Black Forest Village Stories

"In cutting corn, the reaper must lay the swath behind him, so as to have nothing before him but the blades still standing. So with the deeds that we have done. They must be out of the sight, so that all our attention may be turned upon what yet remains to do.

"When in the distance I see the mowers bowing and rising so regularly, it seems as if they were going through some ceremonious ritual of prayer.

"The new paling of the manor-house garden is being painted green. Dry wood rots in wind and weather if not covered with a coating. Nature furnishes a secure vestment for all her creatures: men tear off these natural coats and are compelled to replace them with artificial ones.

"What if education were nothing more than oil-paint, a poor surrogate for the fresh lustre of Nature? No: it is Nature itself, elevated, purified; men like those around me here-

"Valentine, the old carpenter, is so forgetful that he walks along the road with the cart-whip on his shoulder, and cries 'Hoy!' without perceiving that his cows have turned into a wrong road forty yards behind him. Is not this the lot of many rulers?

"In a garden by the roadside is a weeping willow, the boughs of which have been tied and twisted into all sorts of ellipses, circles, oblique and right angles, until they have taken this shape permanently.

"The boughs of sorrow are tractable, and may be cramped into almost any deformity; still, the irrepressible vigor of Nature will restore the original growth and proportion. What is it that makes farmers so fond of distorting Nature? Why are they so prone to maltreat the weeping willow, the loveliest of trees? Perhaps there lies at the very root of human nature a disposition to indemnify one's self for a year's hard labor by making a plaything of the subject of it on a holiday.

"(At the crucifix in the Target Field.) Although there were some Jews living in the place where I was born, I never thought much about them. I only remember that when a little boy, like the other little boys, I jeered and even struck the little Jews at every opportunity.

"It as little occurs to us to meditate upon our relation to the Jews as upon that we hold to horses or other cattle. On the contrary, the Bible inspires every Christian child with an indistinct impression of having received some personal wrong at the hands of every individual of the Jewish persuasion. A mysterious abhorrence of them gradually settles upon the infant mind. I involuntarily regarded every Jew as having some disease of the skin. A child thus educated will caress an animal, but never a Jew.

"I am now thrown into frequent intercourse with the Jews. The Jewish teacher is a man remarkably free from prejudice, and possessed of a degree of culture such as I have not often met with. He is more conversant with theology than with the natural sciences. Is that the case with Jews in general? His method of instruction is highly intellectual, but a little wanting in system and regularity, – a disadvantage for children not extraordinarily gifted. A strange sensation overcame me on my first visit to the synagogue. The Hebrew words have wandered from the slopes of Lebanon to these German pine-forests. And yet, is not our religion derived from the same spot? Again, while ancient Rome could not vanquish the Germans, nor make them speak the language of the Capitol, modern Rome perfected the achievement. Every Sunday the Roman language is heard upon these distant hills.

"Over against the school-house is the so-called Burned Spot, the site of the house in which a whole Hebrew family-the grandmother, daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren-fell a victim to the flames. It is now the favorite resort of children when they wish to play at hide-and-seek. The old ruins abound in choice hiding-places. The rosy-cheeked boys clamber up and down the blackened walls, and shout and yell; just where the flames crawled! Such things occur in the history of great things also.

"The bel-wether dance has just been held. "These things are no longer suited to our times: they are a feature of the Middle Ages. Then the lord of the manor may have looked with complacency from the turret of his castle upon the follies of his villeins: he had given them the wether and the ribbon, and probably gave the winning pair pittance of a marriage-portion. All these things are at an end; and why continue the form of that which no longer has a substance?

"Sometimes a chord of the music steals out into the fields and strikes upon my ear; but it is only the braying of the grand trumpet that becomes thus distinguishable. Like me, the peasants here are beyond the reach of the harmonies produced by the intellectual efforts of humanity: not until the great trumpet brays or the bass-drum rattles does a solitary link attach them to the mighty chain, and, for a space, they keep step with the pace of time. Of the gentle adagio and the more intricate harmonies they know nothing.

"It is well that spots of ground are always to be found in which, strictly speaking, no man has a property, and where the poor may pluck their bundles of grass without molestation. Such are the steep banks, cliffs, gulches, and so on. And where even the poor can no longer find a footing, the goat-the companion of the needy-makes her way and picks a scented herb or an aromatic twig.

"On 'wood-days' the poor are allowed to appropriate the dry boughs of the green trees. I have read somewhere that kind Nature herself instituted this traditional charity, and throws to the poor the crumbs of her laden board. The poor and the dry sticks.

"The weeds in the corn-fields are also no man's property until the poor take them away and convert them into nutritious food. Do you ask, of what use are weeds? Perhaps many other things should be judged by the same rule."

These leaves were the product of three months of comparative solitude. His habit of writing when abroad had been discovered, and had subjected him to various uncharitable suspicions. As the reader may have divined, many of them were but the answers given by the peasants to questions on matters very familiar to them, and indeed to everybody except the very learned men of learned Germany. The villagers were at their wits' end. They could not conceive how any one could be ignorant of these matters.

Those who travel afoot must have noticed the demeanor of peasants when asked the way to a place in the immediate neighborhood. At first they suspect that a joke is being played upon them; and then they give an explanation which presupposes a perfect acquaintance with other localities in point of fact equally unknown to the questioner. Yet educated men are often no wiser. Perfectly at home in a certain sphere of ideas, they take for granted that every one else is equally so, and explain themselves in such a manner as to leave the hearer more mystified than he was before.

Of course the teacher was no better known to the villagers than they to him. Very few of them had ever heard his name. One thing, however, they had discovered, – that the teacher came from Lauterbach; and this single fact was used by the wit and humor of the village as the rod with which to punish his pride and reserve. In the evening, whenever he was known to be in, the young fellows assembled under his window and sang the "Lauterbacher" without cessation. As he had taken the part of the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, they generally wound up with, -

"I won't sing any more:A mouse ran over the floor;I'll hunt it and I'll find it,Put out its eyes and blind it,Take out my knife and skin it,And lay it out and pin it,"&.c. &c. &c.

This piece of vulgarity vexed the teacher; but he never quite understood the meaning of it all until the College Chap joined the singers; for, though a married man, he could not forego the privilege of being the leader in all sorts of mischief. He made a new verse, which was repeated again and again: -

"At Lauterbach I was born so proud,And proud I am going to die:Oh, carry me back to Lauterbach:That is where I ought to lie."

A light flashed upon the teacher's mind. It grieved him to the soul to find himself thus abused by those whom he meant so well. He mourned within-doors, and without the noise grew louder and louder. He gathered himself up, intending to open the window and address the crowd in conciliation: luckily, however, his eye fell upon his violin, and, taking it down, he played the air of the song with which they were persecuting him. There was a sudden silence below, interrupted by low chucklings. Presently the singing recommenced, and the teacher resumed the accompaniment as often as the provocation was repeated.

At length he appeared at the window, saying, "Is that the way?"

"Yes," was the general answer; and from this time forth he was unmolested, – for he had shown that his temper was proof against teasing.

But on this occasion he formed the resolution of seeking intercourse with his neighbors more than formerly. He saw that his duties to his fellows were not circumscribed by the school-room.

The execution of this design was not long without its reward.

One Sunday afternoon, on returning from church-service, he took his way by the street which skirted the hill-side, called the "Bruck," or Bridge. An old woman was sitting in front of her house with her hands folded and her head shaking with palsy. He said, kindly, -

"How do you do? The sunshine does you good, doesn't it?"

"Thank you, kind gentleman," answered the old woman, still nodding.

The teacher stood still.

"You have seen many summers, haven't you?" said he.

"Seventy-eight: a good number. Seventy years is the life of man, says the Scripture. I often think Death must have forgotten me. Well, our Lord God will fetch me in his own good time: he knows when. I sha'n't get out of his sight."

"But you seem to keep up very well."

"Not very well, – the cramp; but this helps it." She pointed to the gray threads she had tied around her arms, the veins of which were swollen.

"What is that?"

"Why, a pure virgin spun this before she broke her fast in the morning, and spoke the Lord's Prayer three times while she did it. If you put that round your arm, and don't cry out about it, and speak the prayer to the Lord's holy three nails nine times over, it drives away the cramp. I have to cough so much," she said, pointing to her chest, to excuse the frequent interruptions in her speech.

"Who spun the threads for you?" inquired the teacher, again.

"My Hedwig, – my grand-daughter. Don't you know her? Who are you?"

"I am the new teacher."

"And don't know my Hedwig! Why, she's one of the choristers. What's the world coming to, I'd just like to know! The schoolmaster doesn't know the choristers any more!

"I used to sing in the choir myself, – though, to hear me cough, you wouldn't think so. I was a smart lass: oh, yes. I was fit enough to be seen: and once a year there was a grand dinner, and the parson and the schoolmaster were there. Oh, they did use to sing the funniest songs then, about the Bavarian Heaven, and such things! That's all over now: the world isn't what it used to be when I was young."

"You love your grand-daughter very much, don't you?"

"She is the youngest. Oh, my Hedwig is one of the old sort; she lifts me up and lays me down, and never gives me an unkind word. I almost wish to die, just for her good, – she's kept home so much on account of me; and, after I'm dead, I'll pray my best for her in heaven."

"Do you pray a great deal?"

"What can I do better? My working-days are over.

"I know a prayer which brings the souls out of the moon right into heaven, and so that they don't get into purgatory at all. The Holy Mother of God once said to God the Father, 'My dear husband, the way the poor souls squeak and howl down there in purgatory is too bad: I can't stand it any longer.' So he said, 'Well, I don't care: you may go and help them.' So, there was a man in the Tyrol with eight children: and his wife died, and he went on about it dreadfully when they carried her to the churchyard. But the Mother of God came every morning and combed the childrens' heads and washed their faces, and made the beds; and for a long time the man never found out who did it all. At last he went to the parson, and the parson came very early with the sacrament, and saw the Mother of God flying out of the window, as white as snow; and the prayer was lying on the sill; and they built a church on the spot."

"And you know this prayer, ma'am?" said the teacher, taking a seat beside her.

"You mustn't say 'ma'am' to me: it's not the way hereabouts."

"Have you more grandchildren?"

"Five more; and fourteen great-grandchildren, – and I'm going to have another soon by my Constantine. Don't you know my Constantine? He is studied too, but he's a wild one. I have no reason to complain of him, though, for he's always good to me."

Suddenly there appeared, coming from behind the house, a girl, closely followed by a snow-white hen. "Ha' ye gude counsel, grandmammy?" she asked, scarcely looking up as she passed. The teacher was so taken by surprise that he rose involuntarily and touched his cap.

"Is that your grand-daughter?" he asked, at length.

"To-be-sure."

"Why, that is splendid," said the teacher.

"Isn't she a smart-looking lassie? Old George the blacksmith always tells her, when she goes into the village, that she's just like his grandmother. George the blacksmith is the last of the young fellows I used to dance with: we might as well be three hundred miles apart as the way we are: he's down in the village and can't come up to me, and I can't get down to him. We'll have to wait until we meet each other half-way in the churchyard. I expect to find all the old world there, and in heaven it'll be better yet. My poor Jack Adam has been waiting a long time for me to come after him: he'll be getting tired of it."

"All the people in the village must like you," said the teacher.

"Call into the wood, and you'll have a good answer. When we're young, we want to eat everybody up, – some for love, and some for vexation: when we're old, we live and let live. You wouldn't believe me how good the people are here if I were to tell you: you'll have to find it out yourself. Have you been much about in the world?"

"Not at all. My father was a schoolmaster like myself, and when he died I was only six years old: my mother soon followed him. I was taken to the Orphans' House, and remained there-first as a pupil, and then as an incipient and assistant-until this spring, when I was transferred here. Ah, my good friend, it's a hard lot to have almost forgotten the touch of a mother's hand."

The old woman's hand suddenly passed over his face. He blushed deeply, and sat for a moment with closed lids and quivering eyeballs. Then, as if awaking from a dream, he seized her hand, saying, -

"I may call you grandmother, mayn't I?"

"Yes, and welcome, my kind, good friend: a grandchild more or less won't break me, I'll try it, and will knit your stockings: bring me your torn ones, too, to mend."

The teacher still kept his seat, unable to tear himself away. The passers-by were astonished to find the proud man chatting so cosily with old Maurita. At last a man came out of the house, rubbing himself and stretching his eyes.

"'Had your nap out, Johnnie?" asked the old woman.

"Yes; but my back aches woefully with mowing."

"It'll get well again: our Lord God won't let any man get hurt by working," answered his mother.

The teacher recalled the thoughts suggested by the bowing motion of the mowers. He saluted Johnnie, and walked out into the fields with him. Johnnie liked those conversations which were not attended with drinking, and, therefore, free from expense. He found the teacher, who was an excellent listener, in the highest degree amiable and smart. He favored him with an exposition of his finances, with the story of Constantine, and many other interesting particulars.

In the evening he informed all his friends that the teacher wasn't near so bad as people made him out to be, only he couldn't drive his tongue very well yet: he hadn't got the right way to turn a sharp corner.

The teacher, on coming home, wrote into his pocketbook, -

"Piety alone makes even the decrepitude of age an object of admiration and of reverence. Piety is the childhood of the soul: on the very verge of imbecility it spreads a mild and gentle lustre over the presence and bearing. How hard, tart, and repulsive is the old age of selfish persons! how elevating was the conversation of this old woman in the midst of her superstition!"

He wrote something more than this, but immediately cancelled it. Wrapt in self-accusation, he sat alone for a long time, and then went out into the road: his heart was so full that he could not forego the society of men. The distant song of the young villagers thrilled his breast. "I am to be envied," said he to himself; "for now the song of men is more potent over me than the song of birds. I hear the cry of brothers! Men! I love you all."

Thus he strolled about the village, mentally conversing with every one, though not a word escaped his lips. Without knowing how he had come there, he suddenly found himself once more in front of the house of Johnnie of the Bruck. Every thing was silent, except that from the room the occupation of which was part of the dower of old Maurita issued the monotonous murmur of a prayer.

Late at night he returned home through the village, now still as death, except that here and there the whispers of two lovers might be heard. When he re-entered his solitary room, where there was no one to welcome him, no one to give answer to what he said, to look up to him, and to say, "Rejoice: you live, and I live with you," he prayed aloud to God, "Lord, let me find the heart to which my heart can respond!"

Next day the children were puzzled to know what could have put the teacher in such good humor. During recess he sent Mat's Johnnie to the Eagle to say that they need not send him his dinner, as he was coming there to eat it.

It was unfortunate that, in approaching the life that surrounded him, his thoughts were pitched in such an elevated key. Though he had wit enough to refrain from communicating these flights of imagination to others, he could not avoid seeing and hearing many things which came into the most jarring discord with them.

As he entered the inn, Babbett was in the midst of an animated conversation with another woman. "They brought your old man home nasty, didn't they?" she was saying: "he had the awfullest brick in his hat. Well, if I'd seen them pour brandy into his beer, as they say they did, I'd 'a' sent 'em flying."

"Yes," returned the woman: "he was in a shocking way, – just like a sack of potatoes."

"And they say you thanked them so smartly. What did you say? They were laughing so, I thought they would never get over it."

"Well, I said, says I, 'Thank you, men: God reward you!' Then they asked, 'What for?' So I said, says I, 'Don't you always thank a man when he brings you a sausage?' says I; 'and why shouldn't I thank you,' says I, 'for bringing me a whole hog?' says I."

On hearing this, the teacher laid down his knife and fork: but, soon resuming them, he reflected that, after all, necessity and passion were the only true sources of wit and humor.

Whenever his feelings were outraged in this manner, he now fell back, not upon mother Nature, but upon Grandmother Maurita, who gave him many explanations on the manners and customs of the people. Many people took it into their heads that the old woman had bewitched the schoolmaster. Far from it. Much as he delighted to hold converse with her simple, well-meaning heart, it would have been much more correct to have accused Hedwig of some incantation, although the teacher had only seen her once and had never exchanged a word with her. "Ha' ye gude counsel, grandmammy?" These words he repeated to himself again and again. Though uttered in the harsh mountain dialect, even this seemed to have acquired a grace and loveliness from the lips it passed.

Yet he was far from yielding to this enchantment without summoning to his aid all the force of his former resolves. To fall in love with a peasant-girl! But, as usual, love was fertile in excuses. "She is certainly the image of her grandmother, only fresher and lovelier, and illuminated by the sun of the present time. 'Ha' ye gude counsel, grandmammy?'"

One evening, as he was sitting by the old woman's side, upon the same bench, the girl came home from the field with a sickle in her hand: her cheeks were flushed, – perhaps from exercise: she carried something carefully in her apron. Stepping up to her grandmother, she offered her some blackberries covered with hazel-leaves.

"Don't you know the way to do, Hedwig?" said her grandmother: "you must wait on the stranger first."

"Help yourself, Mr. Teacher," said the girl, looking up without hesitation. The teacher took one, blushing.

"Eat some yourself," said her grandmother.

"No, thank you: just help yourselves: I hope they'll do you good."

"Where did you pick them?" asked her grandmother.

"In the gully by the side of our field: you know where the bush is: " said the girl, and went into the house.

The bush which had formed the subject of the teacher's first sketch was the same from which Hedwig now brought him the ripened fruit.

Hedwig soon returned, still followed by the white hen.

"Where are you going so fast, Miss Hedwig?" asked the teacher: "won't you stop and talk with us a little?"

"No, thank you: I'll go and see the old teacher a little before supper."

"If you have no objection, I'll go with you," said our friend, and did so without waiting for an answer.

"Do you see the old teacher often?"

"Oh, yes: he's a cousin of mine: his wife was my grandmother's sister."

"Was she? Why, I'm delighted to hear it."

"Why? Did you know my grandaunt?"

"No, I was only thinking-"

On entering the old teacher's garden, Hedwig closed the gate hastily behind her: the white hen, thus excluded, posted herself before it like a sentinel.

"What makes that hen run after you so?" asked the teacher. "That's something extraordinary."

Hedwig pulled at her apron in great embarrassment.

"Are you not permitted to tell me?" persisted the teacher.

"Oh, yes, I can, but- You mustn't laugh at me, and must promise not to tell anybody: they would tease me about it if it was to become known."

He seized her hand and said, quickly, "I promise you most solemnly." It seemed a pity to let the hand go at once, and he retained it, while she went on, looking down, -

"I-I-I hatched the egg in my bosom. The cluck was scared away and left all the eggs; and I held this one egg against the sun, and saw there was a little head in it, and so I took it. You mustn't laugh at me, but when the little chick came out I was so glad I didn't know what to do. I made it a bed of feathers, and chewed bread and fed it; and the very next day it ran about the table. Nobody knows a word of it except my grandmother. The hen is so fond of me now that when I go into the field I must lock it up to keep it from running after me. You won't laugh at me, will you?"

"Certainly not," said the teacher. He tried to keep her hand as they walked on, but soon found reason to curse the economy of the old teacher, who had left so little room for the path that it was impossible for two to walk abreast.

His indignation grew still greater when the old teacher came to meet them with a louder laugh than usual, and cried, "Do you know each other already? Ah, Hedwig, didn't I always tell you that you must marry a schoolmaster?"

With a great effort he restrained himself from giving vent to the mortification caused by this rude dallying with the first budding of so delicate a flower. To his astonishment, Hedwig began, as if nothing had been said: – "Cousin, you must cut your summer-barley in the mallet-fields to-morrow: it's dead ripe, and will fall down if you don't take care."

But little was spoken. Hedwig appeared to be fatigued, and seated herself on a bench under a tree. The men conversed, our friend regarding Hedwig all the while with such intensity that she passed her apron several times across her face, fearing that she had blackened it in the kitchen while putting the potatoes over the fire. But our friend's attention was directed to very different matters. He perceived for the first time a slight cast in Hedwig's left eye: the effect was by no means unpleasant, but gave the face an interesting air of shyness which suited very well the style of the features. A fine nose of regular form, a very small mouth with cherry lips, round, delicately-glowing cheeks, – all were enough to arrest the delighted gaze of a young man of twenty-five. At last, after having given a number of wry answers, he became aware that it was time to go. He took leave, and Hedwig said, "Good-night, Mr. Teacher."