The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08

And every morning the children went to the old house, and knocked, and played beside the pond, as we saw them doing today. Now they listen, for they hear a sound that is not often heard at this season of the year—the cuckoo at Coaly Mathew's is singing eight times.

"We must go to school," said Amrei, and she turned quickly with her brother through the garden-path back into the village. As they passed Farmer Rodel's barn, Damie said:

"They've threshed a great deal at our guardian's today." And he pointed to the bands of threshed sheaves that hung over the half-door of the barn, as evidence of accomplished work. Amrei nodded silently.

CHAPTER II

THE DISTANT SOUL

Farmer Rodel, whose house with its red beams and its pious text in a large heart over the door, was not far from Josenhans's had let himself be appointed guardian of the orphan children by the Village Council. He made the less objection for the reason that Josenhans had, in former days, served as second-man on his farm. His guardianship, however, was practically restricted to his taking care of the father's unsold clothes, and to his occasionally asking one of the children, as he passed by: "Are you good?"—whereupon he would march off without even waiting for an answer. Nevertheless a strange feeling of pride came over the children when they heard that the rich farmer was their guardian, and they looked upon themselves as very fortunate people, almost aristocratic. They often stood near the large house and looked up at it expectantly, as if they were waiting for something and knew not what; and often, too, they sat by the plows and harrows near the barn and read the biblical text on the house over and over again. The house seemed to speak to them, if no one else did.

It was the Sunday before All Souls' Day, and the children were again playing before the locked house of their parents,—they seemed to love the spot,—when Farmer Landfried's wife came down the road from Hochdorf, with a large red umbrella under her arm, and a hymn-book in her hand. She was paying a final visit to her native place; for the day before the hired-man had already carried her household furniture out of the village in a four-horse wagon, and early the next morning she was to move with her husband and her three children to the farm they had just bought in distant Allgau. From way up by the mill Dame Landfried was already nodding to the children—for to meet children on first going out is, they say, a good sign—but the children could not see her nodding, nor could they see her sorrowful features. At last, when she drew near to them, she said:

"God greet ye, children! What are you doing here so early? To whom do you belong?"

"To Josenhans—there!" answered Amrei, pointing to the house.

"Oh, you poor children!" cried the woman, clasping her hands. "I should have known you, my girl, for your mother, when she went to school with me, looked just as you do—we were good companions; and your father served my cousin, Farmer Rodel. I know all about you. But tell me, Amrei, why have you no shoes on? You might take cold in such weather as this! Tell Marianne that Dame Landfried of Hochdorf told you to say, it is not right of her to let you run about like this! But no—you needn't say anything—I will speak to her myself. But, Amrei, you are a big girl now, and must be sensible and look out for yourself. Just think—what would your mother say, if she knew that you were running about barefoot at this season of the year?"

The child looked at the speaker with wide-open eyes, as if to say:

"Doesn't my mother know anything about it?"

But the woman continued:

"That's the worst of it, that you poor children cannot know what virtuous parents you had, and therefore older people must tell you. Remember that you will give real, true happiness to your parents, when they hear, yonder in heaven, how the people down here on earth are saying 'The Josenhans children are models of all goodness—one can see in them the blessing of honest parents.'"

The tears poured down the woman's cheeks as she spoke these last words. The feeling of grief in her soul, arising from quite another cause, burst out irresistibly at these words and thoughts; there was sorrow for herself mingled with pity for others. She laid her hand upon the head of the girl, who, when she saw the woman weeping, also began to weep bitterly; she very likely felt that this was a good soul inclining toward her, and a dawning consciousness began to steal over her that she had really lost her parents.

Suddenly the woman's face seemed irradiated. She raised her still tearful eyes to heaven, and said:

"Gracious God, Thou givest me the thought." Then, turning to the child, she went on: "Listen—I will take you with me. My Lisbeth was just your age when she was taken from me. Tell me, will you go with me to Allgau and live with me?"

"Yes," replied Amrei, decidedly.

Then she felt herself nudged and seized from behind. "You must not!" cried Damie, throwing his arms around her—and he was trembling all over.

"Be still," said Amrei, to soothe him. "The kind woman will take you too. Damie is to go with us, is he not?"

"No, child, that cannot be—I have boys enough."

"Then I'll not go either," said Amrei, and she took Damie by the hand.

There is a kind of shudder, wherein a fever and a chill seem to be quarreling—the joy of doing something and the fear of doing it. One of these peculiar shudders passed through the strange woman, and she looked down upon the child with a certain sense of relief. In a moment of sympathy, urged on by a pure impulse to do a kind deed, she had proposed to undertake a task and to assume a responsibility, the significance and weight of which she had not sufficiently considered; and, furthermore, she had not taken into account what her husband would think of her taking such a step without her having spoken to him about it. Consequently when the child herself refused, a reaction set in, and it all became clear to her; so that she at once acquiesced, with a certain sense of relief, in the refusal of her offer. She had obeyed an impulse of her heart by wishing to do this thing, and now that obstacles stood in the way, she felt rather glad that it was to be left undone, and without her having been obliged to retract her promise.

"As you like," said the woman. "I will not try to persuade you. Who knows?—perhaps it is better that you should grow up first anyway. To learn to bear sorrow in youth is a good thing, and we easily get accustomed to better times; all those who have turned out really well, were obliged to suffer some heavy crosses in their youth. Only be good, and keep this in remembrance, that, so long as you are good, and so long as God grants me life, there shall always be, for your parents' sake, a shelter for you with me. But now, it's just as well as it is. Wait! I will give you something to remember me by." She felt in her pockets; but suddenly she put her hand up to her neck and said: "No, you shall have this!" Then she blew on her fingers, which were stiff with the cold, until they were nimble enough to permit her to unclasp from her neck a necklace of five rows of garnets, with a Swedish ducat hanging from them; and she fastened the ornament around the child's neck, kissing her at the same time.

Amrei watched all this as if spell-bound.

"For you I unfortunately have nothing," said the good woman to Damie, who was breaking a switch he had in his hand into little pieces. "But I will send you a pair of leather breeches belonging to my John—they are quite good still and you can wear them when you grow bigger. And now, God keep you, dear children. If possible, I shall come to you again, Amrei. At any rate, send Marianne to me after church. Be good children, both of you, and pray heartily for your parents in eternity. And don't forget that you still have protectors, both in heaven and on earth."

The farmer's wife, who, to walk the faster, had tucked her dress up all around, let it down now that she was at the entrance of the village. With hurried steps she went along the street, and did not look back again.

Amrei put her hands up to her neck and bent down her face, wishing to examine the coin; but she could not quite succeed. Damie was chewing on the last piece of his switch; when his sister looked at him and saw tears in his eyes, she said:

"You shall see—you'll get the finest pair of breeches in the village!"

"And I won't take them!" cried Damie, and he spat out a bit of wood.

"And I'll tell her that she must buy you a knife too. I shall stay home all day today—she's coming to see us."

"Yes, if she were only there already," replied Damie without knowing what he said; for a feeling that he had been slighted made him jealous and reproachful.

The first bell was ringing, and the children hastened back to the village. Amrei, with a brief explanation, gave the newly-acquired trinket to Marianne, who said:

"On my word, you are a lucky child! I'll take good care of it for you.

Now make haste to church."

All during the service the children kept glancing across at Farmer Landfried's wife, and when they came out they waited for her at the door; but the wealthy farmer's wife was surrounded by so many people, all eagerly talking to her, that she was obliged to keep turning in a circle to answer first one and then another. She had no opportunity to notice the wistful glances of the children and their continual nodding. Dame Landfried had Rosie, Farmer Rodel's youngest daughter, in her hand. Rosie was a year older than Amrei, who involuntarily kept moving her hand, as though she would have pushed aside the intruder who was taking her place. Had the well-to-do farmer's wife eyes for Amrei only out by the last house, and when they were alone, and did she not know her when other people were present? Are only the children of rich people noticed then, and the children of relatives?

Amrei was startled when she suddenly heard this thought, which had begun to stir gently within her, uttered aloud; it was Damie who uttered it. And while she followed at a distance the large group of people surrounding the farmer's wife, she strove to drive the bad thought out of her brother's mind, as well as out of her own. Dame Landfried at last disappeared into Farmer Rodel's house, and the children quietly turned back.

Suddenly Damie said:

"If she comes to you, you must tell her to go to Crappy Zachy too, and tell him to be good to me."

Amrei nodded; and then the children parted, and went to the separate houses where they had found shelter.

The clouds, which had lifted in the morning, came back in the afternoon in the shape of a perfect downpour of rain. Dame Landfried's large red umbrella was seen here and there around the village, almost hiding the figure beneath it. Black Marianne had not been able to find her, and she said on her return home:

"She can come to me—I don't want anything of her."

The two children wandered out to their parents' house again and crouched down on the door-step, hardly speaking a word. Again the suspicion seemed to dawn upon them, that after all their parents would not come back. Then Damie tried to count the drops of rain that fell from the eaves; but they came down too quickly for him, and he made easy work of it by crying out all at once: "A thousand million!"

"She must come past here when she goes home," said Amrei, "and then we'll call out to her. Mind that you help me call, too, and then we'll have another talk with her."

So said Amrei; for the children were still waiting there for Dame Landfried.

The cracking of a whip sounded in the village. There was a trampling and splashing of horses' feet in the slushy street, and a carriage came rolling along.

"You shall see that it's father and mother coming in a coach to fetch us," cried Damie.

Amrei looked around at her brother mournfully, and said:

"Don't chatter so."

When she looked back again the carriage was quite near; somebody in it motioned from beneath a red umbrella, and away rolled the vehicle. Only Coaly Mathew's dog barked after it for a while, and acted as if he wanted to seize the spokes with his teeth; but at the pond he turned back again, barked once more in front of the door, and then slunk into the house.