The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Viii Part 27

"With all these people, whom you now look at with proud indifference, because you know that you are doing right--with all these people you'll have to live, and you'll expect them, not to look at you askance, but to give you due respect. Now if they are to do that, you must give and allow them what they are accustomed to demand. You cannot force them to make an exception in your case, and you can't run after each one separately and say: 'If you knew how it all came about, you would say that I was quite right in doing it.'"

But John rejoined:

"You shall see that n.o.body will have anything to say against my Amrei, when he or she has known her a single hour!"

And he resorted to a good way, not only of pacifying his mother, but also of causing her to rejoice in her innermost soul. He reported to her how all the warnings she had given him, and all the ways of testing a girl she had enumerated, had found exact correspondence in Amrei, as if she had been made to order. And she could not help laughing, when he concluded:

"You must have had the last in your head upon which the shoes up above are made; for they fit her who is to run about in them as if they were made for her." The mother let herself be quieted.

On the Sat.u.r.day morning previous to the family gathering, Damie made his appearance; but he was immediately dispatched back to Haldenbrunn to procure all the necessary papers from the magistrate in the town-hall.

The first Sunday was an anxious day at Farmer Landfried's. The old people had accepted Amrei, but how would it be with the rest of the family? It is no easy matter to enter a large family of that kind unless the way is paved with horses and wagons, and all sorts of furniture and money, and a number of relatives.

Many wagons arrived that Sunday at Farmer Landfried's from the uplands and lowlands. There came driving up brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, and all their relations.

"John has a wife, and he brought her straight home without her parents, without a clergyman, and without the authorities having had a word to say in the matter. She must be a beauty that he found behind a hedge somewhere!"

This is what all of them were saying.

The horses on the wagons also suffered for what had happened at Farmer Landfried's. They received many a lash, and when they kicked, they suffered all the more for it; for whoever was driving whipped them until his arm was tired. This caused many a wrangle with the wives, who sat beside the drivers and protested and scolded about such a reckless, cruel way of driving.

A little fortress of carriages stood in Farmer Landfried's courtyard, and in the house the entire large family was a.s.sembled. There they sat together in high water-boots, or in clouted laced-boots, and with three-cornered hats, some worn with the corner, others with the broadside forward. The women whispered among themselves, and then made signs to their husbands, or else said to them quietly: "Just let us alone--we will drive the strange bird out all right." And a bitter, jeering laugh arose when it was rumored here and there, that Amrei had been a goose-girl.

At last Amrei entered; but she could not offer, her hand to anybody. For she was carrying a large bottle of red wine under her arm, and so many gla.s.ses, besides two plates of cake, that it seemed as if she had seven hands. Every finger-joint appeared to be a hand; but she put everything so gently and noiselessly on the table, on which her mother-in-law had spread a white cloth, that everybody looked at her in wonder. Then, silently and without any signs of trepidation, she filled all the gla.s.ses, and said:

"My parents have given me authority to bid you a hearty welcome! Now drink!"

"We are not used to it in the morning," said a heavy man, with an uncommonly large nose; and he spread himself out in his chair. This was George, John's oldest brother.

"We drink only goose-wine (water)," said one of the women; and a scarcely-suppressed laugh went around the room.

Amrei felt the taunt, but kept her temper; and John's sister was the first to take the gla.s.s and drink to her. She first clinked her gla.s.s against John's with a "May G.o.d bless you!" She only half responded to Amrei, who also held out her gla.s.s. Now, the other women considered it impolite, even sinful,--for, at the first draught, the so-called "John's-draught," it is looked upon as sinful to hold back--not to respond; and the men also let themselves be persuaded, so that for a time nothing was heard but the clinking and putting down of gla.s.ses.

"Father is right," old Dame Landfried at last said to her daughter.

"Amrei looks as if she were your sister, but she resembles still more Elizabeth, who died."

"Yes; none of you have lost by it. If Elizabeth had lived, the property would have been smaller by one share anyway," observed the father. And the mother added:

"But now she has been given back to us again."

The old man had hit the spot where, as a matter of fact, all of them were sore, although they tried to persuade themselves, and each other, that they were prejudiced against Amrei because she had come among them without any relatives of her own. And while Amrei was talking to John's sister, the old farmer said to his son in a low voice:

"One would never imagine, to look at her, what she has. Just think!--she has a bag stuffed full of crown thalers! But you must not say anything to any one about it."

This injunction was so well obeyed, that within a few minutes every person in the room knew about the bag of thalers, with the exception of John's sister, who afterward took great credit to herself for having been so friendly to Amrei, although she thought that Amrei had not a farthing of her own.

Sure enough! John had gone out, and he was now entering again with a large bag, on which was written the name "Josenhans of Haldenbrunn;" and when he poured out the rich contents, which rolled rattling and clinking over the table, all were dumbfounded. But the most astonished of all were the father and mother.

So Amrei had really had a secret treasure! For there was much more here than either one had given her. Amrei did not dare to look up, and every one praised her for her unexampled humility. And now she succeeded in winning them all over to her side; and when the numerous members of the family took their leave in the evening, each one said to her in secret:

"Look you; it was not I who was against you because you had nothing--it was so-and-so, who was always opposing you. I say now, as I said and thought before, that even if you had had nothing but the clothes you wore, you were cut out for our family; and I could not have wished for a better wife for John, or a better daughter-in-law for the old people."

It was easy to say that now, for they all thought that Amrei had brought with her a considerable fortune in cash.

In Allgau they talked for years of the wonderful way in which young Farmer Landfried had brought home his wife, and told how finely he and his wife had danced together at their wedding, and especially did they praise a waltz called "Silverstep," the music for which they got from the lowlands.

And Damie?--he is one of the most noted shepherds in Allgau, and has, moreover, a lofty name, for he is known in the country as "Vulture Damie." Why? Because Damie has destroyed the nests of two dangerous vultures, and thus avenged himself on them for twice having stolen young lambs from him. If it were the custom to dub men knights nowadays, he would be called "Damian of Vulturescraig." Moreover, the male side of the Josenhanses of Vulturescraig will die with him, for he is still a bachelor. But he is a good uncle--better than the one in America. When the cattle are brought in at the end of the summer, he has many stories to tell his sister's children, on winter nights, about life in America, about Coaly Matthew in Mossbrook Wood, and about shepherds' adventures in the mountains of Allgau. In particular, he knows a number of funny stories to tell about a cow which he calls his "herd-cow," and which wears a deep-sounding bell.

And Damie said once to his sister:

"Dame"--for that is what he always calls her--"Dame, your oldest boy takes after you, and uses just such words as you used to. What do you think?--the boy said to me today: 'Uncle, your herd-cow is your heart-cow too, isn't she?' Yes, the boy is just on your pattern."

Farmer John wanted to have his first little daughter christened "Barefoot," but it is no longer permissible to create names out of incidents in daily life. The name was not accepted in the church register, so that John had the child named "Barbara." But, on his own authority, he has changed that name to "Barefoot."

JEREMIAS GOTTHELF

ULI, THE FARMHAND

TRANSLATIONS AND SYNOPSES

BY BAYARD QUINCY MORGAN, PH.D.

Instructor in German, University of Wisconsin

CHAPTER I

A MASTER AWAKES; A SERVANT IS AROUSED

A dark night lay upon the earth; still darker was the place where a subdued voice repeatedly called, "Johannes." It was a tiny chamber in a large farmhouse; the voice came from the great bed which almost filled the further end of the room. In it lay a farmer and his wife, and to him the latter cried "Johannes" until he presently began to grumble and finally to ask, "What do you want? What is it?"

"You'll have to get up and fodder the stock. It's after half-past four, and Uli didn't get home till after two and fell downstairs at that when he tried to get into his room. I should think you'd have waked up, he made such a noise. He was drunk, and now he won't want to get up; and anyhow I'd rather he wouldn't take a lantern into the stable while he's tipsy."

"Servants are a trial nowadays," said the farmer, striking a light and dressing. "You can hardly get 'em or pay 'em enough, and then you're supposed to do everything yourself and never say a word about anything.

You're not master in your own house any more, and you can't do enough of your own errands to keep from quarrels and from being run down."

"But you can't let this go on," said his wife; "it's happening too often. Only last week he went off on two sprees; you know he drew his pay before Ash Wednesday. I'm not thinking of you alone, but also of Uli. If nothing's said to him he'll think he's got a right to go on so, and will keep on worse and worse, and then we'll have to take it on our consciences; for masters are masters after all, and let folks say what they will about the new fas.h.i.+on, that it's n.o.body's business what the servants do out of working hours, we're masters in our own house just the same, and we're responsible to G.o.d and men for what we allow in our house and what we overlook in our servants. Then too I'm thinking of the children. You must take him into the sitting-room after breakfast, and read him the riot act."

You must know that there prevails on many farms, especially those which belong to the real farmer aristocracy--i.e., those which have for a long time been handed, down in the same family, so that family customs have been established and family respectability is cherished--the very pleasant custom of causing absolutely no quarrel, no violent scene, which could attract the neighbors' attention in any way. In proud calm the house stands amid the green trees; with calm, grave demeanor its indwellers move about and in it, and over the tree-tops sounds at most the neighing of the horses, never the voices of men. There is little noisy rebuke. Man and wife never rebuke each other in public; and mistakes of the servants they often ignore, or make, as it were in pa.s.sing, a remark, let fall merely a word or a hint, which reaches only the ear for which it is intended. When something unusual occurs or the measure is full, they call the sinner into the sitting-room as unostentatiously as possible, or seek him out while he is working alone, and "read him the riot act," as the saying is; and for this the master has usually prepared himself carefully. He performs this duty in perfect calm, quite like a father, keeps nothing from the sinner, not even the bitterest truth, but gives him a just hearing too, and puts before him the consequences of his misdoings with respect to his future destiny.