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The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII by Various

V >> Various >> The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII




[Illustration: TEARS FELL UPON THE PATERNAL COAT]

"It's hard enough to have to go away from one's home and live among
strangers. You ought rather to cheer me up, than to be so--so--."

"Right thinking is the best cheer," replied Amrei. "It does not weigh
upon the heart at all. But you are right--you have enough to bear; a
single pound added to the load might crush you. I am foolish after all.
But come--let us see now what the sun has to say, when father walks out
in its light once more. No, I didn't mean to say that. Come, you
yourself surely know where we must go, and what you must take leave of;
for even if you are going only a couple of miles away, still you are
going away from the village, and you must bid it good-by. It's hard
enough for me that I am not to have you with me any longer--no, I mean
that I am not to be with you any longer, for I don't want to rule over
you, as people say I do. Yes, yes,--old Marianne was right; _alone_ is a
great word; one can't possibly learn all that it means. As long as you
were living on the other side of the street, even if I did not see you
for a week at a time, it did not matter; for I could have you at any
moment, and that was as good as living together. But now--well, it's not
out of the world, after all. But remember, don't try to lift too much,
or hurt yourself in your work. And when any of your things are torn,
send them to me--I'll mend them for you, and continue to knit for you.
And now, come, let us go to the churchyard."

Damie objected to this plan, making the plea that he felt the parting
heavy enough, and did not want to make it any heavier. His sister gave
in. He took off his father's clothes again, and Barefoot packed them in
the sack she had once worn as a cloak in the days when she kept the
geese. This sack still bore her father's name upon it, and she charged
Damie specially to send her back the sack at the first opportunity.

The brother and sister went out together. A cart belonging to Hirlingen
was passing through the village; Damie hailed it, and quickly loaded his
possessions on it. Then he walked with his sister, hand in hand, out of
the village, and Barefoot sought to cheer him up by saying:

"Do you remember the riddle I asked you there by the oven?"

"No."

"Think: What is best about the oven?"

"No."

"Of the oven this is best, 'tis said,
That it never itself doth eat the bread."

"Yes, you can be cheerful--you're going to stay home."

"But it was your own wish to go away. And you can be cheerful, too, if
you only try hard enough."

In silence she walked on with her brother to the Holderwasen. There,
under the wild pear-tree, she said:

"Here we will say good-by. God bless you, and don't be afraid of
anything!"

They shook hands warmly, and then Damie walked on toward Hirlingen, and
Barefoot turned back toward the village. Not until she got to the foot
of the hill, where Damie could not see her, did she venture to lift up
her apron and wipe away the tears that were running down her cheeks.

[Amrei and Damie were separated for three years. During this time the
girl made herself more and more liked and respected by everybody, not
only on account of her pleasant ways and general helpfulness, but also
on account of her self-sacrificing devotion to her unappreciative
brother. While her going barefoot and having been a goose-girl caused
her to be the victim of more or less raillery, still nobody meant it at
all seriously unless it was Rose, Farmer Rodel's youngest daughter, who
was jealous of Amrei's popularity. One day when Amrei was standing by
her window, she heard the fire-bell ringing.]

"There's a fire at Scheckennarre's, at Hirlingen!" was the cry outside.
The engine was brought out, and Barefoot climbed upon it and rode away
with the firemen.

"My Damie! My Damie!" she kept repeating to herself in great alarm. But
it was day-time, and in the day-time people could not be burned to
death in a fire. And sure enough, when they arrived at Hirlingen, the
house was already in ashes. Beside the road, in an orchard, stood Damie
in the act of tying two piebalds,--fine, handsome horses,--to a tree;
and oxen, bulls, and cows were all running about in confusion.

They stopped the engine to let Barefoot get off, and with a cry of "God
be praised that nothing has happened to you!" she hurried toward her
brother. Damie, however, made no reply, and stood with both hands
resting on the neck of one of the horses.

"What is it? Why don't you speak? Have you hurt yourself?"

"I have not hurt myself, but the fire has hurt me."

"What's the matter?"

"All I have is lost--all my clothes and my little bit of money! I've
nothing now but what's on my back."

"And are father's clothes burnt too?"

"Are they fireproof?" replied Damie, angrily. "Don't ask such stupid
questions!"

Barefoot was ready to cry at this ungracious reception by her brother;
but she quickly remembered, as if by intuition, that misfortune in its
first shock often makes people harsh, unkind, and quarrelsome. So she
merely said:

"Thank God that you have escaped with your life! Father's clothes--to be
sure, in those there's something lost that cannot be replaced--but
sooner or later they would have been worn out anyway."

"All your chattering will do no good," said Damie, still stroking the
horse. "Here I stand like a miserable outcast. If the horses here could
talk, they'd tell a different story. But I am born to misfortune--whatever
I do that's good, is of no use. And yet--" He could say no more; his voice
faltered.

"What has happened?"

"There are the horses, and the cows, and the oxen--not one of them was
burned. Look, that horse over there tore my shirt when I was dragging
him out of the stable. This nigh horse here did me no harm--he knows me.
Eh, Humple, you know me, don't you? We know each other, don't we?" The
horse laid his head across the neck of the other and stared at Damie,
who went on:

"And when I joyfully went to tell the farmer that I had saved all his
cattle, he said: 'You needn't have done it--they were all well insured,
and I would have been paid good money for them.' 'Yes,' thinks I to
myself, 'but to have let the poor beasts die, is that nothing? If a
thing's paid for, is that all?' The farmer must have read in my face
what I was thinking of, for he says to me: 'Of course, you saved your
clothes and your property?' And then I says: 'No, not a stitch. I ran
out to the stable directly.' And then he says: 'You're a noodle!'
'What?' says I, 'You're insured?--Well then, if the cattle would have
been paid for, my clothes shall be paid for--and some of my dead
father's clothes were among them, and fourteen guilders, and my watch,
and my pipe.' And says he: 'Go smoke it! My property is insured, but not
my servant's property.' And I says: 'We'll see about that--I'll take it
to court!' Whereupon he says: 'Now you may go at once. Threatening a
lawsuit is the same as giving notice. I would have given you a few
guilders, but now you shan't have a farthing. And now, hurry up--away
with you!' And so here I am. And I think I ought to take my nigh horse
with me, for I saved his life, and he would be glad to go with me,
wouldn't you? But I have never learned to steal, and I shouldn't know
what to do now. The best thing for me to do is to jump into the water.
For I shall never amount to anything as long as I live, and I have
nothing now."

"But I still have something, and I will help you out."

"No, I won't do that any longer--always depending upon you. You have a
hard enough time earning what you have."

Barefoot tried to comfort her brother, and succeeded so far that he
consented to go home with her. But they had scarcely gone a hundred
paces, when they heard something trotting along behind them. It was the
horse; he had broken loose and had followed Damie, who was obliged to
drive back the creature he was so fond of by flinging stones at it.

Damie was ashamed of his misfortune, and would hardly show his face to
any one; for it is a peculiarity of weak natures that they feel their
strength, not in their own self-respect, but always wish to show how
much they can really do by some visible achievement. Misfortune they
regard as evidence of their own weakness, and if they cannot hide it,
they hide themselves.

Damie would go no farther than the first houses in the village. Black
Marianne gave him a coat that had belonged to her slain husband; Damie
felt a terrible repugnance at putting it on, and Amrei, who had before
spoken of her father's coat as something sacred, now found just as many
arguments to prove that there was nothing in a coat after all, and that
it did not matter in the least who had once worn it.

Coaly Mathew, who lived not far from Black Marianne, took Damie as his
assistant at tree-felling and charcoal-burning. This solitary life
pleased Damie best; for he only wanted to wait until the time came when
he could be a soldier, and then he would enter the army as a substitute
and remain a soldier all his life. For in a soldier's life there is
justice and order, and no one has brothers and sisters, and no one has
his own house, and a man is provided with clothing and meat and drink;
and if there should be a war, why a brave soldier's death is after all
the best.

Such were the sentiments that Damie expressed one Sunday in Mossbrook
Wood, when Barefoot came out to the charcoal-burner's to bring her
brother yeast, and meal, and tobacco. She wanted to show him how--in
addition to the general charcoal-burner's fare, which consists of bread
baked with yeast--he might make the dumplings he prepared for himself
taste better. But Damie would not listen to her; he said he preferred to
have them just as they were--he rather liked to swallow bad food when he
might have had better; and altogether, he derived a kind of satisfaction
from self-neglect, until he should some day be decked out as a soldier.

Barefoot fought against this continual looking forward to a future time,
and this loss of time in the present. She was always wanting to put some
life into Damie, who rather enjoyed being indolent and pitying himself.
Indeed, he seemed to find a sort of satisfaction in his downward course,
for it gave him an opportunity to pity himself to his heart's content,
and did not require him to make any physical exertion. With great
difficulty Barefoot managed to prevail so far that he at least bought an
ax of his own out of his earnings; and it was his father's ax, which
Coaly Mathew had bought at the auction in the old days.

Barefoot often came back out of the Wood in profound despair, but this
state of mind never lasted long. Her inward confidence in herself, and
the natural cheerfulness that was in her, involuntarily burst forth from
her lips in song; and anybody who did not know her, would never have
thought that Barefoot either had a care then, or ever had had one in all
her life.

The satisfaction arising from the feeling that she was sturdily and
untiringly doing her duty, and acting as a Samaritan to Black Marianne
and Damie, impressed an indelible cheerfulness on her countenance; in
the whole house there was no one who could laugh so heartily as
Barefoot. Old Farmer Rodel declared that her laughter sounded like the
song of a quail, and because she was always serviceable and respectful
to him, he gave her to understand that he would remember her in his
will. Barefoot did not pay much attention to this or build much upon it;
she looked only for the wages to which she had a true and honest claim;
and what she did, she did from an inward feeling of benevolence, without
expectation of reward.




CHAPTER VIII

"SACK AND AX"


Scheckennarre's house was duly rebuilt, and in handsomer style than
before; and the winter came, and with it the drawing for recruits. Never
had there been greater lamentation over a "lucky number" than arose when
Damie drew one and was declared exempt. He was in complete despair, and
Barefoot almost shared his grief; for she looked upon this soldiering as
a capital method of setting Damie up, and of breaking him of his
slovenly habits. Still she said to him:

"Take this as a sign that you are to depend upon yourself now, and to be
a man; for you still behave like a little child that can't shift for
itself and has to be fed."

"You're reproaching me now for feeding upon you."

"No, I didn't mean that. Don't be so touchy all the time--always
standing there as if to say: 'Who's going to do anything for me, good or
bad?' Strike about for yourself."

"That's just what I am going to do, and I shall strike with a good
swing," said Damie.

For a long time he would not state what his real intention was; but he
walked through the village with his head singularly erect and spoke
freely to everybody; he worked diligently in the forest with the
woodcutters, having his father's ax and with it almost the bodily
strength of him who had swung it so sturdily in the days that were gone.

One evening in the early part of the spring, when Barefoot met him on
his way back from Mossbrook Wood, he asked, taking the ax from his
shoulder and holding it up before her:

"Where do you think this is going?"

"Into the forest," answered Barefoot. "But it won't go alone--there must
be a chopper."

"You are right; but it's going to its brother--and one will chop on
this side and another will chop on that side, and then the trees crash
and roar like cannons, and still you will hear nothing of it--and yet
_you_ may, if you wish to, but no one else in this place."

"I don't understand one peck of all your bushel," answered Barefoot.
"Speak out--I'm too old to guess riddles now."

"Well, I'm going to uncle in America."

"Indeed? Going to start to-day?" said Barefoot, laughing. "Do you remember
how Martin, the mason's boy, once called up to his mother through the
window: 'Mother, throw me out a clean pocket-handkerchief--I'm going to
America!' Those who were going to fly so quickly are all still here."

"You'll see how much longer I shall be here," said Damie; and without
another word he went into Coaly Mathew's house.

Barefoot felt like laughing at Damie's ridiculous plan, but she could
not; she felt that there was some meaning in it. And that very night,
when everybody was in bed, she went to her brother and declared once for
all that she would not go with him. She thought thus to conquer him; but
Damie replied quickly:

"I'm not tied to you!" and became the more confirmed in his plan.

Then there suddenly welled up in the girl's mind once more all that
flood of reflections that had come upon her once in her childhood; but
this time she did not ask advice of the tree, as if it could have
answered her. All her deliberations brought her to this one conclusion:
"He's right in going, and I'm right, too, in staying here." She felt
inwardly glad that Damie could make such a bold resolve--at any rate, it
showed manly determination. And although she felt a deep sorrow at the
thought of being henceforth alone in the wide world, she nevertheless
thought it right that her brother should thrust forth his hand thus
boldly and independently.

Still, she did not yet quite believe him. The next evening she waited
for him and said:

"Don't tell anybody about your plan to emigrate, or you'll be laughed at
if you don't carry it out."

"You're right," answered Damie; "but it's not for that. I'm not afraid
to bind myself before other people; so surely as I have five fingers on
this hand, so surely shall I go before the cherries are ripe here, if I
have to beg, yes, even to steal, in order to get off. There's only one
thing I'm sorry about--and that is that I must go away without playing
Scheckennarre a trick that he'd remember to the end of his days."

"That's the true braggart's way! That's the real way to ruin!" cried
Barefoot; "to go off and leave a feeling of revenge behind one! Look,
over yonder lie our parents. Come with me--come with me to their graves
and say that again there if you can. Do you know who it is that turns
out to be a no-good?--the boy who lets himself be spoiled! Give up that
ax! You are not worthy to have your hand where father had his hand,
unless you tear that thought out of your mind, root and branch! Give up
that ax! No man shall have that who talks of stealing and of murdering!
Give up that ax, or I don't know what I may do!"

Then Damie, in a frightened tone, replied:

"It was only a thought. Believe me I never intended to do it--I can't do
anything of that kind. But because they always call me "skittle-boy," I
thought I ought for once to threaten and swear and strike as they do.
But you are right; look, if you like, I'll go this very day to
Scheckennarre and tell him that my heart doesn't cherish a single hard
thought against him."

"You need not do that--that would be too much. But because you listen to
reason, I will help you all I can."

"It would be best if you went with me."

"No, I can't do that--I don't know why, but I can't. But I have not
sworn not to go--if you write to me that you are doing well at uncle's,
then I'll come after you. But to go out into the fog, where one knows
nothing--well, I'm not fond of making changes anyway, and after all I'm
doing fairly well here. But now let us consider how you are to get
away."

Damie's savings were very trifling, and Barefoot's were not enough to
make up the deficiency. Damie declared that the parish ought to give him
a handsome contribution; but his sister would not hear of it, saying
that this ought to be the last resource, when everything else had
failed. She did not explain what else she was going to try. Her first
idea, naturally, was to make application to Dame Landfried at
Zumarshofen; but she knew what a bad appearance a begging letter would
make in the eyes of the rich farmer's wife, who perhaps would not have
any ready money anyway. Then she thought of old Farmer Rodel, who had
promised to remember her in his will; could he be induced to give her
now what he intended to give her later on, even if it should be less?
Then again, it occurred to her that perhaps Scheckennarre, who was now
getting on especially well, might be induced to contribute something.

She said nothing to Damie about all this. But when she examined his
wardrobe, and with great difficulty induced Black Marianne to let her
have on credit some of the old woman's heaped-up stores of linen, and
when she began to cut out this linen and sat up at night making shirts
of it--all these steady and active preparations made Damie almost
tremble. To be sure, he had acted all along as if his plan of emigrating
were irrevocably fixed in his mind--and yet now he seemed almost bound
to go, to be under compulsion, as if his sister's strong will were
forcing him to carry out his design. And his sister seemed almost
hard-hearted to him, as if she were thrusting him away to get rid of
him. He did not, indeed, dare to say this openly, but he began to
grumble and complain a good deal about it, and Barefoot looked upon this
as suppressed grief over parting--the feeling that would gladly take
advantage of little obstacles and represent them as hindrances to the
fulfilment of a purpose one would gladly leave unfulfilled.

First of all she went to old Farmer Rodel, and in plain words asked him
to let her have at once the legacy that he had promised her long ago.

The old man replied:

"Why do you press it so? Can't you wait? What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's the matter with me, but I can't wait."

Then she told him that she was fitting out her brother who was going to
emigrate to America. This was a good chance for old Rodel; he could now
give his natural hardness the appearance of benevolence and prudent
forethought. Accordingly he declared to Barefoot that he would not give
her one farthing now, for he did not want to be responsible for her
ruining herself for that brother of hers.

Barefoot then begged him to be her advocate with Scheckennarre. At last
he was induced to consent to this; and he took great credit to himself
for thus consenting to go begging to a man he did not know on behalf of
a stranger. He kept postponing the fulfilment of his promise from day to
day, but Barefoot did not cease from reminding him of it; and so, at
last, he set forth.

But, as might have been anticipated, he came back empty-handed; for the
first thing Scheckennarre did was to ask how much Farmer Rodel himself
was going to give, and when he heard that Rodel, for the present, was
not going to give anything, his course, too, was clear and he followed
it.

When Barefoot told Black Marianne how hurt she felt at this
hard-heartedness, the old woman said:

"Yes, that's just how people are! If a man were to jump into the water
tomorrow and be taken out dead, they would all say: 'If he had only told
me what was amiss with him, I should have been very glad to help him in
every way and to have given him something. What would I not give now, if
I could restore him to life!' But to keep a man alive, they won't stir a
finger."

Strangely enough, the very fact that the whole weight of things always
fell upon Barefoot made her bear it all more easily. "Yes, one must
always depend upon oneself alone," was her secret motto; and instead of
letting obstacles discourage her, she only strove harder to surmount
them. She scraped together and turned into money whatever of her
possessions she could lay hands on; even the valuable necklace she had
received in the old days from Farmer Landfried's wife went its way to
the widow of the old sexton, a worthy woman who supported herself in her
widowhood by lending money at high interest on security; the ducat, too,
which she had once thrown after Severin in the churchyard, was brought
into requisition. And, marvelous to relate, old Farmer Rodel offered to
obtain a considerable contribution from the Village Council, of which he
was a member; he was fond of doing virtuous and benevolent things with
the public money!

Still it almost frightened Barefoot when he announced to her, after a
few days, that everything had been granted--but upon the one condition,
that Damie should entirely give up his right to live in the village. Of
course, that had been understood from the first--no one had expected
anything else; but still, now that it was an express condition, it
seemed like a very formidable matter to have no home anywhere. Barefoot
said nothing about this thought to Damie, who seemed cheerful and of
good courage. Black Marianne, especially, continued to urge him strongly
to go; for she would have been glad to send the whole village away to
foreign parts, if only she could at last get tidings of her John. And
now she had firmly taken up the notion that he had sailed across the
seas. Crappy Zachy had indeed told her, that the reason she could not
cry any more was because the ocean, the great salty deep, absorbed the
tears which one might be disposed to shed for one who was on the other
shore.

Barefoot received permission from her employers to accompany her brother
when he went to town to conclude the arrangement for his passage with
the agent. Greatly were both of them astonished when they learned, on
arriving at the office, that this had already been done. The Village
Council had already taken the necessary steps, and Damie was to have his
rights and corresponding obligations as one of the village poor. On
board the ship, before it sailed out into the wide ocean, he would have
to sign a paper, attesting his embarkation, and not until then would the
money be paid.

The brother and sister returned sorrowfully to the village. Damie had
been seized with a fit of his old despondency, because a thing had now
to be carried out which he himself had wished. And Barefoot herself felt
deeply grieved at the thought that her brother was, in a way, to be
expelled from his native land. At the boundary-line Damie said aloud to
the sign-post, on which the name of the village and of the district were
painted:

"You there! I don't belong to you any longer, and all the people who
live here are no more to me than you are."

Barefoot started to cry; but she resolved within herself that this
should be the last time until her brother's departure, and until he was
fairly gone. And she kept her word to herself.

The people in the village said that Barefoot had no heart, because her
eyes were not wet when her brother went away. People like to see tears
actually shed--for what do they care about those that are shed in
secret? But Barefoot was calm and brave.

Only during the last days before Damie set out did she for the first
time fail in her duty; for she neglected her work by being with Damie
all the time. She let Rose upbraid her for it, and merely said: "You are
right." But still she ran after her brother everywhere--she did not want
to lose a minute of his company as long as he was there. She very likely
felt that she might be able to do something special for him at any
moment, or say something special that would be of use to him all his
life; and she was vexed with herself for finding nothing but quite
ordinary things to say, and for even quarreling with him sometimes.