Little Frida Part 2

CHAPTER IV.

THE PARSONAGE.

"The Lord thy Shepherd is-- Dread not nor be dismayed-- To lead thee on through stormy paths, By ways His hand hath made."

On the morning of the day that we have written of, the young Protestant pastor of Dringenstadt was seated in a room of the small house which went by the name of "Das Pfarrhaus."

He was meditating more than studying just then. He felt his work there an uphill one. Almost all the people in that little town were Roman Catholics. His own flock was a little one indeed, and only that morning he had received a letter telling him that it had been settled that no regular ministry would be continued there, as funds were not forthcoming, and the need in one sense seemed small. He had come there only a few months before, knowing well that he might only be allowed to remain a short time; but now that the order for his removal elsewhere had come, he felt discouraged and sad. Was it right, he was asking himself, to withdraw the true gospel light from the people, and to leave the few, no doubt very few, who loved it to themselves? Karl Langen was a true Christian, longing to lead souls to Jesus, and was much perplexed by the order he had received. Suddenly a knock at the door roused him, and the woman who took charge of his house on entering told him that a man from the Forest wished to speak to him. Telling her to send him in at once, he awaited his entry.

Johann Schmidt was shown into the room, and told his sorrowful tale in a quiet, manly way.

The pastor was much moved, and repeated with amazement the words, "A child lost in the Black Forest, and the father dead, you say? Certainly I will come and see. But why, my friend, should you think the man was an Evangelisch?" Then Johann told of the words he had repeated, of the child's prayer and her little brown book.

Suddenly a light seemed to dawn on the mind of the young pastor. "Oh!"

he said, "I believe you are right. I think I have seen both the father and the child. Last Sunday there came into our church a gentleman and a lovely little girl, just such a one as you describe the child you speak of to be. I tried to speak to them after wors.h.i.+p, but ere I could do so they had gone. And no one could tell me who they were or whither they had gone. I will now see the Burgermeister about the funeral, and make arrangements regarding it. I think through some friends of mine I can get money sufficient to pay all expenses."

Johann thanked him warmly, and hastened back to tell what had been agreed on, and then got off to his work.

Late in the afternoon Pastor Langen took his way to the little hut in the Black Forest.

The Forest by the road he took was not well known to him, and the solemn quiet which pervaded it struck him much and raised his thoughts to G.o.d.

It was as if he had entered the sanctuary and heard the voice of the Lord speaking to him. It was, as a poet has expressed it, as if

"Solemn and silent everywhere, The trees with folded hands stood there, Kneeling at their evening prayer."

Only the slight murmuring of the breeze amongst the leaves, or the flutter of a bird's wing as it flew from branch to branch, broke the silence. All around him there was

"A slumberous sound, a sound that brings The feeling of a dream, As when a bell no longer swings, Faint the hollow echo rings O'er meadow, lake, and stream."

As he walked, he thought much of the child found in the Forest, and he wondered how he could help her or find out to whom she belonged. Oh, if only, he said to himself, he had been able to speak to the father the day he had seen him, and learned something of his history! Johann had told him that if no clue could be found to the child's relations, Wilhelm Horstel had determined to bring her up; but Johann had added, "We will not, poor though we be, let the whole expense of her upbringing fall on the Horstels. No; we will go share for share, and she shall be called the child of the wood-cutters."

As he thought of these words, the young pastor prayed for the kind, large-hearted men, asking that the knowledge of the loving Christ might s.h.i.+ne into their hearts and bring spiritual light into the darkness which surrounded them. The afternoon had merged into evening ere he entered the wood-cutters' Dorf. As he neared Johann's hut, Gretchen came to the door, and he greeted her with the words, "The Lord be with you, and bless you for your kindness to the poor man in the time of his need."

"Come in, sir," she said, "and see the corpse. Oh, but he's been a fine-looking man, and he so young too. It was a sight to see his bit child crying beside him and begging him to say one word to her--just one word. Then she folded her hands, and looking up said, 'O kind Jesus, who made Lazarus come to life, make dear fader live again.' Oh, 'twas pitiful to see her! Who think you, sir, was the man she spoke of called Lazarus? When I asked her she said it was all written in her little brown book, which she would bring along and read to me some day, bless the little creature."

The pastor said some words about the story being told by the Lord Jesus, and recorded in the Holy Scriptures. He did not offer her a Testament, as he knew if the priest heard (as it was likely he would) of his having been there, he would ask if they had been given a Bible, and so trouble would follow. But he rejoiced that the little child had it in her heart to read the words of life to the kind woman, and he breathed a prayer that her little brown Bible might prove a blessing to those poor wood-cutters.

Pastor Langen at once recognized the features of the dead man as those of the stranger whom he had seen with the lovely child in the little church. He then made arrangements for the funeral the next day, and departed.

On the morrow a number of wood-cutters met at the house of Johann Schmidt to attend the funeral of the stranger gentleman. Wilhelm Horstel, and his wife, Hans, and little Frida, were there also. The child was crying softly, as if she realized that even the corpse of her father was to be taken from her.

Presently the young pastor entered, and the moment Frida saw him she started forward, saying in her child language, "O sir, I've seen you before, when fader and I heard you preach some days ago." All this was said in the pure German language, which the people hardly followed at all, but which was the same as the pastor himself spoke. He at once recognized the child, and sought to obtain from her some information regarding her father. She only said, as she had already done, that he was going to England to see some friends of her mother's. When questioned as to their name, she could not tell. All that she knew was that they were relations of her mother's. Yes, her father loved his Bible, and had given her such a nice little brown one which had belonged to her mother.

Could she speak any English, the pastor asked.

"Yes, I can," said Frida. "Mother taught me a number of words, and I can say 'Good-morning,' and 'How are you to-day?' Also mother taught me to say the Lord's Prayer in English. But I do not know much English, for father and mother always spoke German to each other."

No more could be got from the child then, and the simple service was gone on with; and when the small procession set off for Dringenstadt, the kindly men took it by turns to carry the little maiden in their arms, as the walk through the forest was a long one for a child.

In the churchyard of the quiet little German town they laid the mortal remains of Friedrich Heinz, to await the resurrection morning.

Tears rose to the eyes of many onlookers as Frida threw herself, sobbing, on the grave of her father. Wilhelm and Elsie strove in vain to raise her, but when Pastor Langen drew near and whispered the words, "Look up, Frida; thy father is not here, he is with Jesus," a smile of joy played on the child's face, and rising she dried her tears, and putting her hand into that of Elsie she prepared to leave the "G.o.d's acre," and the little party set off for their home in the Black Forest.

Darkness had fallen on all around ere they reached the Dorf, and strange figures that the trees and bushes a.s.sumed appeared to the superst.i.tious mind of Elsie and some of the others as the embodiment of evil spirits, and they wished themselves safe under the shelter of their little huts.

That night the little stranger child mingled her tears with her prayers, and to Elsie's amazement she heard her ask her Father in heaven to take greater care of her now than ever, because she had no longer a father on earth to do it. Little did the kneeling child imagine that that simple prayer was used by the Holy Spirit to touch the heart of the wood-cutter's wife.

And from the lips of Elsie ere she fell asleep that night arose a cry to the Father in heaven for help. True, it was but

"As an infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry."

But still there was a felt need, and a recognition that there was One who could meet and satisfy it.

At all events Elsie Horstel clasped her blind babe to her heart that night, and fell asleep with a feeling of rest and peace to which she had long been a stranger.

Ah! G.o.d had a purpose for the little child and her brown Bible in that little hut of which she as yet had no conception. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings He still perfects praise.

CHAPTER V.

THE WOODMEN'S PET.

"Lord, make me like the gentle dew, That other hearts may prove, E'en through Thy feeblest messenger, Thy ministry of love."

Pastor Langen, ere leaving Dringenstadt, visited the hut in the Black Forest where Frida had found a home.

His congregation, with two or three exceptions, was a poor one, and his own means were small; yet he had contrived to collect a small sum for Frida's maintenance, which he had put into the hands of the Burgermeister, who undertook to pay the interest of it quarterly to the Horstels on behalf of the child. True, the sum was small, but it was sufficient to be a help; and a kind lady of the congregation, Fraulein Drechsler, said she would supply her from time to time with dress, and when she could have her now and then with herself, instruct her in the Protestant faith and the elements of education. Frida could already read, and had begun to write, taught by her father. Every effort was being made to discover if the child had any relations alive. The Burgermeister had put advertis.e.m.e.nts in many papers, German and English, but as yet no answer had come, and many of the wood-cutters still held the opinion that the child was the offspring of some woodland spirit. But in spite of any such belief, Frida had a warm welcome in every hut in the Dorf, and a kindly word from every man and woman in it.

The "woodland child" they called her, and as such cherished and protected her. Many a "bite and sup" she got from them. Many a warm pair of stockings, or a knitted petticoat done by skilful hands, did the inmates of the Dorf present to her. They did what they could, these poor people, for the orphan child, just out of the fullness of their kind hearts, little thinking of the blessing that through her was to descend on them. The day of Pastor Langen's visit to the hut, some time after her father's funeral, Frida was playing beside the door, and on seeing him coming up the path she rose from the spot where she was sitting and ran eagerly to meet him.

But though unseen by her, he had been standing near for some time spell-bound by the music which, child though she was, she was bringing out of her father's violin, in the playing of which she was amusing herself.

From a very early age her father, himself a skilled violinist, had taught her to handle the bow, and had early discovered the wonderful talent for music which she possessed.

The day of which we write was the first one since her father's death that Frida had played on the violin, so neither Wilhelm nor Elsie was aware that she could do so at all. The pastor was approaching the cottage when the sound of music reached his ears, and having a good knowledge of that art himself, he stood still to listen. A few minutes convinced him that though the playing was that of a child, still the performer had the true soul of music, and only needed full instruction to develop into a musician of no ordinary talent. As he drew nearer his surprise was great to see that the player was none other than the beautiful child found in the Black Forest. Attracted by the sound of steps, Frida had turned round, and seeing her friend had, as we have written, bounded off to meet him. Hearing that Elsie had taken her babe and gone a message to the Dorf, he seated himself on a knoll with the child and began to talk to her.

"How old are you?" he asked her.

"Seven years and more," she replied; "because I remember my birthday was only a little while before Mutterchen (I always called her that) died, and that that day she took the locket she used to wear off her neck and gave it to me, telling me always to keep it."

"And have you that locket still?" queried the pastor.