must drink a
glass together.”

He gave her the glass, but she put it down untasted, and he said,--“You
must drink it for my sake, to the very last drop.”

Amrie continued drinking, and when at last she held the empty glass in
her hand and looked round, the stranger had vanished. She went down to
the house door, and there she saw him not very far off upon his white
horse, but he did not look back.

The evening mist spread like a veil of clouds over the valley; the
sun was already down. Amrie said aloud, as to herself, “I wish it
might never be morning again,--always to-day, always to-day,” and she
stood lost in dreams. Night came quickly down. The thin sickle of
the moon stood just above the mountain, and not far from it, towards
Holdenbrunn, the evening star. One Berner wagon after the other drove
off. Barefoot stood by that of her family which was getting ready.
Then Rose came out and said to her brother, “that she had promised the
young men and maidens from their village to walk back with them, and of
course it is well understood that a farmer and his maid-servant cannot
go home together.” The Berner wagon rattled by. Rose must have seen
Barefoot, but she made believe not to observe her, and Amrie walked on
the way the stranger had ridden. “Where is he now?” she thought. “How
many hundred villages and hamlets lie in this direction, and who can
say where he has gone?”

Amrie found the place where early in the morning he had greeted her.
She repeated aloud the question and answer that had passed between
them. She sat again behind the hazel-hedge, where in the morning she
had slept and dreamed. A golden-hammer sat upon a slender spray, and
the six notes of her song sounded exactly, “What do you still do there?
What do you still do there?” Barefoot had to-day lived a whole life
through. Had it, indeed, been only one day?

She turned back to the village, but did not go up to the dancing-hall
again. Now she took the road again homewards by the Holdenbrunn; but
when half way, she suddenly turned back again. It seemed as though
she could not tear herself away from the place where she had been so
happy; and to excuse herself, she said, “It was not safe for her to go
home alone; and she would join some of the girls and young men of her
village.” As she came before the alehouse in Endringen, many from their
village were collected; but they merely greeted her with,--

“So, it is you, Barefoot?”

There was running backwards and forwards, and many who had been in a
hurry to get home, returned to dance once more. Young men from other
villages came up, and begged and pressed for only one more dance.
Barefoot returned with the rest, but only to look on. At last it was
agreed, that those who wished to continue dancing should be left behind.

Not without much trouble, the Holdenbrunner troop were collected before
the door of the house. A part of the musicians agreed to go with them
to the end of the village. Many a sleepy father of a family was drawn
to the window by the music; here and there came a married playmate, who
went no longer to dances, looking out to wish them “Good luck on the
way.”

The night was dark; they had taken long pine-branches as torches, and
the young fellows who bore them danced backwards and forwards with
them. Scarcely had they gone a few steps, after the music left them,
than they cried out, “that the torches dazzled and confused them,” and
they were extinguished in a ditch. Now several, both men and women,
were missed, and when they were called, answered from a distance.
Rose was followed by the son of Farmer Kappel from Lauterbach, and
scarcely had her companions joined her, when she cried out, “that she
would have nothing to do with them.” Some of the young men began to
sing, and others joined in, but there was no true harmony. Many jokes
were made by the grandson of the Plaster-grinder Monika, of which the
young tailor’s apprentice was the principal butt. At length they began
singing again, this time in unison, and it sounded full and clear.

Barefoot was always a good distance behind her village companions; they
suffered her to be alone, and that was the best they could do for her.
She was with them, and yet not of them; and as she looked often around
upon the fields and woods, how wonderful in the dark was the change.
The night is so strange, and yet so confidential. The whole world was
as wonderful to her as she had become to herself. As one step followed
another, she seemed to be drawn along without any volition of her own;
she knew not that she moved. She only knew that her thoughts ran here
and there, so confusedly, that she could neither overtake nor follow
them. Her cheeks glowed as though every star in the vault of Heaven
were a heat-inspiring sun, and sent its beams into her heart. At this
moment, as though she had herself begun, and herself had given the
tune, her own villagers sang the song that came to her lips in the
morning,--

  “There were two lovers in Allgäu,
  They were to each other so dear!
  Alas! to the wars went the youth.
  ‘And, dearest, when com’st thou again?’
  ‘That can I, love, not to thee say,
  What year, or what day, or what hour.’”

Now a serenade was sung, and Amrie joined in from the distance,--

  A fair good-night! Dearest, farewell!
          The world at rest,
          I wake alone
          With heavy breast.

  A fair good-night! Dearest, farewell!
          All joy be thine,
          Though far from thee,
          Sorrow be mine!

  A fair good-night! Dearest, farewell!
          To thee I’ll come
          When parting’s o’er,
          To thy sweet lips--
          A kiss to bear.

  Love, thou art mine, and I am thine!
          This makes my heart so glad.
          And ne’er shall thine be sad.
          Dearest, farewell!

They came at length to the village, and one group after another fell
off.

Barefoot remained standing long by her parents’ house, under the
service-tree, thinking and dreaming. She wished she could go in and
tell Mariann every thing; but she gave it up,--“Why disturb her night’s
rest?” Then she went homeward. The whole village lay buried in sleep.

At length she entered the house. All within seemed more strange than
without,--so strange, she felt that she could not belong there. “Why
hast thou come home again? What wilt thou do here?” were the strange
questions that seemed asked in every noise. When the dog barked, when
the stairs creaked, when the cows in the stall lowed,--in every sound
was this question,--“Who is coming home? What do you do here?”

At last she entered her chamber, and sat quiet a long time, looking
at the light. Suddenly she seized the light, and placed it before her
little glass, so that she saw her own face. She asked herself, “Who
is this? Thus he must have seen me. So I must have looked,” was the
second thought. “Yet there must have been something there to please
him,--else why did he look at me so?” A quiet feeling of satisfaction
arose within her, and this was heightened by the thought, “You have now
been respected as a person; till yesterday you were always looked upon
as the servant and helper of others. Good-night, Amrie, you have lived
one day?”

But this day must come to an end. Midnight was over. Amrie laid one
piece after the other of her dress carefully away. “Ah, there is the
music again; listen, how the rocking waltz sounds!” She opened her
window; but there was no longer music. Its echo was in her ear! Below,
near Mariann’s, the cock began already to crow. She heard the footsteps
of men approaching; probably some belated home-goer from the wedding.
They sounded so loud in the night. The young geese began to gabble in
their enclosure.

“Yes,” she said to herself, “geese sleep only an hour at a time, by
night as well as by day. The trees are quiet, motionless. Why is a
tree so wholly different in the night from the day? Such a close, dark
mass, like a giant wrapped in his mantle. How much motion there still
is within the motionless tree! What a world of life there is there! Not
a breath of wind stirs, and yet there are drops from the trees. These
may be caterpillars and beetles falling. Ah, a quail calls! It must be
the one in the cage at the Heathcock’s. She does not know that it is
night. And look, the evening star, which at sundown was deep under the
moon, is now nearer and above the moon. The more we look at it, the
higher it becomes.”

“Does it know the glances of human beings? How still! Listen! How the
nightingale sings! Ah, this is a song! so deep, so broad! Can that be
one bird alone?” And now Amrie shivered; for as the clock struck one,
a tile, loosened from the roof, fell clattering to the ground. She
trembled as she thought of ghosts, but constrained herself to listen
again to the nightingale, till at length she closed her window. A moth,
that looked like a great flying caterpillar full of wings, had ventured
into the chamber, and fluttered about the light, gray and frightful.
Amrie seized him at last, and threw him out into the darkness.

She now lays her cap, handkerchief, and jacket in a drawer, where
unconsciously she seized upon an old school copy-book, preserved there,
and read therein, she knew not why, old moral maxims and sentences.

“How stiff and carefully are they written.” Yes, she might collect from
these leaves that she once lived in the past, for all her past life
seemed to have vanished.

“Now quickly to bed,” she cried; but, with her determined carefulness,
she smoothed out all her ribbons, undid every knot with fingers
or needle. Never in her life had she cut a knot, and now, in her
extraordinary excitement, her usual care and patience did not forsake
her. Every hard and embarrassing knot was patiently loosed. At last she
calmly and carefully extinguished her lamp, and laid down in bed. But
she found no rest, and springing up again quickly, and leaning upon the
open window, she looked out into the dark night, where the stars only
glimmered. In chaste modesty she covered her neck and bosom with both
hands.

And now there was within her a moment of feeling, so wordless, so
limitless, and yet so all embracing; a moment of death, and then of
life in the whole universe, in Eternity!

Yes, in the soul of this poor girl, in her garret, had opened all there
is in an endless life. All the height and the depth; all the bliss of
which man is capable; and this supernatural moment asks not, “Who is
it that I thus exalt?” for the eternal stars shine upon the humblest
cottage.

A gust of wind that blew the window-shutters together waked Amrie. She
knew not how she had got to bed, and now it was day.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XI.

AS IT IS IN THE SONG.

  “No fire, no raging heat,
  Like secret love can burn;
  All silent, yet how sweet,
  And to the world unknown.”

Thus sang Amrie in the morning, standing before the fire, while all in
the house were yet asleep. The stable-boy, who had risen early to give
the horses their first feed, came into the kitchen for a coal to light
his pipe.

“Why up so early,” he asked, “before the sparrows begin to twitter?”

“I am mixing a warm draught for the cow in calf,” answered Barefoot,
stirring in meal and clover, but without looking round.

“I and the upper servant sought you last evening at the dance, but you
could not be found,” said the boy. “True, you did not want to dance;
you were satisfied to be made a fool of by the stranger Prince.”

“He was no Prince, nor did he make a fool of me; and had he done so, I
would rather be made a fool of by such as he, than to be made wise by
thee or the upper servant.”

“Why did he not tell you who he is?”

“Because I did not ask him,” said Barefoot. The stable-boy made a
coarse joke, and laughed at himself, for there are certain occasions
when the most simple can be witty.

The cheeks of Barefoot glowed like crimson, from the double heat of the
fire and her own inner flame.

“I tell you what,” she said, “you know yourself what you are worth, and
I cannot make you respect yourself; but I can forbid you from having no
respect for me. And now leave the kitchen. You have nothing to do here;
and if you do not go immediately, I will show you the way out.”

“Will you wake the master?”

“That is not necessary,” said Barefoot, taking a burning brand from the
hearth that scattered sparks; “go! or I shall mark you.”

The stable-boy sneaked with a forced laugh away. Barefoot tucked up her
dress, and went with the smoking drink down into the stall.

The cow seemed grateful that she had been thought of so early in the
morning. She lowed, and left drinking many times to look with gentle,
open eyes at Barefoot.

“Yes, now I shall be questioned and finely teased,” thought Barefoot;
“but what does it matter?”

Going with the milk-pail to another cow, she sang,--

  “Turn about, turn about,
  Red spotted cow:
  Who will then milk you,
  When I am away?”

“Foolish stuff!” she added, and scolded herself. Then she finished her
work quietly, and in the mean time life stirred in the house. Scarcely
was Rose fully awake, when she called for Barefoot, and blamed her
harshly; for Rose had lost a beautiful neck-ribbon. She declared she
gave it to Amrie to keep for her; and she, in her foolish eagerness,
when the stranger asked her to dance, had thrown it away with the
others.

“Who knows,” she asked, “whether he were not a thief, who had stolen
his horse and his dress; to-morrow he might be brought in with chains
on his hands. And what a shame it was, that Barefoot had danced so high
and spoken so loud. It was the first and the last time she would take
her to a dance. Her eyes, indeed, had been shamed out of her head, when
she heard everybody ask,--‘So she is your servant, is she?’ If the
sister-in-law did not command, and they all must follow her orders, the
goose-herd should instantly quit the house.”

Barefoot endured every thing calmly. She had already to-day experienced
both extremes of what she must expect, and had taken the course which
she intended to hold. If scolded, she silently shook it off; if joked,
she knew how to give back better jokes than she received. If she had
not always a burning brand at hand, as for the stable-boy, she had
glances and words that served her as well.

It was impossible to tell Brown Mariann all that Rose made her suffer;
and as she could not speak in that house, she let her tongue loose, and
at other times blamed Rose with violence. But quickly she reflected,
and said, “Ah! this is not right. I am as bad as she is, when I take
such words into my mouth.”

Mariann consoled her. “It is brave,” she said, “to scold thus. Why,
when one looks upon a disgusting object, they must spit, else they will
be ill; and when you hear, or see, or experience any thing bad, the
soul must spit it out, or it will become wicked itself.” Barefoot could
not but laugh at the wonderful consolation of Brown Mariann.

Day after day passed in the old manner, and soon the wedding was
forgotten, the dance, and all that happened there, by every one except
Barefoot, who felt perpetual anticipation, which she could not conquer.
It was well that she confided all her thoughts to Mariann. “I think I
must have sinned in being so excessively happy that day,” she once said.

“Sinned! against whom?”

“I mean God will punish me for it.”

“Oh, child, what do you mean? God loves us as his children. Is there
a greater joy for parents than to see their children happy? A father,
a mother, who sees her children dance happily, is doubly happy. God
looked upon you as you danced so joyfully. Your parents also have seen
you dance, and have rejoiced. Let the living say what they please. When
my John comes back! Ah, he can dance! But I say nothing. Thou hast in
me a friend who does thee justice. What more dost thou need?”

The counsel and support of Brown Mariann were consoling; but Barefoot
had not wholly confided in her; had not told her all. It was not merely
what people said of her that troubled her; alas, it was no longer true
that she could be satisfied with being once completely happy. She
longed to see again the person who had made her so; who had completely
changed her whole being; and yet knew nothing more about her.

Yes, Barefoot was completely changed. She suffered no work to fail; no
one could blame her; but a deep melancholy had taken firm hold of her.
There was another reason for this sadness, which she could acknowledge
before the world. Dami had not written a single word from America. She
forgot herself so far as one day to say to Brown Mariann, “The Proverb
is not false, that when a fire burns beneath an empty pot, a poor soul
burns also. Under my heart there burns a fire, and my poor soul burns
with it.”

“Why so?”

“That Dami has not written to me,” she said, deeply blushing. “This
waiting is the most frightful murder of time. Time is never so sadly
destroyed as by expectation. At no hour, at no minute, can one feel
secure. No ground is firm beneath one; one foot must be always in the
air.”

“Oh, child, say not so,” cried Mariann, sorrowfully. “How can you speak
of waiting? Think of me, how I have waited patiently, and shall wait
till my last hour, and never give it over!”

In the recognition of another’s grief, the complaint of Barefoot was
extinguished in tears; and she said, “My heart is so heavy, that I
think only of dying. How many thousands of pails of water must I draw,
and how many more Sundays will there be? Ah, one need not, after all,
fret so much, for life will soon have an end. When Rose scolds, I
think, ‘Well, scold on, we shall both die soon, and then there will
be an end.’ And then comes over me again such fear! I tremble at the
thought of death, when I lie and think how it will be when I am dead! I
shall hear nothing! I shall see nothing! These eyes, this ear is dead.
Every thing that is myself will exist no longer. It is day, and I shall
never know it! They will mow, they will reap, and I shall not be there.
Oh, what is this dying?”

“What wouldst thou have?” asked Mariann. “Many others have died of more
worth than thou. We must bear it calmly--”

“Hark! the watch cries something.” Thus Barefoot interrupted her
strange complaint; and she, who now would die, and again would not die
was anxious to learn what the village watcher had cried.

“Let him cry,” said Mariann, sadly smiling; “he brings you nothing.
Oh, what creatures we are. How must every one of us seek to crack the
hard nut of life; and at last lay it aside unopened! I will tell you,
Amrie, what is the matter with you. You are dying with love! Be merry!
With how few is it so well; how few are so happy as to cherish a true,
real love! Take an example from me. Let hope never die! Do you know who
within a living body is already dead? He who does not every morning,
especially in every spring, think, ‘Now, life first begins with me;
now, something comes which has never happened before.’ You must yet be
happy; you do unconsciously the work of the righteous. What have you
not done for your brother, for me, for Farmer Rodel, for every one? But
it is well that you do not know the good you do. He who does good, and
is always praying and thinking of it, and builds a future upon it, will
pray himself right through heaven, and perhaps on the other side will
keep the geese.”

“That I have done here,” said Amrie, laughing. “I am quit of it there.”

“An inward voice tells me,” continued the old woman, “that he who
danced with you was no other than my John. And I will now say to you,
that if he is not already married, he must marry you. He would always
willingly have worn velvet clothes. I think he is now waiting about the
frontiers till our present King dies, and then he will come home. How
wrong of him that he does not let me know, when I have such a longing
for him!”

Barefoot shuddered at the undying hope of poor Mariann, and the
tenacity with which she forever clung to it. Henceforth, she never
mentioned the stranger, but when from any cause she spoke of hope or
of return, she instantly named Dami, although, secretly, she thought
of the stranger. “He was not beyond the sea, and could come again or
write to her--but alas, he had not even asked where she dwelt. How
many thousand cities and villages, and solitary farms there are in
the world! Perhaps he is now seeking thee, and can never find thee.
But no--he could ask in Endringen. How easily could he ask Dominic or
Amelia, and they could give him any information he sought. But I--I
know not where he is. I can do nothing!”

It was again spring, and Amrie stood by her flowers in the window, when
a bee came flying to the plants, and sucked from the open calix.

“Ah! so it is,” thought Amrie, “a woman is like a plant,--rooted in one
place,--she cannot go and seek,--she must wait, and wait to be sought.”

  “Were I a little bird
  With wings so downy soft,
  To thee, I’d fly, my love,
  To thee, I’d fly full oft.

  But far I am from thee,
  In dreams I am but near,
  And when I wake alone
  My trembling heart has fear.
  My waking hours are filled
  With longing thoughts of thee,
  Oh, bird of downy wing,
  Bear my love’s love to me.”

Thus sang Barefoot. It was wonderful how all songs and all music seemed
made for her. How many thousands, out of the depths of their souls,
have sung these songs, and how many thousands will continue to sing
them. You that long, and at last hold lovingly intwined, a heart with
your own, you hold also intwined all that ever loved or will ever love.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XII.

HE HAS COME.


Barefoot stood, one Sunday afternoon, at the house door, looking
dreamingly into the vague distance, when the grandson of Charcoal
Mathew came running down the village street, and nodding to her from a
distance, cried,--

“He has come, Barefoot; he has come!”

Barefoot’s knees sank beneath her, and with a trembling voice she
cried, “Where is he,--where?”

“At my grandfather’s, in Moosbrunnenwold.”

“Where? Who? Who sent thee?”

“Thy Dami. He is below in the forest.”

Barefoot was obliged to sit down upon the stone bench before the
house, but only for a minute; then recovering herself quickly with the
words,--“My Dami! My brother!”

“Yes, Barefoot’s Dami,” said the boy, good-humoredly, “and he promised
me you would give me a farthing if I brought the message to you. Now
give me one.”

“My Dami will give you three.”

“Oh, no,” said the boy, “he told my grandfather that he had not a
penny.”

“Neither have I any at present, but I will remember it.”

She went quickly back into the house, and asked one of the maids to
milk the cow in the evening, in case she did not get home in season,
for she had to go out directly.

With her heart beating, sometimes in contempt at Dami, sometimes in
sadness at his ill luck, then again in anger that he had come back;
and then she reproached herself that she could meet her only brother
with such emotions. She went through the fields and down the valley,
to the Moosbrunnenwold. The way to Charcoal Mathew’s could not be
missed, although it turned aside from the foot-path. The odor of the
kiln-burner led infallibly to it.

How merrily the birds sing in the trees, she thought, and a sorrowful
child of man wanders beneath them. How melancholy must it be for Dami
to see all this again, and how hard it must be for him, if he has no
other resource, to come home and depend upon me, and take all that I
have. Other sisters have help from their brothers, and I----. But I
will show thee, Dami, that thou must now remain where I place thee.

Full of such thoughts, Amrie at last reached the coal-burner’s. She saw
no one except Mathew, who sat by his hut and smoked a wooden pipe,
which he held with both hands. A coal-burner is like his kiln,--he is
always smoking.

“Has anybody made a fool of me?” Barefoot asked herself. “Oh, that were
a shame! What have I done to anybody, that they should put so miserable
a joke upon me?”

With clinched hands and a burning face, she now stood before Mathew. He
scarcely raised his eyes, much less did he utter a word. So long as the
sun shone he was perfectly dumb; at night only, when no one could look
him in the face, he began to speak.

Barefoot stared a moment in the face of the coal-burner, and then
asked,--

“Where is my Dami?”

The old man shook his head, as much as to say, “He did not know.”

Then Amrie asked again, stamping her foot,--

“Is Dami here with you?”

The old man opened his hands, pointing right and left, and shook his
head again, as though he could not be in either path.

“Who then sent for me,” said Barefoot, more vehemently. “Pray speak!”

The coal-burner pointed with his thumb to the side where the foot-path
led round the mountain.

“Oh, speak one word,” said Barefoot, now weeping violently, “only one
word. Is my Dami here, or where is he?”

At last the old man said, “He is there! He has gone up the foot-path
to meet you,” and then, as though he had said too much, he pressed his
lips together and went to his kiln.

There stood Amrie, and laughed in derision and sadness at the
simplicity of her poor brother. “He sends for me, and then cannot
remain in the spot where I could find him. How could he believe that I
should take the foot-path? It will occur to him now, and he will take
the other path; we shall be running away from each other as in a fog.”

She sat down upon the stump of a tree. Her heart throbbed and glowed.
The flame could not break out; it consumed her inwardly. The birds sang
sweetly. The branches in the forest rustled. Ah, what is all this, if
no clear note is returned in the heart? As if in a dream, Barefoot
remembered how she had once cherished thoughts of love. “How,” she
asked herself,--“how couldst thou suffer such wishes to arise? Hadst
thou not misery enough in thyself, and in thy brother?” The thought of
this love was to her now like the recollection of a warm sunny day, in
the midst of winter. We can believe that it was once warm and sunny,
but we can understand it no longer. She must now learn the misery of
waiting, of hope deferred, standing high upon a summit, where there
is scarcely a hand’s-breadth to support one. The old misery returns,
forever increasing.

She went into the stone hut of the coal-burner; there lay a sack
scarcely half full, with the name of her father upon it.

“Oh! how you have been dragged about,” she said, half aloud. She
checked her excitement. She wished to see what Dami had brought back
with him. “He has at least the good shirts that I made from the linen
I bought of Mariann, and perhaps there is a present from our uncle in
America; but if he had any thing decent, would he have gone first to
the coal-burner in the forest? Ah, no! he would have shown himself in
the village.”

Barefoot had time for these reflections, for the sack was truly
artistically knotted together. Her usual skill and patience alone
succeeded, at last, in loosening it. She took out all that was in the
sack, and with an angry glance said to herself,--

“Oh! thou good-for-nothing! There is not a whole shirt in the sack; and
now you can take your choice, to be called ‘Beggar-man,’ or ‘Rag-man.’”

This was not a good disposition in which, for the first time, to meet
her brother; and this Dami felt, for he stood waiting at the door
of the hut till she had put every thing back into the sack; then he
stepped up to her, and said, “God bless thee, Amrie! I bring you
nothing but dirty clothes; but you are neat, and will soon--”

“Oh! dear Dami, how you look!” shrieked Amrie, and lay upon his breast;
but quickly she tore herself away, and said,--“In heaven’s name, you
smell of brandy! Oh! have you come to that?”

“No! Mathew gave me a little spirit of juniper, for I could no longer
stand. It has gone ill with me, but I am not bad. This you may believe,
although I cannot prove it.”

“I believe you! You would not deceive the only person there is left
to believe you. Oh, how wild and miserable you look! What a beard you
have got. I cannot suffer that. That must come off. But you are well?
Nothing is the matter with you?”

“Yes, I am well--and will go for a soldier.”

“What you are, and what you will be, that we will not now consider. Now
tell me how it has fared with you?”

Dami thrust aside with his foot a half-burnt log, called a useless
brand, and said, “Look! exactly such am I; not wholly burnt to a coal,
and yet no longer sound wood.”

Barefoot reminded him, that he should tell his story without complaint;
and Dami entered upon a long, long history, amounting to this:--“That
he could not remain with his uncle, who was hard-hearted and selfish,
and his wife grudged every mouthful that he put into his mouth; that
he left him, and sought work elsewhere; but that he always experienced
more and more of the selfishness of men. In America they could see a
man fall into misery, and never look after him.”

Barefoot could not help smiling, as his relation always ended
in----“And then they threw me upon the street.” She could not help
saying,--

“Yes, that is like you. You always allow yourself to be thrust aside.
You were so as a child. When you stumbled a little, you let yourself
fall like a log of wood. ‘Out of a stumbler we must make a hopper.’
From this comes the Proverb.[B] Be cheerful! Do you know what you must
do when people would annoy you?”

“We must go out of the way.”

“No; we must annoy them if we can. It will always annoy them most, to
see us keep an upright position, and a bold face. You stand before the
world, and say,--‘Treat me well, if you please, or treat me ill. Kiss
me, or beat me, whichever you please.’ This is easy enough. You submit
to their treatment, and then you pity yourself. Would I allow any one
to send me here or there, if I did not choose it myself? You must stand
up like a man for yourself. You have been knocked about in the world
long enough. It is time to show yourself as master of yourself.”

Reproach and advice often appear to the unlucky like unjust severity.
Such appeared to Dami the words of his sister. It was horrible that
she could not look upon him as the most unfortunate of men. It is the
most difficult thing in the world to give a man confidence in himself.
Most people gain it only after they have been successful. Dami would
not relate another word to his heartless sister, and it was only
later that she succeeded in gaining a particular account of all his
adventures, and how at last he came back to the Old World as a stoker
on board a steam-vessel. And now, when she reproached him for his
self-tormenting susceptibility, was she secretly aware that she was not
free from it herself.

Through her almost exclusive intercourse with Mariann, she had been
betrayed into thinking and speaking too much of herself, and had become
too sad at heart. Now, that she had to raise and cheer her brother, she
unconsciously cheered herself; for there is this mysterious power in
sympathy, that when we help another, we also help ourselves.

“We have four strong, healthy hands,” she said, in conclusion; “and we
will see if we cannot force our way through the world; and to force
one’s way through, is a thousand times better than to beg one’s way
through. Come, Dami! now come home with me.”

Dami was very unwilling to show himself in the village; he shrank from
the ridicule which would break out on every side. He wished to remain
concealed. But Barefoot said, “Come, go with me through the village on
this bright Sunday afternoon, and let them have their laugh out. Let
them talk, and point, and laugh--then it will be all over; you will
have swallowed the bitter dose at once, and not drop by drop.”

After long and violent opposition, and when the silent Mathew had
joined his persuasions with Amrie’s, Dami consented to go; and, in
fact, coarse jokes rained from every side upon “Barefoot’s Dami,” who,
they said, “had taken a pleasure voyage to America at the expense of
the parish.” Mariann, alone, received him in a friendly manner; and at
the second word, asked him, “Hast thou heard any thing of my John?”

In the evening Barefoot brought the barber, who took off his wild
beard, and gave him the smooth face customary in that place.

Early the next morning Dami was summoned to appear in the Public Hall,
and as he trembled, he knew not why, Amrie promised to follow him
there, although she could not much help him.

The Council gave him notice, that he was expelled from the place.
He had no right to remain longer where he might become a burthen.
How astonished were the councillors, when Barefoot arose and said,
“Yes, well! you may expel him, but when? When you can go out to your
churchyard, where our father and our mother lie, and say to their
buried bones, ‘Arise, and go forth with your child.’ Then you may expel
him. You cannot turn a child away from the place where his parents are
buried. There he is more than at home. If it is written a thousand and
a thousand times in your books,” pointing to the bound Registers upon
the table, “it cannot happen; you cannot do it.”

One of the Council whispered to the schoolmaster,--“Barefoot has learnt
this from dark Mariann;” and the Sacristan nodded to the Mayor, and
said, “Why do you suffer this? Ring for the policeman, and send her to
the madhouse.”

But the Mayor only smiled, and explained to Barefoot, that the
community had bought itself free from all expense for Dami, by paying
the greater part of the passage-money for his voyage to America.

“Yes,” said Barefoot. “But where is he then at home?”

“Where they will take him; but not here. And for the present nowhere.”

“Nowhere have I a home!” said Dami. He was almost pleased to be always
and still more unfortunate. Now no one could deny that he was the most
unhappy man in the world. Barefoot would have striven longer, but she
saw that it would be of no use. The law was against her. She declared
she would work the nails off her fingers, rather than receive any thing
for her brother or herself from the Parish. And she promised to pay
back what Dami had already received.

“Shall I make a record of that also?” asked the Secretary of the
Council.

“Yes,” said Barefoot, “write it down; for only what is written has any
value here.” She signed the record. In the mean time Dami was told,
that, as a stranger, he had permission to remain three days in the
village; at the end of that time, if he had not found some means of
support, he would be expelled; and, if necessary, he would be carried
by force beyond the limits.

Without another word Barefoot left the hall, taking Dami with her,
who wept because she had constrained him to bear this unnecessary
humiliation. It would have been better to remain in the forest, and to
have been spared the mortification of being expelled as a stranger from
his birthplace.

Barefoot would have answered, that it was better to know distinctly the
worst that could happen, but she felt that she needed all her strength
to keep herself firm. She, also, was expelled with her brother, and
stood alone before a world that supported itself by might and law,
while she had nothing to oppose to it but her empty hands.

She held herself firmer than ever. Dami’s unhappiness and misfortune
did not weigh her down, for thus we are made; when an all-absorbing
sorrow fills the heart, another, however heavy, is more easily borne,
than if it had come alone; and as Barefoot was oppressed by a secret
grief, against which she could make no resistance, she bore herself
more proudly against that which was known. She gave not a single minute
to reverie, but with strong arms and clinched hands, she asked, “Where
then is the work, even if it be the heaviest, I will undertake it, if
it will only save me and my brother from dependence and indigence.” She
often thought of going with Dami to Alsatia, to work in a factory. It
was terrible to her, that they should be obliged to do this, but she
would accustom herself to the thought, and when the summer was over
they would go, and then, “Farewell, home! We shall be at home with
strangers!”

The nearest advocate that both the orphans had in the place was now
powerless. Old Farmer Rodel was lying dangerously ill, and the night
after the stormy meeting of the Council, he died. Barefoot and Mariann
were those who wept the most genuine tears at his funeral. On their
return home, the old woman mentioned as especial reason for her
tears,--“He was the last among the living, who danced with me in my
youthful days. My last partner is now dead.”

Soon after she held a different opinion of him, for it appeared that
Rodel, who for long years had consoled Barefoot with the promise of
remembering her in his will, so far from leaving her any thing, he
did not even mention her. As Mariann would not cease scolding about
it, Amrie said to her,--“It is all the same, misfortunes never come
single. They hail now from every side upon me, but the sun will surely
shine again.”

The heirs of Farmer Rodel presented Barefoot with some of his old
clothes. She would gladly have refused them. But could she now venture
to show more pride? Dami, also, refused the old clothes, but was
obliged to yield. It seemed to be his fate, to spend his life in the
clothes of the departed.

Dami found a home with Mathew. The wood-carrier told him that he should
begin a process, for as he had no home, his silence would be giving
up all right to one. The people made themselves merry, that the poor
orphans had neither time nor money to begin a lawsuit. Dami was quite
happy in the solitude of the forest. It suited him exactly, not to be
obliged to dress or undress. It was with the utmost difficulty that
Barefoot could make him wash and dress himself on Sunday afternoons,
when she would sit with him and Mathew. Little was said by either of
them. She could not prevent her thoughts from wandering about the
world, in search of him who had once, for a whole long day, made her so
happy; indeed, had lifted her into heaven. “Did he, then, never think
of that, or of her? Can a man forget another, one with whom he has been
so happy?”

One Sunday morning, towards the end of May, every one had gone to
church. It had rained the day before, and a cool refreshing breath
came from mountain and valley, while the sun shone brightly. Barefoot
intended to go to church as usual, but she sat at the window, listening
to the church-bells, till it was too late. This had seldom or never
happened before. But as it was too late for church, she would remain in
her room and read her hymn-book. She looked over her drawers, and was
surprised at the quantity of things she possessed. Then she sat upon
the floor, and read a hymn, then sang it, softly. Something moved at
the window. She looked around, and there was a white dove standing upon
the sill, and looking at her. When the glances of the maiden and the
dove met, the latter flew away, and as Amrie looked after him, she saw
him soar away far over the fields before he descended to alight.

This little occurrence, which was indeed so natural, made her instantly
happy. Her thoughts went out over mountain, fields and woods, and the
whole day she was cheerful. She could not say why, but it seemed as
though a new joy opened in her soul, she knew not whence it came. At
noon, when she leaned against the door, she shook her head, as she
thought of this strange occurrence. “It must be,” she thought, “it must
surely be, that some one has had good thoughts of me; and why may it
not happen, that a dove should be the silent messenger to bring them
to me? Animals live in the same world where the thoughts of men are
floating about, and who knows whether they are not the bearers of them
all?”

Little could the people who saw Amrie, as she leaned on the door,
imagine the strange life passing within her.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XIII.

OUT OF A MOTHER’S HEART.


While Barefoot, whether in the village, the field, or the wood,
dreamed, and toiled, and sorrowed,--sometimes trembling with strange
anticipations of joy, sometimes feeling as though thrust out from the
whole world,--two parents in another parish were sending out their son,
that he might return to them far richer than he went forth.

In Allgäu, in the hall of the great farm-house sat the farmer and his
wife, with their youngest son. The farmer began,--“Listen, my son; it
is now more than a year since you returned from your journey. I know
not what happened to you, but you came home like a whipped hound, and
said, you would rather seek a wife here in this place. I do not see
that you are likely to succeed. Will you, for once, follow my advice.
Afterwards, I will never say another word.”

“I will,” said the young man, without looking up.

“Good! try again; once seeking is nothing. You will make me and
your mother happy if you take a wife from the place we came from;
especially from where your mother came from; for I can tell you, wife,
to your face, that in the whole world there are no better women; and if
you are wise, John, you will find one of the right sort; then, upon our
death-bed, you will thank us that we sent you to our home for a wife.
If I could only go with you, we would soon find the right one. But I
have spoken with our George; he will go with you if you ask him. Ride
over, and propose it.”

“If I may speak my mind,” said the son, “if I must go again, I would
rather go alone. I am so made that I could not bear a witness. I could
not advise with any one. If it were possible, I would rather be unseen
and unknown. If there were two of us, it might as well be cried out by
the town crier, and give them all time to make themselves up for the
occasion.”

“As you please,” said his father, “since such is your will. One word.
Start at once. We want a mate for our white horse; endeavor to find
one, but not in the market. When you are in the houses you can inquire,
and see for yourself; and, on your way home, you can purchase a Berner
wagon. Dominic, in Endringen, has three daughters. Seek one of them. A
daughter from that family would be just right.”

“Yes,” said his mother, “Amelia will certainly have good daughters.”

“And it would be better,” continued the father, “that you first looked
at Amrie of Siebenhöfen. She has land and money. But that need not be
thy object. However, I will say no more. You have your eyes in your
head. Come, get yourself ready. I will fill your purse. Two hundred
crown thalers will be enough; but if you need more, Dominic will lend
it to you. Only make yourself known. I cannot understand why you did
not at the wedding. Something must have happened there. But I will not
inquire about it.”

“Because he won’t tell you,” said the mother, smiling.

The farmer immediately began to fill the purse for him. He brought out
two large rolls of gold pieces. If you looked at him, you could see how
pleased he was to let the great coins run from one hand into the other.
He made little heaps of ten thalers each, and counted them twice and
three times over, so as not to make a mistake.

“Well, be it so,” said the young man, and rose from his chair. It is
the stranger who danced with Amrie at the wedding in Endringen.

Soon he brings the white horse, already saddled, from the stable, and
straps on his mantle-sack, while a beautiful wolf-hound sprang up and
licked his hand.

“Yes, yes,” said the young man, “I will take you with me.” And now, for
the first time, he appeared cheerful, crying to his father through the
window, “Father, may I take Lux with me?”

“Yes, if you will,” sounded from within the room, together with
the clinking of money. The dog, who appeared to understand the
conversation, began a joyful barking, revolving round and round in the
room.

The young man went in; and while he was strapping the girdle with the
money about him, he said, “You are right, father, a change will do me
good. I know, indeed, that we should not be superstitious, but it has
done me good already, that as I went into the stable, the horse turned
towards me and whinnied; and now the dog wants to go with me. If we
could consult animals, who knows but that they would give us the best
advice?”

The mother smiled, but his father said, “Do not forget to go to Raven
Zacky, and do not engage yourself to any thing without consulting him.
He knows the circumstances of every one for ten miles round; and is, in
fact, a living record of mortgages. Now, God bless you! You can take
your time, and stay away ten days.”

Father and son shook hands, and his mother said, “I will go a little
way with you.”

The young man led his horse by the bridle, and walked by his mother’s
side, silent, till they had left the court, and turned into a little
side lane; then the mother said hesitatingly, “I would give you a few
words of advice.”

“Yes, yes, mother, begin at once. I shall willingly listen.”

She took his hand in hers, and said, “Stand still, for I cannot talk
while walking. Take care, my son, be sure that she pleases you. This is
the first thing, for without love there is no happiness. I am an old
woman, and may speak without reserve.”

“Yes, yes!”

“If you do not think of it with joy; if it is not to you the first
gift of heaven that you may dare give her a kiss,--then it is not true
love!--Stay a little longer, this is not all; there may be something
concealed--believe me”--the old lady hesitated, and the color mounted
in her cheeks--“look, if there is not true respect, and if you have not
joy also in this--that a woman does a thing exactly so--takes a thing
in her hand and lays it down exactly as she does. Observe also how she
treats her inferiors.”

“I understand, mother, and take your meaning at once. Speaking will
tire you. I understand; she must not be too proud, nor too familiar.”

“That, indeed; but I can understand by the expression of the mouth
whether one is given to anger and scolding. Ah, if you could only see
her weep with anger, or surprise her in a passion, she would betray
her true disposition. The hidden temper sometimes shows itself with
vultures’ claws, like the spirit of evil itself. Oh, my child, I have
learnt and experienced much. I can see by the way she blows out a
candle, what her temper is. She who blows it out with a puff, leaving
sparks and smoke, has a hasty temper, and does things by halves. She
has no true repose of disposition.”

“Ah, mother, how difficult you make it. It is, after all, and always
will remain, a lottery.”

“Yes--you need not be governed by my opinion; but when you meet with
any thing that recalls my words, you will understand me better.
Observe, whether she talks readily with her work in hand. If she takes
her work when she is sitting with you, whether she does not leave off
work at every word; and, indeed, if it is not all for show. Industry is
every thing with a woman. My mother always said a woman should never be
with empty hands; and yet, when she is at work, she must be calm and
steady, and not as though she would tear a piece out of the world. When
she asks a question, or answers one, remark whether she is timid or
bold. You would not believe it, but girls are very different when they
see a man’s hat, from what they are among themselves. There are those
who think when you are in the room their tongues must not be still an
instant.”

The young man laughed, and said, “Mother, you should go about in the
world with your sermon, and have a church for young women alone.”

“Yes! that I might, indeed,” said his mother, smiling; “but,
naturally, I preach first to you. Observe particularly how she behaves
to her parents, and brothers and sisters. You are a good son, and I
need say no more. You have learnt the fifth commandment.”

“Yes, mother, you may be easy on this point. I have sure signs to judge
by. Those who boast much of their love for their parents, that is
nothing. Love is best shown by actions. Those who prattle about it are
slow enough when it comes to performance.”

“Ah, yes, you are clever, my son,” said his mother, laying her hand
upon his breast, and looking into his face. “Shall I go on?”

“Yes, mother, I listen willingly.”

“It seems to me as though to-day I could, for the first time, speak to
you freely; and if I should die, I will leave nothing forgotten that
I would say. The fifth commandment; yes, it now occurs to me what my
father once said of it. Oh, he understood every thing, and had read
many books. I once heard him, as he was speaking to the Pastor, say,
‘I know the reason why a reward is attached to the fifth commandment
alone, where one would naturally think it unnecessary. But it says,
“Honor your father and mother, that you may live long.” That does not
mean, that a good child shall live till he is seventy or eighty years
old; no, he who honors father and mother lives long, but in times past.
He lives the life of his parents in memory and in thought, which
cannot be taken from him; and whatever his age may be, he has lived
long upon earth. He who does not honor his father and mother is here
but to-day, and is gone to-morrow.’”

“Mother, there is truth in that. I understand it, and will not forget
to teach it to my children. But, mother, the longer you speak, the more
difficult it seems to find one that I shall like. She must be like you.”

“Oh! child, do not be so simple. At nineteen and twenty I was very
different. I was wild and self-willed, and even now I am not what I
should be. But what was I saying? Yes, of thy wife! It is strange
you should find it so difficult. From infancy, every thing has been
difficult to you. At two years old, you had scarcely learnt to walk,
and now you can spring like a young colt. Only a trifle or two
more, but from these we often learn great things. Observe how she
laughs,--not a giggle, neither an affected laugh, but heartily, with
her whole soul. I wish you could know how you laugh yourself; then you
would understand me.”

At this John laughed heartily, and his mother cried “Ah, yes! That is
the way my father laughed. Just so he shook his shoulders and sides.”
As the mother said this, so much longer the son laughed, till at last
she joined in, and when one ceased the other began again.

[Illustration: MOTHER AND SON.--PAGE 190.]

They sat down on a grassy bank, and let the horse graze. While the
mother plucked a daisy, and played with it in her hand, she said, “Yes,
this is something of consequence. Observe whether she tends her flowers
carefully. There is more in this than one would believe.”

They heard from a distance maidens singing. The mother said, “Remark
also, whether, in singing, she willingly takes the second part. It
signifies something when one would always give the key. Look, there
come the school children, and this reminds me of something. If you
can find out whether she has preserved her writing-books from her
school-days. This is of importance.”

“Yes, mother, I will take the whole world as witnesses; but what her
writing-books have to do with it, I cannot imagine.”

“That you ask, shows that you have no experience. A young girl who does
not gladly preserve every thing she has once valued has no true heart.”

During this conversation, the young man had been trying to untie a knot
in the lash of his whip; now he took a knife from his pocket and cut it
in two, his mother said, pointing with her finger, “That you may do,
but not a young girl. Observe whether she cuts a hard knot; there is a
secret in this.”

“That I can guess,” said her son, “but your shoe-string is untied, and
it is time to part.”

“Yes, and now you remind me of something; of one of the best signs.
Observe whether she treads evenly, or on one side or the other, and
whether she wears out many shoes.”

“For that, I must run to the shoemaker,” said her son laughing. “But,
mother, all this can never be found out of another.”

“Ah, yes, I talk too much. You need not remember all I have said, only
when any thing occurs you may be reminded of it. But, my son, you know
that I have never vexed you with questions; but now, open your heart to
me, and tell me what happened last year at the wedding, in Endringen,
when you came home like one bewitched, and have not been like yourself
since. Tell me, perhaps I can help you.”

“Oh, mother, that you cannot; but I will tell you. I saw one there, who
would have been the right one, but after all she was the wrong one.”

“Ah, God forbid! you did not fall in love with a married woman?”

“No--but she was yet the wrong one--why should I say much about it--she
was a servant!”

He breathed heavily, and the mother and son were for some moments
silent. At length, his mother laid her hand upon his shoulder, and
said, “Oh, my son, you are brave, and I thank God who has made you so.
You have done bravely to drive her out of your mind. Your father never
would have consented, and you would have lost a father’s blessing.”

“No, mother, I will not make myself out better than I am. It did not
please me that she was a servant. It would not do, and therefore I came
away. But it has been harder to forget her than I could have believed.
But it is all over now--or it must be all over. I have promised myself,
that I will not inquire after her. I will not ask who she is, or where
she is. I will bring you, God willing, a farmer’s daughter.”

“You acted honorably with the young girl? You did not turn her head?”

“Mother! I give you my hand--I have nothing to reproach myself with.”

“I believe you,” she said, and pressed his hand many times. “Now good
fortune, and my blessing go with you.”

The son mounted his horse, and the mother looking after him
cried,--“Hold, I have something more to say. I have forgotten the best
sign.”

The son turned his horse, and said smiling, “Mother, it must really be
the last.”

“Yes, and the best. Ask the young girl about the poor in the place, and
then go round and hear what the poor have to say of her. A farmer’s
daughter cannot be good for much who has not, at least, one poor person
on hand to whom she can do good. Inquire about this. And now, my son,
ride on, and God go with you!”

As he rode away, his mother repeated a prayer in his behalf, and
turning again into the court, she said, “I should have told him to
inquire after the Josenhans children, and learn what has become of
them.” Who can tell the hidden and secret ways the spirit wanders;
the streams that draw us from our accustomed paths, or deep beneath
them. A long-forgotten song, a dancing-tune suddenly occurs to our
memory, we cannot sing it aloud, because the whole is not perfect in
our recollection, but it moves us inwardly, as though we heard it sung.
What is it that thus suddenly awakes this forgotten melody?

Why did the mother, just then, think of these children, who had so
long vanished from her memory? Was it the devout sensibility of the
moment, which awoke the remembrance of another long past emotion, and
the circumstances connected with it? Who can comprehend the invisible
elements that hover around, and connect man with man, thought with
thought?

When the mother came back into the court, the farmer said
jokingly,--“You have no doubt given him the best instructions how he
may select the best wife, but that I have provided for. I have written
to Raven Zacky, who will show him the best houses. He must not bring
one who comes empty handed.”

“Money will not make her good,” said the mother.

“I know as much as that,” said the farmer, “but why should she not have
money and goodness also?”

His wife was silent, but after a while she said, “So, you have sent him
to Raven Zacky. It was with Raven Zacky the Josenhans boy was placed.”
This name recalled her former thoughts to her, and now first was she
conscious of recollections to which she frequently recurred in the
course of the events which followed.

“I know nothing of what you are saying. What is that child to you?”
asked the farmer. “Why do you not say that I have acted wisely?”

“Yes, yes, you have been prudent,” said his wife. But the old man was
not satisfied with this tardy applause, and went out grumbling.

A conscious suspicious fear, that John’s affair would not succeed, and
that they had perhaps been too hasty, made the old man uneasy, and
imparted his uneasiness to all about him.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XIV.

THE HORSEMAN.


In the evening of the same day that John had ridden forth from
Zusmarshofen, Raven Zacky came to Farmer Rodel’s, and sitting with him
in his back room, read a letter to him in a low voice.

“A hundred dollars, crown dollars, I must have when the thing is
settled, and promised in writing too,” said Raven Zacky.

“I should think fifty were enough--that is a good bit of money.”

“No, not a groschen less than a round hundred--but then I make you a
present of double the sum; I do it willingly for you and your sister.
I could get in Endringen, or in Siebenhöfen, as much again. Your Rose
is a respectable farmer’s daughter; that cannot be denied--but for any
thing else they might ask she is not remarkable. What are a dozen such
worth?”

“Be silent--no more of that.”

“Yes, yes, I will be silent, and not disturb your writing. Now give me
the receipt.”

Farmer Rodel knew whom he had to deal with, and after he had written he
said, “What do you think; shall I tell Rose about this?”

“Indeed, it were best, but she must not let it be known to any one
in the place. We all have enemies. You and your sister no less than
others. Take my advice; tell Rose to wear her every-day dress, and to
milk the cows when he is here. I will introduce him to your house. You
have read what Landfried writes--‘that he has his own peculiar notions,
and would be off at once if he saw that any preparation had been made
for him.’ This very evening, you must send to Lauterbach for your
brother-in-law’s white horse. I will send the wooer with the broker to
look at the horse. Take care that you do not betray yourself.”

As soon as Raven Zacky had gone, Rodel called his wife and sister into
the back room, and told them, with strict orders to keep it secret,
that in the morning a suitor would come for Rose; a man like a prince,
who had a farm such as there was not a second in the country--in one
word, the son of Farmer Landfried of Zusmarshofen. He then gave them
the advice of Raven Zacky, and recommended the strictest secrecy.

After supper, Rose could not refrain from asking Barefoot if she would
not go with her as a servant when she was married; she would double her
wages, and then she need not go across the Rhine to work in a factory.

Barefoot gave an evasive answer, for she was little inclined to go with
Rose. She knew, beside, that she had some other motive in asking the
question. In the first place, she wanted to show her triumph, that she
had a suitor in view, and then she wanted Barefoot to take charge of
her housekeeping, with which she troubled herself very little. Barefoot
would have willingly done this for a mistress she loved, but not for
Rose; and if she once left her present service, she would go into a
factory with her brother.

As Amrie was going to bed, her mistress called her and intrusted her
with the secret, adding, “I know you have always been patient with
Rose; but now be doubly so, that there may be no noise in the house
while the expected suitor is here.”

“Yes, certainly, but I think it wrong that she should only this once
milk the cows. That will be deceiving the young man--beside, she cannot
milk.”

“Thou and I--we cannot alter the world,” said her mistress, “and I
think you have trouble enough of your own. Let others do as they will.”

Barefoot laid down with heavy thoughts, that people should thus,
without conscientious scruples, deceive each other. She knew not,
indeed, who the deceived might be, but she pitied the poor young man,
and it seemed still worse, when she thought, “Perhaps Rose will be as
much deceived in him as he is in her.”

In the morning, when Barefoot looked early from her window, she started
back as though she had suddenly received a blow. “Oh, heavens, what
is that?” She rubbed hastily her eyes, and looked again--then asked
herself whether she were not dreaming? “Ah, no! there is the horseman
who was at the Endringen wedding. He is coming to the village! He is
coming for me! No, he does not know me! But he shall know. Ah! no! no!
What am I thinking of? He comes nearer and nearer! He is here! But he
does not look up!” A full-blown pink falls from Amrie’s hand over the
window-sill, and strikes upon the mantle-sack of his horse, but he does
not see it--it fell upon the street, and Barefoot hastened down to
recover the treacherous signal. And now the fearful thought struck her,
that he is Rose’s suitor--that he it is whom she meant last evening.
She did not mention his name, but it can be no other! None! He is the
person to be deceived! In the stable, upon the green clover which she
had gathered for the cows, she knelt down and prayed fervently to God,
to save him from becoming the husband of Rose. That he should become
her own, she ventured not the thought; she could not indulge the hope!

Soon as she had finished milking, she hastened to Mariann to ask
her what she should do. Mariann was lying severely ill. She had
become extremely deaf, and could scarcely understand a connected
sentence, and Barefoot could not venture to shriek the secret which
she had partly trusted, and which the old woman had partly guessed,
so loud that people in the street might hear. Thus she had to return
uncounselled to her home.

She was obliged to go out into the fields, and stay the whole day,
planting. At every step she hesitated, trembled, and was on the point
of going back to tell the stranger every thing. Yet a feeling of duty
to her employer, as well as calmer reflection, held her to her task. If
he is so inconsiderate as to act without reflection, then he cannot be
helped; he will deserve no better. Engaged is not married. With this
she consoled herself--but she was all day uneasy. When she returned in
the evening to milk the cows, Rose sat with a full bucket before a cow
that had already been milked, and sang in a voice loud and clear, while
she heard the stranger in the neighboring stall consulting the farmer
about a white horse. But whence comes this white horse? Hitherto they
had none. Then the stranger asked, “Who is that singing?”

“That is my sister,” said the farmer. Hearing this, Amrie sang the
second part, thinking it would induce the stranger to ask whose was the
other voice? But her singing prevented her from hearing the question,
although he did really ask. As Rose went with her full pail across the
court-yard, where they were still looking at the horse, the farmer
said, “There--that is my sister. Rose, be quick! and see what there is
for supper. We have a relation for a guest. I will soon bring him in.”

“And the little girl who sang so well the second part,” asked the
stranger, “is she, also, your sister?”

“No, that is only an adopted child. My father was her guardian.” The
farmer very well knew, that such a benevolent action would give a good
report to a family, and therefore he avoided calling Barefoot a servant.

She was secretly rejoiced that the stranger had noticed her. If he is
prudent, she justly thought, he will inquire of me about Rose, and then
if the knot is not tied, he can at least be preserved from ill fortune.

Rose carried up the supper, and the stranger, not knowing that he was
expected, was much astonished that so excellent a guest’s repast could
be prepared at such short notice. Rose made excuses, saying, “He was
no doubt accustomed to much better fare at home.” She imagined, not
unwisely, that any thing complimentary to one’s home, was always well
received.

Barefoot remained in the kitchen to prepare every thing for Rose’s
hand. Again and again she besought her to say who the stranger was.
“Pray, Rose, tell me who he is? What is his name?” Rose gave her no
answer. At length the mistress solved the riddle by saying, “You should
know already--it is Farmer Landfried’s son John, from Zusmarshofen. Is
it not true, Amrie, that you have a remembrance from his mother?”

“Yes, yes!” said Barefoot. She was obliged to sink down upon the
hearth; her knees wholly failed her; she would otherwise have fallen.
How wonderful was it all! He was the son of her first benefactress!
“Now I must indeed help him,” she said to herself, “and if the whole
village should stone me for it, I can endure it.”

The stranger went forth; they would have followed him, but upon the
steps he turned again and said, “My pipe has gone out. I would rather
kindle it myself with a coal in the kitchen.” Rose pressed in before
him, and standing exactly before Amrie, who sat by the fire, she gave
him a coal with the tongs.

Late in the night when all were asleep, Barefoot left the house, and
ran up and down through the village, seeking some one whom she could
trust to warn John. But she knew no one. “Hold! There dwells the
Sacristan--but he is an enemy to Farmer Rodel, and would bring out
all the scandal. Go not to an enemy of thy master, much less of thy
own, and thou hast enemies enough since the sitting of the parish
council about Dami! Ah, Dami? He can do it. Why not? One man can speak
to another. He can reveal all. Then John--that is his name--will not
forget the service--then Dami will have an advocate. A good one--a
man--perhaps a whole family. Then he will succeed. Ah, no! Dami dare
not show himself in the village. Was he not expelled? But there is
Mathew? He can do it. Perhaps Dami may.”

Thus her thoughts wandered,--swift,--as she herself ran through the
fields, not knowing where; and it was frightful to her, as it always
is to those who know nothing of the world or of themselves. She was
frightened at every sound; the frogs in the pond croaked fearfully;
the grasshoppers in the meadow chirped scornfully, and the trees
stood, so black in the dark night. Towards Endringen there had been
a thunder-storm, and flying clouds hastened across the sky, through
which blinked the stars. Barefoot hastened from the fields into the
forest. She would go to Dami. She must at least speak with some one.
She must hear a human voice. “How dark it is in the forest! Was that a
bird that twittered? Like the black-bird when he at evening flies home
and sings, ‘I come, come, come, come home; come quick, come quick.’
And now the nightingale struck in--so breathless, so from the inmost
heart--welling, sparkling, softly rippling, like a wood fountain, that
from the deepest source wells forth.”

The longer she wandered, the more she became involved in the wreaths
and sprays that wound confusedly about her feet in the wood, as her
plans became confused in her head. “No,” she said at last, “it will
come to nothing--you had better go home.” She turned, but wandered
long after in the fields. She no longer believed in wandering lights,
“Will-o’-the-wisp,” but to-night it seemed to her that she was led
hither and thither, and impelled to follow them. She began to feel that
she had been all night barefoot in the night dew, and that fever burnt
in her cheeks. Bathed in perspiration, she reached at last her bedroom.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XV.

BANISHED AND SAVED.


In the morning when Barefoot awoke, she saw the necklace which had been
given to her by the wife of Farmer Landfried, John’s mother, lying upon
her bed. After some moments she recollected that she had taken it out
last evening, and looked at it for a long time. When she attempted to
rise, she found that she could scarcely move. She felt as though all
her limbs were broken. She clasped her hands together, “Oh, not now!”
she cried. “Oh, God forbid that I should be ill to-day! I have no time!
I cannot be ill to-day!”

As in scorn of her body, and exerting a powerful will she arose--but
when she looked in her little glass she started back, shocked at
looking so ill. Her whole cheek was swollen. “This is thy punishment,”
she cried, “for running about the fields all night, and for wishing
to take bad men into thy council.” She struck as for punishment her
painful cheek, and then she bound it up and went about her work.

When her mistress saw how ill she was, she advised her to go to bed
again, but Rose scolded and said, it was only ill-nature in Barefoot to
be ill now, when she knew there was so much for her to do. Barefoot was
silent, but afterwards, when she was in the stable putting clover in
the rack for her cow, a cheerful voice said, “Good-morning--so early at
work!” It was his voice.

“Only a little,” she said, and bit her lip with vexation that she was
so disfigured, it would be impossible for him to recognize her.

Should she make herself known, or should she wait?

As she was milking, John asked her many questions. “Whether the cows
yielded much milk, if it was sold, or if they made butter? If any one
in the house kept the accounts, etc.?”

Barefoot trembled. It was now in her power, merely by only telling the
truth, to rid herself of her rival. But how strangely interwoven are
the threads of our actions! She was ashamed to speak ill of those with
whom she lived, although it was only of Rose she could say any thing.
The others were good. She knew also, that a servant should not speak
of the interior of the house. She merely said, “It does not become a
servant, to judge his master’s family; good-hearted they all are,”
she added, with an inward sense of justice, for, in fact, Rose was
so, in spite of her violent and overbearing temper. Now it occurred
to her, that if she were to tell him exactly what Rose was, he would
immediately depart. He would be saved from Rose, but he would be gone
forever. She went on to say, “You appear to be prudent, as your parents
also are, and you know you cannot form a judgment even of an animal in
one day. I think you should remain a little longer, and we can learn to
know each other better; and if I can serve you in any way, I will not
fail to do so. I know not, indeed, why you ask me so many questions.”

“Ah, you are a little rogue, but I like you,” said John.

Barefoot started, so that the cow drew back from her, and nearly
overturned the milk-pail.

John put his hand in his pocket, but suffered the money he was going to
draw out to fall back again.

“I will say something more to you,” said Amrie, as she turned to
another cow--“the Sacristan is an enemy to this family, which you ought
to know, if he should say any thing about them.”

“Ah, yes, I see. But one may talk safely with you. You have a swollen
face, I see, and your head bound up; that will do you no good so long
as you go barefoot.”

“I am used to it,” said Barefoot. “But I will follow your advice. I
thank you.”

They heard steps approaching. “We will speak to each other again,”
said the young man as he went from the stable.

“Thank you, swelled-cheeks,” cried Amrie after he had gone, “you have
become a mask for me; under your disguise I can speak to him as they do
in the carnival, without being known.”

It was wonderful how this inward joy had driven away the fever; she
felt weary, inexpressibly weary, and it was with mingled pleasure and
sorrow that she saw one of the servants getting ready the Berner wagon,
and heard that the farmer was going away directly with the stranger.
She went into the kitchen, and there heard the farmer in the next
room say, “If you are going to ride, John, Rose can go with me in the
chaise, and you can ride by the side.”

“Will not your wife go with us?” asked John, after a pause.

“I have an infant to nurse, and cannot leave it,” said the wife.

“Nor do I like to go driving round the country on a week-day,” said
Rose.

“Oh, nonsense! When a cousin is here, you may surely make a holiday,”
urged the farmer. He wished John to be seen with Rose as they passed
by Farmer Furchils, that he might not cherish any hope for one of his
daughters; at the same time, he knew that a little excursion in the
country would bring the young people more together than a whole week
spent in the house. John was silent, and the farmer in his anxiety
touched his shoulder and said, in an undertone, “Speak to her. If you
ask her, she will go.”

“I think,” said John, aloud, “that your sister is right, not to go
driving about the country upon a week-day. I will put my horse with
yours into the wagon, and we can see how they will go together, and by
supper-time we shall return, if not before.”

Barefoot, who heard all this, bit her lips to keep from smiling at what
John said. Ah, she thought, you have not yet put on the halter, to
say nothing of the bridle, by which you would be led away, no more to
return. She was obliged to take the band from her face; joy made her so
warm.

This was a strange day in the house. Rose related, half pettishly, the
curious questions John had asked her, and Amrie secretly rejoiced; all
that he wished to know was of things which she could have answered for
in herself. But of what use was all this? He did know her, and if he
should inquire about her, she was only a poor orphan and a servant, and
nothing could come from such circumstances. “He does not know thee,”
she said sighing, “and he will not ask.”

In the morning when they both returned, Amrie had taken the cloth
from her brow, although her chin and temple still retained the broad
bandage.

John appeared to have neither word nor glance for her. On the contrary,
his dog kept close to her in the kitchen. She fed and stroked him and
said, “Ah, yes, if thou couldst only speak, thou wouldst tell him all
the truth.”

The dog laid his head in her lap, and looked into her face with soulful
eyes; then shook his head, as though he would say, “It is hard that I
cannot speak God’s truth.”

Barefoot went into the nursery and sang to the children, who were,
indeed, asleep; but she sang all her songs, and the waltz that she
had once danced with John, she repeated the oftenest. John listened
embarrassed, and betrayed his absence in his conversation. Rose went
into the chamber and told Amrie to be silent.

Late in the evening, as Barefoot was carrying water to Mariann, and was
near the house of her parents with the full pail upon her head, John,
who was going to his inn, met her. “Good-evening,” said Amrie, in a low
voice.

“Ei, is it you?” asked John. “Where are you going with the water?”

“To Mariann.”

“Who then is Mariann?”

“A poor bedridden woman.”

“Why! Rose told me there were no poor in the village.”

“Only too many. But Rose certainly only said it, because she thought it
a disgrace to the village to have many poor. She is good-natured you
may readily believe, and gives willingly.”

“You are a good advocate. But do not stand still with that heavy pail.
May I go with you?”

“Why not?”

“You are right, you are going upon a good errand, and are protected.
Beside, you need not be afraid of me.”

“I am not afraid of any one, and least so of you. I have seen to-day
that you are good.”

“How so?”

“When you advised me how to get rid of my swelled face. It has helped
me. I now wear shoes.”

“That is right that you take advice so readily,” said John much
pleased, and the dog appeared to remark his satisfaction, for he jumped
upon Amrie and licked her hand.

“Come away, Lux,” said John.

“No! let him stay,” said Barefoot, “we are already good friends. He has
been with me in the kitchen; all dogs love me and my brother.”

“So you have a brother?”

“Yes,--and might I venture to ask a favor of you; you would earn a
reward from heaven, if you would take him as a servant. He would serve
you faithfully.”

“Where is your brother?”

“There in the forest. He is at present a coal-burner.”

“We have little wood, and, indeed, no coalery. He would suit me better
as a herdsman.”

“That he could easily be. But here is the house.”

“I will wait till you come out,” said John.

Amrie went in to place the water, lay up the fire again, and to make
Mariann’s bed afresh for her. When she came out John was waiting for
her, and the dog sprang to meet her. They stood long together under
the service-tree, whose branches rocked, and whose leaves whispered
above them, and they talked of many things. John praised her sense and
prudence, and at length said, “If you wished to change your service,
you would just suit my mother.”

“That is the greatest praise a man could give me,” said Barefoot.
“I have already a remembrance from her.” She related to him the
circumstance that took place in her childhood, and they both laughed,
when she said, “Dami never would forget that his mother had promised
him a pair of leather breeches.”

“He shall have them,” said John.

They walked back together into the village, and John gave her his
hand when he wished her good-night! He went reflecting with confused
thoughts to his lodgings in the Heathscock Inn.

Barefoot found, the next morning, that her swollen cheek had vanished
as though under a charm. Cheerful songs were heard all day through
house and court, stall and shed. To-day something must be decided.
To-day John must declare himself. Rodel would not allow his sister
to be any longer the subject of remark, when, perhaps, nothing might
result from it.

Indeed, the whole day, John sat in the house with Rose, who was
sewing upon a man’s shirt. Towards evening the farmer’s father and
mother-in-law and some other friends came in.

It must be decided!

In the kitchen the roast meat hissed, the pine wood snapped, and
Barefoot’s cheeks burned with the fire from the hearth, fanned by the
deeper heat of inward burning. Raven Zacky went up and down, in and
out, as though full of business, and smoked Farmer Rodel’s pipe as
though he had been at home.

“It is then all decided!” Barefoot said to herself sorrowfully.

It had become night again, and many lights were burning throughout the
house. Rose, gayly dressed, went from parlor to kitchen, but did not
prepare any thing. An old woman who had formerly been cook in the city,
was hired to get ready the supper. All was now ready.

The young farmer’s wife said to Barefoot, “Now go up and put on your
Sunday dress.”

“Why should I do so?”

“Because you must wait at table, and you will get a better present.”

“I had much rather remain in the kitchen.”

“No--do as I bid you--and make haste.”

Amrie went into her chamber, and weary to death, she threw herself
down for a minute upon her trunk. Oh, she was so weary, so tired, so
discouraged. Could she only fall asleep and never wake again! But her
duty summoned her, and scarcely had she taken her Sunday dress in her
hand, when joy awoke in her heart, and the glow from the evening sky
which threw a clear beam into the humble garret room, trembled upon the
heightened color of Amrie’s cheek.

“Put on your Sunday dress.” She had only one, and that was the dress
she had worn at the wedding in Endringen. Every fold and rustle of
that garment awoke the memory of the dancer, and the joy she had felt
in that dance. But the night soon sank into the room, and as Amrie
fastened her dress in the darkness, her joy vanished and timidity
returned. She said to herself, “that as she dressed herself to do honor
to John, she would show that she prized his family also,” and she put
on the necklace, the present from his mother.

So Amrie came down from her chamber adorned as she was at the dance in
Endringen. Rose cried, “What is this? Why have you dressed yourself
thus? Why have you put your whole fortune on your back? Is it a servant
who puts on a necklace? Go, instantly, and take it off.”

“No! that I will not, for his mother gave it to me when I was a little
child, and I wore it when I danced with him at Endringen.”

They heard a noise upon the steps, but Rose continued, “So you
good-for-nothing creature; you, who would have perished in rags if we
had not taken pity on you--and now you will take away my bridegroom
from me!”

“Do not call him so before he is,” said Amrie with a strange, faltering
voice; and the old cook cried from the kitchen, “Barefoot is right, a
child should not be named before he is christened. He will meet with
misfortune else.”

Amrie laughed, and Rose shrieked--“Why do you laugh?”

“Why should I cry?” said Amrie. “Indeed I have reason enough; but I
will not.”

“Wait, I will show you what you must do,” shrieked Rose, beside
herself--“so--and so.” She had torn Amrie down to the ground, and
struck her in the face.

“Oh, let me go, let me go!” cried Amrie, “I will undress myself,”--but
Rose without this promise had stopped, for, like a spectre sprung from
the ground, John stood before her.

He was pale as death--his lips quivered, and he could not bring out a
word. He laid his hand protectingly upon Barefoot, who was yet upon the
ground.

Amrie was the first who spoke. She cried, “John, believe me, she was
never so before--never in her whole life. I am to blame.”

“Yes, you are to blame! But come, go with me. And wilt thou be mine?
Wilt thou? I have at last found you without seeking for you. And now
you will remain with me. Will you not, and be my wife? It is God’s
will!”

What mortal eye has ever looked steadily upon the lightning from
heaven? Wait for it ever so firmly, when it comes it blinds the human
eye. There are lightnings also in the eyes of men, that no one can
look upon. Such was the lightning now from Barefoot’s eyes. There
are also emotions in the human heart that no one can at the moment
understand--they rise far above the earth, and cannot be caught by
others. A lightning glance of ecstasy, as though heaven opened upon
her, flashed from Amrie’s eyes; then she covered her face with both
hands, and the tears gushed forth between her fingers. John still held
his hand upon her.

All the friends collected about them, and looked astonished at what was
passing.

“What is the matter there with Barefoot? What has happened?” said
Farmer Rodel, coming forward.

“So you are called Barefoot,” said John, laughing merrily; and again he
urged, “Come, say only that you will be mine. Say it here where there
are witnesses who will establish it. Say yes, and death only shall
divide us.”

“Yes--death only shall divide us,” and she threw herself upon his neck.

“Take her instantly from this house,” shrieked Rodel, foaming with rage.

“Ah, yes,” said John, “that you need not have said. But I thank you,
cousin, for your hospitality, which, if you will come to us, we will
gladly return.” Then pressing with both hands his head, he cried,--“Oh,
God--Oh, mother! mother! How wilt thou rejoice!”

“Go up, Barefoot, instantly, and take away your trunk. Nothing of yours
shall remain another hour in the house,” said Rodel.

“Yes, but with less noise,” said John. “Come, Barefoot, I will go up
with you. But tell me, what is your real name.”

“Amrie.”

“I was once to have had an Amrie! Huzza! Huzza! Come, I will see your
chamber--the chamber where you have lived so long--but soon you shall
have a larger house.”

The dog went round and round Rodel with bristling, erect hair; no doubt
he saw that the farmer would willingly have throttled his master; and
only when John and Barefoot reached the top of the stairs did Lux
follow them.

John left the trunk, for he could not take it upon his horse, and
packed every thing belonging to Barefoot in the sack inherited from her
father; she all the time telling him what wonders had already occurred
in connection with that sack; but to her, all the world had come
together in one moment, and was a thousand-yeared wonder. She looked
on, astonished, when John seized her writing-book, preserved from her
childhood, and with joy kissed it, exclaiming, “This will I bring to my
mother; she foresaw this. Ah, there are yet miracles in the world!”

Barefoot asked no further. Had not all that had happened to her been
a miracle? As she knew that Rose would instantly tear up her flowers
and throw them into the street, she passed her hand caressingly over
the plants, till she felt it cooled with the night dew. She went down
with John, and as she was leaving the house, she felt a silent pressure
of her hand in the dark. It was the farmer’s wife, thus bidding her
farewell!

Upon the threshold where she had so often dreamily leaned, she laid her
hand upon the door-post and said, “May God restore to this house all
the good it has done to me, and forgive, as I do, all the ill.” But
scarcely had she gone a few steps when she exclaimed, “Oh, dear! I have
forgotten all my shoes. They stood upon an upper shelf.” The words were
hardly out of her mouth, when the shoes came flying after her upon the
street.

“Run in them to the devil,” cried a harsh voice, which was nevertheless
the voice of Rose.

Barefoot gathered up her shoes, while John took the sack upon his back,
and thus they went together to the inn. The moon shone as clear as
day, and the village lay quiet in the moonlight. Barefoot would not
remain in the inn.

“I would much rather go on,” said John.

“I will remain with Mariann,” said Amrie. “It is my parents’ house, and
you will leave your dog with me. Come, Lux, you will stay with me? I
fear, to-night, they may do me some mischief.”

“I will watch before the house,” said John, “but it were better that we
went on immediately; why would you remain here?”

“Oh! above all, I must go to Mariann. She has been a mother to me, and
I have not seen her this whole day. I have done nothing for her to-day,
and she is very ill. Ah, it is cruel that I must leave her all alone!
But what can I do? come with me to her.”

They went hand in hand together, through the sleeping moonshine. Not
many steps from her parents’ house, Amrie stood still and said, “Look!
here thy mother gave me the necklace and a kiss.”

“Ah! here is another, and another!” Blessedly the lovers embraced each
other. The service-tree rustled all its leaves above them, and from the
forest the nightingales’ sweetest tones joined in the harmony.

“Ah! that is enough. Now you must go with me to Mariann. Oh, how she
will rejoice, as from the seventh heaven!”

They went into the house together. When Amrie opened the door of the
room, the moonbeam as the sun once before shone upon the head of the
angel upon the stove, and it appeared to smile upon them. Barefoot
cried with loud joyful voice: “Mariann! Mariann! Wake up! Here is
joy--blessing and joy--Wake up! Wake up!”

The old woman arose in her bed. The moonbeam fell upon her face and
neck. She opened her eyes wide and asked, “What is it? What is it? Who
calls?”

“Rejoice, rejoice! I bring you my John!”

“My John,” shrieked the old woman. “My John! Oh, God, my son? How
long--how long! I have thee! I have thee! I thank thee, oh! my God!
A thousand and a thousand times! Oh, my child, I see thee at last! I
see thee with a thousand eyes, a thousand times over! There, there thy
hand! Come close, come close! There in that chest is thy portion! Take
my hand! My son! My son! Yes, yes--it is my son! John, my son, my dear
son!” She laughed convulsively, and fell back in her bed. Amrie and
John had been kneeling at her bedside, and as they rose and bent over
her, the old woman breathed no more.

“Oh, God, she is dead! Joy has killed her,” cried Amrie. “She took thee
for her own son. She died happy, then! God be praised! Oh, how every
thing goes! All in this world!”

She sank down by the bed and wept and sobbed bitterly. At length John
raised her up, and Barefoot closed the eyes of the dead. They stood
long, silently together, by the bed. Then Amrie said, “I will wake some
one in the village to watch by her. How good God has been. She had no
one to take care of her after I had gone, and God has given her the
greatest joy in her last moment. Oh, how long she had waited for this
joy!”

“Yes! But now you can stay here no longer,” said John. “Now you will
come with me, and we will go on immediately.”

Barefoot waked the wife of the Sacristan, and sent her to Mariann. She
was herself so wonderfully self-possessed, that she charged the woman
to have Mariann’s flowers planted upon her grave, and not to forget to
place her hymn-book, and that of her son, beneath her head, as Amrie
had always promised her.

As at last every thing was placed in order, she turned to John and
said, “Now all is ready, but forgive me, thou good soul, that I have
brought you to this miserable scene, and forgive me also, that I am
now so sad. I see that it is all good, and that God has done all for
the best, but the shock is yet in all my limbs. I tremble from head to
foot--for death is a frightful thing. You would not believe how much
my thoughts and my fears have dwelt upon it. But now it is all well.
I shall soon again be cheerful, for am I not the happiest bride on
earth?”

“Yes, you are right!” said John. “But come, now we will go. Will you
sit with me upon the horse?”

“Yes, is it the white horse that you rode at Endringen?”

“Certainly--the same.”

“And, oh, for Farmer Rodel. Did you know he sent to Lauterbach for
a white horse, to induce you to come to the house? Gee, whoa! White
horse, go again home!” she cried, almost cheerful again. And so from
thought and emotion, they returned again to common every-day life, and
learnt again to know and feel the blessedness of their lot!

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XVI.

SILVER TROT.


“Is it true? Is it not a dream? Are we together, and awake, and will
the morning come again, and then the day, and so on forever?” Thus
spoke Barefoot to Lux, who remained by her side while John was in the
stable saddling the horse. He came out, put the sack upon the horse,
and said, “I will sit upon it, and you shall sit before me on the
saddle.”

“Let me rather sit upon my sack.”

“If it please you.”

Having swung himself upon the saddle, he said, “Now put your foot on
mine, stand firmly upon it, and give me both your hands.” She swung
herself lightly up, he raised, and kissing her, said,--“Now you are in
my power, I can do with you what I please.”

“I do not fear you,” said Barefoot, “and you are also in my power.”

Silently they rode out of the village. In the last house a light was
burning; there was the sexton’s wife watching by the dead Mariann.
John suffered Amrie to weep undisturbed. As they rode across the Holden
Meadow, Amrie first spoke.

“Here,” she said, “I once kept the geese, and here I gave your father
water from the spring. God bless thee, thou wild pear-tree, and you
fields and forests! It seems to me all a dream, and forgive me, dear
John, that I do not rejoice. I cannot yet, and dare not, when I think
that my friend is lying there dead. It is a sin to rejoice, and a sin
not to rejoice. Do you know, John, what I say to myself? when a year
is past I shall be so happy--when the year is over, oh! how beautiful
it will be! But no! to-day is beautiful, I will be happy to-day--it
is just. Now, we will ride into Heaven! Ah, what dreams I have had
there upon the Holder Common; that the cuckoo was perhaps an enchanted
prince, and now I sit upon your horse, and have become the salt
duchess. I know they joke about it in Holdenbrunn, but I am glad you
called me salt duchess. Do you know the history of the saying, ‘As dear
as salt’?”

“No, what then is it?”

“There was once a king who asked his daughter one day, ‘How much do you
love me?’ and she answered, ‘I love thee as dear--as dear as salt.’

“The king said, ‘That is a stupid answer,’ and was angry at it. Not a
long time after the king gave a great feast, and the daughter contrived
that all the dishes should come upon the table unsalted. Of course,
nothing tasted well, and the king asked his daughter, ‘How the dinner
came to be so badly cooked?’

“She said, ‘Because the salt failed; there was no salt. You see now
that I was right when I said I loved you as dear as salt!’ The king was
satisfied, and to this day we say as dear as salt.

“This story Mariann told me. Alas! she can never tell me any more.
There she lies dead! Hark! there sings the nightingale. Oh! so happy!
I will think no more of sorrow. I will be thy salt duchess, John.
Yes, I am happy! Mariann said, ‘God rejoices when people are happy,
as parents are happy to see their children dance and sing.’ We have
danced already; come now, we will sing. Turn a little to the left in
the forest; we will ride to my brother. Sing, nightingale, we will sing
with you.”

  “Sweet bird of night! I hear thee sing
  Till soul from life to part, will spring.
  Come nearer, bird! and teach me well
  How love and life together dwell!”

Both sang together all their songs, melancholy and lively, without
ceasing, and Barefoot sang the second part as well as the first. But
most often they sang the Landler, the waltz they had danced together
three times at Endringen, and whenever they paused, they told each
other how often, when they were far off, they had thought of each
other.

John said, “It has been impossible for me to get that waltz out of my
head, for with it you have always danced there. But I was not willing
to have a servant for my wife, for I must tell you that I am proud.”

“That is right; I am also proud.”

John now told her how he had struggled with himself to forget her, and
how delightful it was now, that time was all over. Then he told her he
had been twice to his mother’s native village to bring home a wife from
there; but all in vain, for since he met her that day at the entrance
of Endringen, his heart had been wholly hers; but as he heard she was a
servant, he would not make himself known to her.

Barefoot told him how Rose had behaved to her at the wedding in
Endringen, and at that time she was first wounded at hearing her say,
“It is only our servant!”

After much mutual confidence, John cried, “I could go mad when I think
how different it might have been. How could I have taken any but
yourself homewards? How could it have been possible?”

After reflecting some time, Amrie said, in her considerate manner,--

“Do not think too often how it could have been different, or so and so,
otherwise. As it is, it is right, and must be right; be it for joy or
sorrow. God has willed it as it is, and now it depends on us to make it
for the best.”

“Yes,” said John, “if I shut my eyes and listen to you, I think I hear
my mother; she would have said exactly these words. Your voice is also
like hers.”

“She must be now dreaming of us,” said Barefoot; “I am sure of it.”

And after her peculiar manner, in the midst of security, although her
life from her infancy had been filled with the seeds of wonder, she
asked:

“How is your horse called?”

“As he looks.”

“That will not do; we must give him another name. Do you know what?
Silver Trot.”

And now to the tune they had danced together, John sang over and over
again the one word “Silver-trot, silver-trot, silver-trot!” Barefoot
sang it with him, and when they no longer sang words that had any
meaning, their merriment was pure, full, unlimited; they expressed
their inward joy by outward jubilee, by _joddling_ together, for there
are bell-tones in the soul that have no connected melody, but include
in themselves every sound of joy; and hover here and there, over and
above us, and rock together the hearts of the living. Again they found
words. John sang,--

  “My treasure is mine,
  I hold it as firmly
  As the tree holds its branch,
  As the apple its kernel.”

Then they sang in low, deep tones, this serious song,--

  “After grief comes quickly joy--
  And joy takes place of every grief.
  I know a dear, brown little maid,
  She has two dark brown little eyes,
  And to my heart she brings this joy.
        My own she will be!
        No other she will bless!
  Thus we shall live in joy and grief
  Till cruel Death divide us both!”

There were pure sounds in the forest, where the moonbeams played upon
the branches and hung upon the stems, and two joyful human children
emulating and contending with the nightingale.

Not far off, by the charcoal-heap, sat Dami in the quiet night,
listening to the charcoal-burner, who related to him wonderful
histories from past times, when the trees stood so closely together
that a squirrel could run from the Neckar to the Bodensee, from tree to
tree, without once touching the ground. Then he told him the history of
a rider upon a white horse, a messenger from the old heathen gods, who
diffused over the earth beauty and splendor, and poured out joy to men.

There are proverbs and fables that influence the soul, as looking long
into an intense fire affects the eye. Varied colors play around, are
extinguished, and again break out; but when we turn from the flame, the
night is darker than before.

Thus listened Dami, and thus he looked around, while Mathew in a
monotonous voice related his stories. He held in, for down the hill
came a white horse with sweet and pleasant music accompanying him. “Has
the world of wonders come to us?” Nearer came the horse, and there sat
upon him a wonderful rider, broad and tall, and apparently with two
heads. It came always nearer, and the music changed to a man’s and a
woman’s voice, crying, “Dami, Dami, Dami!”

Both would have sunk into the ground from fright; they could not stir,
but the horse was there, and now the strange figure alighted.

“Dami! it is I,” cried Barefoot, and related all that had happened to
her.

Dami had nothing to say, but stroked sometimes the horse and sometimes
the dog, and only nodded when John told him he would take him for his
dairyman; that he should have the care of thirty cows, and learn to
make butter and cheese.

“That will be coming out of darkness into the light,” said Barefoot.
“We could make a riddle out of that, Dami.”

At last Dami recovered his speech, “not forgetting a pair of leather
breeches also,” he said. All laughed, and he declared that John’s
mother had promised him a pair of these breeches.

“In the mean time take my pipe,” said John,--“the pipe of a
brother-in-law,”--and he gave him his pipe.

“But you will have none for yourself,” Amrie objected.

“I no longer need one,” said John.

How happy was Dami, as he sprang into the log-hut with his
silver-mounted pipe; but who would have believed that he could have
made so clever a joke. After a moment he came back with the hat and
long coat of Mathew on, and a lighted torch in each hand. With the
utmost gravity of tone and manner, he addressed the betrothed lovers,--

“John, I have brought a couple of torches with which to light you home.
How came you to think you could take my sister from me? I am her adult
brother; you must receive her from me, and until I say yes, all goes
for nothing.”

Amrie laughed gayly, and John made a formal request to Dami for the
hand of his sister. Dami would have carried the joke still further, for
he was proud of the part in which he had succeeded so well; but Amrie
knew that he could not be depended upon, and that he would commit some
folly. She had seen already that he had stretched his hand more than
once towards John’s watch-seals, and had drawn it back again without
touching them. She spoke, therefore, in a severe tone, as to a young
child,--

“That is enough; you have done well; now let it pass.”

Dami assumed again his own character, and said to John, “It is all
right you have a steel-bound wife, and I a silver-bound pipe.” As
nobody laughed, he added,--“Ah, brother-in-law, you did not know that
you had so wise a relation. What say you, brother-in-law? We are both
of one stock, brother.” It seemed in his joy that he could not say
brother-in-law too often.

At length they mounted, and when they had ridden a short distance, Dami
called after them,--

“Brother, don’t forget my leather breeches!” Merry laughter answered
him, and then again the music of their songs, as the lovers rode on in
the moonlight.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XVII.

OVER MOUNTAIN AND VALLEY.


There is no living an equal, uniform life. Night and day, rest and
motion, wild tumult and stagnant repose, and all the changes of the
season; thus it is in the life of nature; thus it is in the human
heart, and it is well for that heart, if in all its changes, it does
not wander from its true path.

It was broad daylight when the lovers reached the town. A long time
before, when they first met a person walking, they both dismounted;
they felt that their appearance was singular, and that first man, a
messenger from memory, reminded them that they must come out of Eden
and assume again the order of humanity and custom. John led the horse
in one hand, and gave the other to Amrie, and thus they silently
entered the town. When they looked at each other, their faces shone
like those of children just awaked from sleep, but when they looked
away, or down upon themselves, they were anxious about what should next
occur.

As though she had already talked with John, and he had prudently
reflected upon the subject, Amrie said,--

“Indeed, it would have been wiser if we had calmly arranged matters
beforehand. If you had gone home, and I, in the mean time, had remained
somewhere,--if nowhere else, with Mathew the coal-burner in the
forest,--and you had come for me with your mother, or written to me,
and I could have followed with my Dami. But do you know what I think?”

“Not quite all that you think.”

“I think regret is the stupidest thing one can allow to come over him.
Do what we may, we cannot make yesterday to-day. What we did in the
jubilee of our hearts was right, and must remain right; we must not,
now that we are a little more sober, reproach ourselves for it; we must
now reflect how we can make the future good and useful to us. You are a
sensible man, and you will see that it is best to consider and tell me
every thing freely. Say what you may, you will not distress me; but if
you conceal any thing from me, it will distress me sorely. Say, do you
repent what we have done?”

“Can you guess a riddle?” asked John.

“Yes, as a child, I could.”

“Well, now tell me this, it is a simple word. Take away the first
letter and you might as well lose your head; put it back again, and it
is all right.”

“That is too easy,” said Barefoot. “It is childish; it is rue and
true,” and as the larks began to sing, they also sang riddle-songs with
them. Then John sang:

  “Now love! I will give thee to guess,
  But if not, I will marry thee, no less.
  What is whiter than snow?
  What is greener than grass?
  What is black as the sloe?
  Dost thou guess it? Ah, love,
  Will you marry me?”

Amrie:

  “The cherry bloom is whiter than snow,
  But when it falls off, the green bud’s below.
  The fruit’s like the sloe; in beauty it glows,
  And I’ll be thy wife, as thou so well knows.”

John:

  “What king has no sway?
  What servant has no pay?”

Amrie:

  “The king of clubs has no sway;
  The dumb waiter has no pay.”

John:

  “There is a fire that has no heat,
  There is a knife that has no point.”

Amrie:

  “A painted fire has no heat;
  A broken knife has no point.”

Suddenly, John snapped his fingers. “Now I have one,” and he sang,--

  “What has no head and yet has feet?
  What without sugar, still tastes sweet?”

Amrie could not guess, and John sang:

  “Without head, the yard measure has feet;
  And the kiss of thy lips is always sweet.”

They entered the door of the first inn they came to, and as John called
for coffee, Amrie said:

“How beautifully is every thing ordered in this world! Here are people
who have furnished a house with chairs and tables and benches; in
the kitchen burns the fire, and there is coffee and milk and sugar,
and a beautiful service for the table, and all for us, as though we
had ordered it; then, as we go further we shall find the same; it is
exactly as in a fairy tale,--‘Table be covered.’”

“But this belongs to it,” said John, taking a handful of money from his
pocket. “Without this we could get nothing.”

“Ah, yes,” said Amrie, “upon these little wheels one can roll through
the world. But tell me, John, did you ever in your life taste such good
coffee: and this fresh, white bread! But you have ordered too much
of it; what can we do with it? I can take the bread with me, but the
coffee! Oh! what a good breakfast it would give many poor persons. We
must leave it, and you must pay for it!”

“That cannot be helped,” said John. “One cannot calculate so exactly in
the world.”

“Yes, yes, you are right. But I am not accustomed to the world; you
must not take it ill if I say things that are not clever and sensible.”

“You can easily say that, but you know that you are clever.”

Amrie rose soon from the table, and as she stood before the glass, she
cried,--

“Oh, dear Heavens! do I look like that? I do not know myself!”

“But I know you,” said John, “you are Amrie, and Barefoot, and Salt
Duchess, and that is not all; you will soon have another name;
Landfried is not bad.”

“Oh! can that be? I think sometimes it cannot be possible.”

“There are some hard boards to bore through,” said John, “but they do
not frighten me. Now lie down and sleep a little, while I look about
for a Berner wagon; we cannot in the day-time ride on one horse; beside
we need a wagon.”

“I could not sleep, and I must write a letter to Holdenbrunn; I am
strong; and I have enjoyed much good there; I have also some directions
to give.”

“Oh, well! get it over when I come back.” John went, and Amrie looked
after him with somewhat troubled thoughts. “There he goes, and yet he
belongs to me. Is it possible? is it true? is he mine? He does not look
back. How proudly he goes, and the dog goes with him!”

Amrie made a sign to the dog; he came running back and jumped upon her.
As they went into the house together, she said, “Yes, it was good, it
was right of thee to remain with me, that I might not be alone; but
come in, I must write.”

She wrote a long letter to the Mayor of Holdenbrunn, thanking the
whole parish for what they had done for her, and promising to take an
orphan child from thence, when she was able. She besought the Mayor
that Mariann’s hymn-book might be placed beneath her head. When she had
sealed her letter, she pressed her lips upon it, and said, “Now I have
done with all the living in Holdenbrunn.” But she tore her letter open
again, for she thought it her duty to show John what she had written.

He was a long time gone, and Amrie blushed painfully when the landlady
said to her,--

“Your husband has probably business in the town.” To hear John for the
first time called her husband, sank deeply into her heart; she could
not answer, and the hostess looked at her with astonishment. To escape
her curious glances, Amrie went out and sat down upon a pile of boards;
the dog sat opposite, waiting for John; she caressed him and looked
deeply into his honest eyes. No animal seeks and bears the steady,
penetrating eye of man, like the dog, but he also at last turns away.

How full of riddles, and yet also how manifest is the world!

Amrie went with the dog into the stable, where the horse was eating.
“Yes, dear Silver Trot,” she said, “enjoy thy breakfast and bring us
well home, and God grant that all may be well!”

It was a long time before John came back; when at last she saw him, she
ran to meet him, and said,--

“Promise me that if you have business again on the road, you will take
me with you?”

“What! were you afraid? Did you think I had left you? Ah! what if I had
left you sitting there, and had ridden off?”

Amrie trembled from head to foot. Then she said very seriously, “You
are not witty, and if you intended by that a joke, it was dreadfully
stupid. I pity you if you said it seriously. You would have done
something very wicked if you would have ridden away and thought to have
left me--you thought, perhaps, as you had a horse and money, that you
were the master. No! your horse brought us here together; I consented
to come with you; what would you think if I made such a joke, and said,
‘What if I left you sitting there!’ I pity you, that you could say it.”

“Yes, yes, you are right!” John answered,--“but say no more about it.”

“No! when I am offended I must say all that is in my mind. I know best
when to be silent, for it is you who have offended me. If another had
said any thing that was unjust, I should have turned from it; but
in you I dare not leave a single shadow unobserved. To joke of our
relation to each other seems to me as profane as to play with the
crucifix as if it were a doll.”

“Oh, ho! not so bad as that; but it seems you do not understand a joke.”

“I understand it well, as you will soon learn; but now no more of this;
I have done; it is all well!”

This little difference showed both of them early, that with all their
loving devotion, they must each respect the other. Amrie felt that she
had been a little too warm, and John learnt that Amrie’s dependent
condition, and her unbounded confidence and trust in him, must be no
subjects of sport.

The few morning clouds soon were scattered by the penetrating beams of
the sun, and Amrie was as gay as a child, when a pretty, green Berner
wagon came to the door, with a round, cushioned seat. Before the horse
was harnessed, she jumped in, and clapping her hands for joy, she said
to John,--

“Now you must make me fly; I have ridden with you, I am going to drive
with you, and nothing remains but to fly.”

It was a beautiful morning, and a well-built road. The horse found easy
work, and the dog ran before them, barking for joy. After some time,
Amrie said,--

“Only think, John, the hostess took me for your wife.”

“And so you are, and I shall ask no one’s leave, and care not what
they say. Thou, Heaven, and ye larks, and you trees, and fields, and
hills,--look, this is my little wife! When she scolds she is just as
dear as when the most beautiful things drop out of her mouth. Oh! my
mother is a wise woman! Ah! she knows! She told me to observe how a
woman appeared when she was angry, for then, all that is within comes
out. That was a dear, sharp, cutting, beautiful, wicked little thing,
that came out to-day when you were angry. Now I know you, and all
the kindred, and I like them. Oh! thou wide, wide world, I thank you
all,--all in the world; and I ask you, if so long as you have stood,
you have ever seen such a dear little wife? Huzza! Huzza!”

When they met or passed anybody, John would cry, “See! this is my wife;
look at her!” till Amrie besought him not to do it--when he said, “He
could not for joy help it. I would call the whole world to rejoice with
me--and I cannot tell how the men who are at work in the fields, or who
are splitting wood, or doing any thing else, are not able to know how
blessed I am.”

A poor woman came limping after them, and Amrie seized quickly a
pair of her beloved shoes and threw them to her. The woman looked
astonished, and nodded her thanks. Amrie felt for the first time in
her life, that blessed emotion of giving away a thing which she valued
herself. She never thought how much she had done for Mariann, but that
she had given her shoes, appeared to her the first benevolence of her
heart. She was more pleased than the woman who had received the shoes;
she smiled at herself, as though she had a secret in her soul that made
her heart leap for joy, and when John asked, “What is the matter? why
do you smile like a child in its sleep?” she said, “Ah! it is all like
a dream. I can now make a present--and am going home in thought with
that old woman, and can see how happy she will be.”

“That is brave,” said John; “I like to see you generous.”

“Oh! how can you call it so, to give when one is happy? It is as though
a full glass should overflow. I would give every thing away. I feel as
you do, that I would call all men to be happy; I mean, I should like to
feast them all. I think I am sitting at a long table, alone with you,
but I cannot eat, I am satisfied.”

“Ah, that is well,” said John; “but do not throw away more of your
shoes. When I look at them, I think how many beautiful long years you
will wear them--how many beautiful long years you will run about in
them, till they are worn out.”

“How came you to think of that? How many hundred times have I had
the same thought, when I have looked at the shoes; but now tell me
something of your home, else I shall always chatter of myself.”

John did that willingly, and while he related, and Amrie listened with
wide-opened eyes, there always moved throughout it in her imagination,
the happy image of the old woman with the new shoes. After John had
described his family, above all, he praised the cattle--“They are all
so well fed, so healthy and round, that no drop of water will stand
upon them.”

“I cannot understand,” said Amrie, “how I can be so rich. When I think
of it, it seems as though I had slept all my life, and had just been
waked. No, no! It cannot be so; I am frightened when I think of the
responsibility I shall feel. Tell me, will not your mother help me;
she is active yet, I hope? I do not know how I shall help giving every
thing to the poor; but no--that must not be, for it is not mine.”

“Giving does not make one poor, is a proverb of my mother’s,” said John.

It is impossible to say with what joy the lovers went on. Every word
they uttered made them happier. Amrie asked, “Have you swallows at your
house?”

John answered, “Yes,” and added, “that they had also a stork’s nest
upon the housetop.” This made Amrie completely happy. She imitated the
chattering of the storks, and described, so as to make John laugh, the
grave and earnest expression of the stork, as he stood upon one leg
and looked down into his house.

Was it by agreement, or was it the inward power of these moments of
happiness, that they said nothing; that they did not appear to think
of what lay before them,--their entrance into the parental house, till
towards evening when they reached the district in which Zusmarshofen
lay. But now as John began to meet peeple who knew him, greeted him,
and looked at them curiously, he said to Amrie, “He had thought of two
plans, as to the best way of proceeding. Either he would take her to
his sister, who lived very near (they could see the church tower of
the village behind that hill), and he would go alone to the house and
make every thing known, or she should go immediately to his parents and
offer herself as a servant.”

Amrie showed her decision and good sense as they analyzed these
proceedings, and the objections to them. If she went first to the
sister, she would have to win over a person who could, after all, not
decide for them, and who, differing from them, might imbitter their
future intercourse. It would also leave a report in the neighborhood,
that she had not dared to venture into his house. The second plan was
better, but it went against her whole soul, to enter his father’s house
with a lie on her tongue. It was true, that his mother, many years
before, had promised to take her into service, but she could not now
be in service, and it would be as a thief, that she would thus steal
into her favor. Beside, in such a false position, under a mask, as it
were, she could do nothing well. If she were placing a chair for his
father, she should certainly throw it down, thinking she was deceiving
him. And even if this did not happen, how must she appear to the other
servants, when later they learnt that the mistress had smuggled herself
into the house as a servant; and worse than all, she would not be able
to speak a single word with him.

She concluded with these words,--“I have said all this, because you
wished to know my opinion. When we consider any thing together, I must
speak my mind openly and truly, but at the same time, whatever you
wish, if you say so firmly, I shall do it, whether I agree with you in
opinion or not. I shall follow you without contradiction whenever I
know your wishes.”

“Yes, yes, you are right,” said John. “Neither of those roads was the
true one. But we are now so near that we must decide upon something. Do
you see that opening in the forest upon the mountain, where there is a
little hut, and the cows as small as beetles? That is our early spring
dairy. There I will place our Dami.”

Amrie exclaimed, astonished, “Ah! where will not men venture? But that
must be good grassland.”

“Yes; but if my father should give the farm to me, I shall introduce
more stall-feeding. It is more profitable. But old people must remain
by old customs. Ah! what am I tattling about, when we are so near. Ah!
had we only thought sooner.”

“Keep only calm. We must calmly consider it,” said Amrie. “I have a
trace of what to do, but it is not yet wholly clear.”

“How? What is it?”

“No, you must consider also; perhaps you will hit upon something. It
belongs to you to settle it. We are both in such embarrassment now,
that we will pause, and perhaps we shall both think of something.”

“Something already occurs to me,” said John. “There, in the next house
but one, lives a pastor I am well acquainted with; he will advise us
for the best. Hold! This is better. I will remain in the valley, by the
mill, and you shall go alone up to the farm to my parents, and tell
them all, exactly, roundly, and fully, as it has happened. You will
immediately gain my mother, and you are so sensible and discreet, that
it will not be long before you will wind my father round your finger.
This is the best plan. We shall not have to wait, nor to ask a stranger
to come to our help. Do you agree to this, or will it be too much for
you?”

“This is exactly my thought. Now we have nothing more to consider. It
is settled as though it were written down and carried out. And now,
quick work proves the master. Oh, you do not know what a dear, good,
sensible, precious fellow you are!”

“No, you are the sensible one. But it is all settled, and we are both
but one brave fellow together. That will we remain. Here, give me your
hand. There! So! This meadow is our first field. Thank God, little
wife, now you are at home. And, huzza! there is our stork; he flies
home. Stork! stork! Say ‘thank God here is the new mistress!’ Later
I will tell you more. Now, Amrie, do not be too long up there, and
immediately send some one to the mill. If the stable-boy is at home,
send him; he can spring like a hare. Now, do you see the house with the
stork’s nest on the roof, and the two barns on the hill, at the left
from the wood? There is a linden before it. Do you see it?”

“Yes.”

“That is our house. Now step down. You cannot miss it now.”

John alighted and helped Amrie from the wagon. She held the necklace,
which she had put in her pocket, like a rosary, between her folded
hands, and prayed softly. John also took off his hat, and his lips
moved.

Neither spake another word. Amrie went on before, while John stood
a long time leaning against his horse, and looking after her. She
turned and tried to drive the dog back, who had followed her. He would
not go back, but ran aside into a field, and followed her again. John
whistled, and then first the animal ran back to him.

John went to the mill and waited there. They told him that his father
had been there about an hour before, to wait for him, and had again
returned home. John rejoiced that Amrie would meet both parents at
home. The people at the mill could not tell what troubled John, that he
should wait there and not say a word. He went into the house--then out
again. He went part of the way to the farm--then turned back again; was
full of anxiety, counting the steps Amrie had to take. Now she was at
this field, now at that. Now she had reached the beech-hedge--now she
was speaking with his parents. Thus he thought and trembled.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FIRST FIRE UPON THE HEARTH.


Amrie in the mean time went on, lost in dreamy thoughts. She looked
inquiringly up at the trees that stood so calmly upon the place, and
that will stand, she thought, and look down upon thee for years; many
years, perhaps thy whole life, and be thy life’s companions! Meanwhile,
what will be thy life’s experience?

Amrie was too old to look for support in the outward world, and it was
long since she had asked the service-tree for advice. She now tried
to turn her thoughts from all surrounding objects; and yet she must
look at the fields that would soon be her own, and she could not help
thinking of what was to come; of her entrance and reception, question
and answer; the confusion of a thousand possibilities whirled around,
and the Silver-trot waltz played itself in her head. She said at last,
half aloud, “What is the use of all this thinking? When the music plays
I must dance, be it hop or waltz. I know not how I shall move my feet;
they must go of themselves. I cannot think--I will not think, that
perhaps in an hour I may be coming this way again, the heart broken
in my body! And yet I must move on, step after step! Enough! Now let
whatever will, come; I am prepared.”

There was more within than this out-spoken resolution; she had not, in
vain, from her childhood, solved riddles, and from day to day had to
wrestle with life; the whole power of that, which through effort she
had become, rested quiet and secure within her mind. Without further
question, as one goes to meet a necessity, calm in her self-possession
she went on with courageous and firm steps.

She had not gone far when she saw an old man sitting with a red-thorn
stick between his feet, and his hands and chin resting upon it.

“God bless you,” said Amrie. “Do you enjoy your rest?”

“Yes. Where are you bound?”

“Up to the farm. Will you go with me? You can lean on me.”

“Ah! So it is,” laughed the old man. “Thirty years ago I should have
been delighted. Then, if a pretty girl had said that, I had sprung like
a colt.”

“But I should not have said it to one who could spring like a colt,”
laughed Amrie.

“You are rich,” said the old man, to whom an idle conversation, on a
warm day, appeared agreeable; and he took with satisfaction a pinch
from his box.

“Why do you say I am rich?”

“Your teeth are worth ten thousand gulden. I know many who would give
ten thousand gulden to have them in their mouths.”

“Farewell, I have no time for joking.”

“Wait, I will go with you; but you must not run off so fast.”

Amrie helped the old man carefully to rise, when he said, “You are
strong.” He had made himself heavier and more helpless than he really
was. On the way he asked her, “To whom was her errand at the farm?”

“To the farmer and his wife.”

“And what would you have of them?”

“That I will tell themselves.”

“If you would ask a present, turn immediately back; the wife would
willingly give, but she is mistress of nothing. The farmer is tough. He
has a ramrod in his neck, and a stiff thumb to that.”

“I do not want any thing of them, but on the contrary, I take them
something,” said Amrie.

They met an old man with a scythe on his shoulder, going to the field,
and Amrie’s companion asked him, at the same time winking cunningly,
“Whether the old miser, Farmer Landfried, was at home?”

[Illustration: AMRIE HELPED THE OLD MAN CAREFULLY TO RISE.--PAGE 250.]

“I believe so, but I am not certain,” said the old man with the
scythe; and as he went on, Amrie saw a certain twinkling in his eyes.
She looked steadily in the face of her companion, and suddenly she
recognized through the fallen features the man to whom she had once
given water to drink upon the Holder Meadow. “Wait,” she said softly to
herself, “I have caught you,” and aloud, “It is wrong of you to speak
thus of the farmer to a stranger like myself, that you do not know, and
that may perhaps be a relation of his. What you say of him may be only
slander; and should he appear close, he certainly has a good heart,
and does not choose to ring the great bell to tell the good he does.
Beside, one who has such good, honorable children, must be honorable
himself. It may be also, that before the world he makes himself worse
than he is, because it is not worth the trouble to try to please
others; and I am of the same opinion.”

“You have a good tongue of your own. Where do you come from?”

“Not from this neighborhood. From about the Black Forest.”

“What is the place called?”

“Holdenbrunn.”

“Ah! and you came on foot?”

“No, part of the way with the son of your farmer. He took me up. He is
a thoroughly brave, honest young man.”

“At his age, I also would have brought you on.”

They had now entered the farm-yard, when the old man went with Amrie
into the house, and called, “Mother, where are you?”

The mother came out of her chamber. Amrie trembled, and would gladly
have fallen on her neck; but she could not, she durst not, and the old
man said, with a smothered laugh, “Only think, wife, here is a girl
from Holdenbrunn, and she has something to say to Farmer Landfried and
his wife, but she will not tell me a word of it. Now you tell her what
my name is.”

“Why, that is the farmer himself,” said his wife; and, as a sign of
welcome, she took his hat and hung it on the stove-handle.

“Do you see?” said the old man to Amrie.--“Now you may say all you
please.”

“Sit down,” said the mother, and gave Amrie a chair. Breathing with
difficulty she began:

“You may believe me, that no child could think more of you than I
have, both in times past, and for the last few days. Do you remember
Josenhans, at the fish-pond, where the road turns towards Endringen?”

“Certainly, certainly,” said both the old people.

“I am Josenhans’ daughter.”

“Well, if it did not seem to me as though I knew you,” said the
farmer’s wife. “Bless you, my child.” She reached her her hand. “You
have grown up a strong, fine girl. But tell me what has brought you so
far?”

“She came part of the way with our John,” said the old man. “He will
soon follow.”

His wife was startled. She seemed to anticipate something, and reminded
her husband that she had thought of the Josenhans children at the
moment John rode away.

“I have a remembrance from both of you,” said Amrie, and took the
necklace and a carefully folded gold piece from her pocket. “That
necklace you gave me the last time you were in the place.”

“Ah, you told me you had lost it,” interrupted the farmer to his wife.

“And there,” continued Amrie, giving him the gilded groschen, “is the
gold piece you presented me when I kept the geese upon Holder Common,
and gave you water from the spring.”

“Yes, yes, that is all right,” said the old man. “But what is all this?
What is given you, you may keep.”

Amrie stood up and said, “I have a request to make. Suffer me for two
minutes to speak freely. May I?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Look! Your son John would have brought me to you as a servant.
Formerly I would rather have served you than another, rather here than
elsewhere; but now, it would have been dishonorable in me towards
those to whom I wish to be open and honorable during my whole life
long. I could not come with a lie in my mouth, when all should be as
clear as sunlight. In one word, John and I have taken each other with
our whole hearts’ choice, and he wishes me to be his wife!”

“Ah, ha!” cried the old man, and jumped from his chair, so that one
could see his former helplessness was put on. “Ah, ha,” he cried again,
as though a twinge of gout seized him. But his wife held him firmly by
the hand and said, “Let her go on.”

And Amrie continued, “Believe me, I have sense enough to know that no
one can accept a daughter-in-law from compassion. You might make me a
present; but to make one a daughter-in-law out of pity! that, no one
could do. Neither would I have it so. I have no money. Yes, I have that
groschen that you gave me on the Holder Common. I have it yet, because
no one would take it for a groschen,” she said, turning to the farmer
who smiled furtively. “I have absolutely nothing! And yet more, I have
a brother, for whom, though he is strong and healthy, I must provide. I
have also kept the geese, and have been less considered than any girl
in the village. That is all! No one can say the smallest thing against
my character. That is again all! In what men receive from God alone,
I would say to any princess, that I placed myself no hair’s-breadth
behind her; ah, if she had seven golden crowns upon her head--I should
rather another spoke for me. I speak not willingly for myself; but my
whole life long, I have had to be the only protector of my character,
and I do it to-day for the last time, when the decision must be made
between my life or death!

“Do not misunderstand me. If you reject me, I shall go calmly away. I
shall do no harm to myself; neither spring into the water, nor hang
myself on a tree. I shall seek another service, and thank God that a
good man would have had me for his wife--and will believe that it is
God’s will that it shall not be.” Amrie’s voice trembled, and her form
seemed taller than before. But as she now sank down she cried, “Examine
yourselves. Ask your deepest consciousness if it be God’s will, however
you decide.”

For a moment neither spoke. At length the old man said, “You can preach
like any parson.” The mother dried her eyes with her apron and said,
“Why not? Pastors have but one brain and one heart.”

“As for you,” said the old man contemptuously, “you are something of a
parson yourself. With a couple of soft speeches they can do what they
please with you.”

“And with you, they will never be able to do any thing till you die,”
said his wife, with spirit.

“See!” stormed the old man. “Do you see, you saint from the Unterland,
you bring fine peace into our house. You have already made my wife
take your part against myself; now, you may both wait till I am
dead--then you may do as you please.”

“No!” cried Amrie, “that I will never do. John shall never have me
for his wife without your blessing; much less will I have the sin in
both our hearts, of waiting for your death. I have scarcely known my
parents; I cannot remember them, but I love them as we love God, whom
we have never seen. And I know what death is. Last night I closed the
eyes of Brown Mariann, for whom, during my whole life, I have done what
I could; what she would have me do; but now that she is dead, I often
think how reluctantly I sometimes did it, and how much more I might
have done for her. It is all over now; she lies there in her dark bed;
I can do nothing more for her, nor ask her forgiveness. Yes, I know
what death is, and I will not”--

“But I will!” shrieked the old man, and clinched his fists and ground
his teeth. “But I will!” he cried again. “You shall remain and belong
to us! And now let what will come. Let them say what they will; you,
and you alone, shall have my John.”

The wife threw her arms about his neck and embraced him. The old man,
unaccustomed to such demonstration, cried out, “What are you doing?”

“Giving you a kiss, for you deserve one. You are better than you would
make us believe.”

The old man, who, during the whole time, held a pinch of snuff between
his fingers, which he would not waste, now took it hastily, and said,
“Just as you like; but there is one younger, and from her it will taste
better. Come here, you disguised parson.”

“I will come willingly, but call me first by my name.”

“Yes, but what is your name?”

“That you need not know. You can give me one of your own choosing; you
know which.”

“You are deep! Well, then, my name; come here, my daughter.”

In answer, Amrie flew to his arms. “And I, am not I to be consulted?”
said the mother in pure joy, almost beside herself.

The old man took Amrie by the hand, and said, in a gay sportive tone,
“Worthy Catharina, now named Landfried, will you accept--what is your
real name,” he whispered, “your baptismal name?”

“Amrie.”

“Will you accept,” he continued, addressing his wife, “Amrie Josenhans,
of Holdenbrunn, for your daughter, and treat her as you do your
husband; never let her say a word, feed her badly, scold and oppress
her--and in short, treat her as one of the family.”

A total change had come over the old man; he seemed to have lost his
senses; and while Amrie remained in the arms of her mother, and could
not tear herself away, he struck his thorn-staff upon the table, and
cried, “Where is that good-for-nothing boy, John? He hangs his bride
about our necks, while he is roving about the country.”

Amrie, then, loosing herself from her mother, said, “that the
stable-boy should be sent to the mill, where John was waiting.”

The old man said, “He must at least be left three hours to gape away
the time there as a punishment for sheltering himself like a coward
behind her apron. When he did come, they would put a woman’s cap on his
head; and, indeed, he was not wanted, for he felt much inclined to keep
the bride for himself.”

The mother, however, had slipped out, and sent the swift-footed
stable-boy to the mill.

They now thought that Amrie must be hungry. The mother proposed an
omelet, and Amrie begged that she might be permitted to kindle the
first fire in the house, that was to prepare any thing for herself, and
also cook something for her parents.

They consented, and both the old people went into the kitchen with her,
where she set about every thing so handily; saw with a glance where
every thing was kept, and had indeed so few questions to ask, and did
her work so quickly and gracefully, that the old man nudged his wife
and said, “She has it all by heart, and at her fingers’ ends, like the
new schoolmaster.”

All three stood before the clear blazing fire, when John came in.
Brighter than the flame upon the hearth, shone their heart-felt
happiness from the eyes of all. The hearth with its bright flame was a
sacred altar, around which stood four grateful and happy people.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XIX.

SECRET TREASURES.


Amrie knew so well how to make herself at home in the house of John’s
parents, that, on the second day, it seemed as though from her
childhood she had grown up there. The old man clattered after her, and
observed how handily and neatly she took hold of every thing, and how
she finished her work without haste and without rest.

There are people, who, if they were to do the smallest thing, to fetch
a plate or jug, they disturb the thoughts of all who are sitting near;
they draw, as it were, all thoughts and glances after them. Amrie, on
the contrary, accomplished every thing so quietly, that she made others
feel more at ease, and of course more grateful for all she did for them.

How often had the old farmer scolded, because, when salt was needed,
some one had to get up from the table to fetch it! Amrie, as soon as
the table-cloth was spread, placed the salt-cellar upon the table. As
the old farmer praised her for it, his wife said, smiling, “One would
think that you now for the first time began to live, that nothing had
been salted for you before.” Then John told them that Amrie was called
the Salt Duchess, and related the story of the king and his daughter.

They had now a happy life together in the house, in the farm-yard and
in the fields. The farmer said he had not for years tasted food as good
as that prepared by Amrie. He wished for something three and four times
a day, at quite unusual hours, and she was obliged to sit by and see
him eat.

The mother took Amrie with quiet and secret satisfaction into the
milk-cellar and store-rooms; afterwards to a gayly painted press, full
of napery and linen, and opening it said, “This is thy dowry. There is
nothing wanting but the shoes. I rejoice that you have preserved all
yours, for I have a peculiar superstition upon that subject.”

When Amrie inquired how certain things had been hitherto conducted in
the house, she nodded, and expressed her secret satisfaction only in
the tone of her voice, while her content with Amrie brought joy to her
very heart. As she now gave over to her much of the housekeeping, she
said, “Child, I must say one thing; if any of the present arrangements
do not please you, alter them according to your own judgment, for I am
not one of those who think that every thing must remain as it has been,
and that no improvement is possible. You have a free hand, and I shall
rejoice to see fresh aid to the farm; but if you will take my advice,
it will be to do good by degrees.”

That was a happy state of things, when both mentally and bodily
youthful strength went hand in hand with old preserved experience.
At the same time Amrie, from the bottom of her heart, declared that
she found every thing in the house so ordered that she should be too
happy, if in her old age she could give up the house in its present
established order.

“You look far before you,” said the mother, “but that is well--those
who look forward look also back, and you will not forget me when I am
no longer here.”

Messengers had been sent to the sons of the house, and to the
sons-in-law and their families, to invite them to Zusmarshofen on the
next Sunday, to consult upon family matters. Since the sending of these
messengers, the old man followed Amrie continually, and seemed to have
something on his mind which it was difficult for him to express. It is
said that a buried treasure is guarded by a black monster, and that in
the night of Christmas, a blue flame appears above the spot where the
treasure is buried, which only a Sunday’s child can see; and he, only,
when he can keep himself calm and pure, can raise the treasure.

One would scarcely believe that in old Farmer Landfried such a treasure
was buried, guarded by the two monsters, pride and contempt, and
that Amrie saw the blue hovering flame, and knew how to recover the
buried treasure. It is difficult to say what influence had impelled the
old man to that moral exertion, to appear in her eyes good and true
minded; especially that he gave himself so much trouble to please a
poor, portionless girl. To Amrie it was clear that he was not willing
his wife should appear as the just and loving one, and he bitter and
severe, and especially as Amrie before she knew him had said, “She
believed he would not give himself the trouble to appear well before
others.” This had opened his heart. Whenever they were alone, he talked
so much that it appeared as though his thoughts had been under lock and
key, and were now for the first time opened. They were, indeed, like
wonderful, old fashioned coins, old keepsakes, that would not pass now,
that had been stamped upon extraordinary occasions. Some of them were
of pure silver, without alloy of copper. He could not bring out his
treasures as easily as the mother, when she was talking with John. His
speech was stiff in the joints, but he always had something to say;
he even appeared to take Amrie’s part against the mother. “Look!” he
would say, “My wife is as good as the day, but the day is not a week or
a year. She is but a woman. With women it is always April weather; a
woman is but half a man. That I will maintain, whatever comes of it.”

“You give us splendid praise,” said Amrie.

“Yes, it is true,” said the old man, “though I say it to you. But, as
I said, my wife is thoroughly good--almost too good--it displeases her
if one does not immediately take her advice: she means so well that she
thinks we do not know how good she is, if we do not imitate her. She
cannot understand that the circumstances are unsuitable when we do not
follow her. One thing remember; do things in your own way as you think
right; that will please her. You will easily remark that she does not
like to have one appear subject to her. Should any thing happen to go
wrong, do not complain to your husband; nothing can be worse, than that
a man should stand between his mother and her daughter-in-law. And the
mother says, ‘I am nothing now; my daughter-in-law governs; even one’s
own children forsake one in her old days.’ And the daughter-in-law
says, ‘Now I know what you are; you let your wife be oppressed.’ I
advise you if any thing of this kind happens, to tell me in secret,
and I will help you. Say nothing to your husband; he has been a little
spoiled by his mother. Only go on quietly, and come to me. I am your
natural protector, and, indeed, related to you by a distant connection
with your mother.”

He now sought to connect the different branches of his family, but he
could not find the right threads, became tangled like a snarled skein
of yarn, and concluded with, “You may believe it upon my word, though I
cannot reckon it aright.”

The time had come when he gave away, not merely false groschens from
his hoards, but it gave him pleasure to part with good honest money.

One evening he called Amrie to him and said, “Look, my girl, you are
brave and sensible, but you do not know what men are. My John, indeed,
has a good heart, but it may yet sometimes vex him that you came to
him with nothing of your own. Here, take this, but let no living soul
know from whence it came; say, that by your industry you have saved it.
Here, take it.” He put into her hand a stocking well filled with crown
dollars, and added, “I intended he should first receive them after my
death; but it is better so; he will have it now, and think it came from
you. Your whole history is so strange, so contrary to all probability,
that it may well be possible that you possessed a secret treasure. Do
not forget that there are two and thirty crown dollars; they are each
worth a groschen more than common dollars. Lock it well up in the chest
where you keep your linen, and take the key always with you. On Sunday,
when the relations of the family are all collected, shake them out upon
the table.”

Amrie took the stocking very reluctantly and said, “I am not willing to
do this; if it is necessary, I think John is the person to receive this
money.”

“It is necessary. John, however, may take it; but still, conceal it
quickly. I hear John coming. Quick, wrap it in your apron. I believe
John is jealous of me.”

They parted hastily from each other. The same evening the mother took
Amrie into the store-room, and brought an apparently heavy sack out of
a trunk, and said, “Pray untie that string for me.”

Amrie found it very difficult. “Wait, I will bring you the scissors; we
will cut it.”

“No,” said Amrie, “I would not willingly do that. Have a little
patience, I shall soon untie it.”

The mother smiled, while Amrie, with skilful fingers, at length untied
the hard knot. “That is brave,” she said; “now look and see what there
is within it.”

Amrie saw gold and silver coins, while the mother continued, “Look,
child, you have worked a miracle with the farmer. I cannot understand
how it has been done, but you have not wholly converted him; he still
repeats what a pity it is that you have nothing; and he believes
that in secret you possess a pretty little fortune, and that you
only conceal it from us to try us, and see if we will accept you
with nothing. We will not speak of this, his secret thought; thus an
idea has come into my mind which I trust is not sinful in the eye of
God. Look, these I have spared and saved in the six and thirty years
we have lived together. Part of it is also an inheritance from my
mother. Now take it, and say it is your own; this will make the farmer
happy--especially as he has suspected something of the kind. Why do you
look so confused? Trust me, when I tell you that you can do it without
the least injustice. I have examined it upon every side. Now conceal
it, and say not a word to the contrary. Give me no thanks, not a single
word, for it is all one, whether my child receives it now, or later,
and it will give my husband a life-long joy. Now, fasten it up again.”

Early the next morning, Amrie told John all that his parents had said,
and all that they had given her.

John burst into a hearty laugh. “Heaven forgive me,” he said, “of my
mother I could easily believe this--but from my father! I could never
have dreamed of such a thing. You are a true witch. The best of it is,
that neither of them is to know what the other has done; each would
deceive the other, and both are deceived, for each will believe that
you really had in secret the money they each have given you. It is too
good! It is enough to make one die with laughing!”

In the midst of all this joy, there was yet mingled much anxiety.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XX.

FAMILY WAYS.


It is not morality that governs society, but a hardened form of the
same, called custom.

As society now exists, an infringement of morality is more easily
pardoned than a departure from custom. Happy the time and the people,
when custom and morality will be one and the same! All differences,
great and small, in the mass, and in private life, have their source in
the contradiction of these two--and the hardened form of custom soon
stamps anew the inward flow of morality with its own impress and form.

Here, in this little history of humble men, that the great world would
push aside, the same principle ruled.

The mother, who secretly felt the deepest joy at the fulfilment of her
hopes, was full of anxiety on account of the opinion of the world.

“You have acted thoughtlessly,” she said to Amrie, “to come into the
house as you did, so that you cannot be fetched for the wedding. This
is neither right nor the custom. If I could only send you away for a
little time, or even John, that all might be done in order.” And to
John she complained, “I think I can already hear the talk there will be
at your hasty marriage--twice asked--and then all settled! This is as
disreputable people do.”

She soon, however, suffered herself to be persuaded, and she smiled
when John said, “Why, mother, you formerly studied morals like a
parson. Why, then, should honorable people not do a thing because
dishonorable persons sometimes screen themselves behind it? Can a
single thing be said against my character?”

“No, your whole life has been good and honorable.”

“Ah, then people must show some confidence in me, and believe that to
be right, which at first sight may not appear so. I have a right to
demand as much as that. Then, as to how I and my Amrie came together,
was so out of the usual order, that we might also have our own way of
travelling upon the high road; it certainly was no bad way. We must
have courage, and not be asking after the opinion of others. The pastor
of Hirlengen once said, ‘That if to-day a prophet were to arrive, he
would have to submit to an examination as to whether his views were
according to the old established order?’ Now, mother, if we know that
a thing is right, let us carry it through, without asking, right or
left, the leave of anybody. Let them wonder for a time; by and by they
will think as we do.”

His mother, no doubt, felt that even the most unusual event must at
length be governed by the same laws that rule all other things. That
the wedding might pass for a wonder, but not the wedded life, which
must submit to the laws which govern all things; and she said, “With
all these people, whom you now look upon so lightly, because you are
conscious of your own rectitude, you will continue to live, and you
will expect them to respect you and your honorable life. That they may
do this, you must give them the best example; you cannot expect them to
make you an exception, and you cannot run after each of them and say,
‘If you only knew how it happened, you would see that it was right.’”
John answered,--

“You will soon learn that no one who has seen my Amrie, even for one
hour, will have a word to say against her.” He knew also a sure way,
not only to pacify his mother, but secretly to delight her, when he
told her that every thing she had said to him of advice or warning, he
had found brought out in Amrie. She smiled again when he mentioned the
shoes, which, he declared, she should hear running about for many years
to come.

His mother allowed herself to be quieted.

On Saturday morning, before the family council had assembled, came
Dami; but he must immediately return to Holdenbrunn, to procure the
requisite papers from the Mayor.

That first Sunday was an anxious day at the Landfried farm. The old
people had accepted Amrie; but how would it be with the family? It
is not easy to enter a family of such respectability, unless with
a carriage and horses, household furniture, and money, and a large
connection to prepare the way.

There was great driving along the roads from the Oberland on
Sunday morning to Farmer Landfried’s; there came the brothers and
sisters-in-law, with all their relations. It was said that John had
brought home a wife without consulting parents or pastor, or that any
one had had a word to say about; and they added, “It must be some
beauty he had picked up behind a hedge.” The horses in the wagons
suffered that day in consequence of what had taken place at Farmer
Landfried’s; they received many a cut, and if they reared it was still
worse, causing many hard words from the women who sat in the wagons,
who scolded and wept at such reckless driving.

There was a small wagon-house in the court of the farm, within which
the whole family were collected. Some of them appeared with high
water-boots, others with hob-nailed shoes. Some wore three-cornered
hats, with the point in front; others sat there with the broad brim
shading their faces. The women whispered among themselves, and winked
to their husbands, saying, “We shall know how to thrust the stranger
bird out of the family nest.” And there were seen bitterly angry
smiles, when it was whispered here and there, that Amrie had kept the
geese.

At length she appeared; but she could not give any one her hand, as
she bore a flask of red wine, with glasses, and two plates filled
with cake and biscuits; enough for seven hands, had every finger been
a hand. She placed them all so quietly and gracefully on the table,
over which the mother-in-law had spread a white cloth, that they all
looked on astonished. After she had filled the glasses, without the
least trembling of her hand, she said, “Our parents have given me the
privilege of bidding you all, from the heart, a true welcome! Now
drink!”

“We are not accustomed to drink in the morning,” said a heavy man with
an immensely large nose, and spread himself out upon his chair.

“Or we drink only pure water, the wine of the geese,” said one of the
women, when a not wholly concealed laugh ensued.

Amrie felt the sarcasm deeply, but took no notice of it. John’s
sister was the first who took the offered glass, and looking at John,
said, “God bless thee;” then she glanced at Amrie, who had held her
the glass. The other women, not to fail in politeness, followed her
example. The men allowed themselves to be moved, and for a long time
nothing was heard but the clinking of glasses.

“Your father is right,” said at length the mother to her daughters,
“Amrie looks as though she were your sister, and yet she more resembles
our Elizabeth, that we lost.”

“Yes, you are no losers,” said the old farmer; “had Elizabeth lived,
she would have had one portion of my estate.” The mother added, “And
now we have her again.”

The old man hit the sore point, though all had persuaded themselves
that Amrie’s want of family was the cause of their objection to her.
While she was speaking aside with John’s sister, the old man said
softly to his eldest son, “She does not look like it, but only think,
she has in secret a sack full of crowns; however, you must not speak of
it.”

This injunction was so well obeyed, that in a few minutes every one in
the room was whispering about it. John’s sister took credit to herself,
that she had been good to Amrie when she believed that she had not a
farthing.

Meantime, John had disappeared; he now came back bearing a sack, upon
which was written, “Josenhans of Holdenbrunn.” He emptied the rich
contents of the sack, clinking and rattling, upon the table, when all
were astonished, the father and mother no less than the others.

So Amrie had really a secret treasure! For here was much more than
either had given her.

Amrie could not venture to look up, and all praised her unaffected
modesty.

By degrees she won over all this family, and when in the evening they
took leave, each said to her privately, “It was not I who objected to
your want of fortune. I say now, as I always said and thought, that if
you had brought nothing but what you had on, I could not have wished a
better wife for John, or a better daughter-in-law for our parents.”

It was, indeed, now all right, when they believed that Amrie had
brought a fortune of her own.

In Allgäu they yet relate how young Farmer Landfried brought home his
wife, and how beautifully he and his wife danced together at their
wedding, especially a waltz, which they called the Silver-trot. She had
brought the music, they said, from Unterland.

And Dami? He became one of the most noted herdsmen in all Allgäu, and
he acquired a great name, for he was sometimes called Vulture Dami,
for having destroyed two broods of vultures, they having twice carried
off the new fallen lambs. With him the family name of Josenhans died
out. He never married, but was a good uncle to Amrie’s children--better
than the uncle in America had been to him. In the winter time, when
the cattle are housed, he tells his sister’s children many stories of
America, and of Mathew in Moosbrunnenwalde, and of the cattle in the
Allgäu Mountains. Especially he had many clever stories to tell of his
so-called Queen cow, who bore the deep sounding bell.

Dami said once to his sister, “Dame farmer,”--for thus he always called
her,--“Dame farmer, your eldest boy is just like you; he said to me
yesterday, ‘Uncle, your Queen cow is your heart’s cow.’ Yes, that is
exactly like you!”

John wished to name his first daughter Barefoot; but as objection was
made to recording this new name in the Baptismal Register, he had the
little girl christened Barbara, and, to please himself, changed it to
Barefoot.


THE END.




FOOTNOTES:

[A] In some of the villages in Germany all the geese of the place are
collected into one flock and sent out in the pastures to feed, under
one or two guardians, who are called goose-herds.

[B] “Von Stolpe nach Danzig.” From stumbling to dancing (tanz ich).




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

  The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is
    entered into the public domain.

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