Black Forest Village Stories

He went to work again, and found it so easy that he began to sing, – not of ploughing or sowing, though, nor of any thing connected with work in the fields: -

"Oh, we are sisters three, -Kitty and Lizzie, and she,The youngest, she let the boy come in."She hid him behind the doorTill her father and mother were gone to sleep;Then she brought him out once more."She carried him up the stairs,And into her chamber she let him in,And she threw him into the street."She threw him against a stone,And his heart in his body he broke in two,And also his shoulder-bone."He pick'd himself up to go home;'Oh, mother, I fell and I broke my armAgainst such a hard, hard stone.'"'My son, and it serves you right,For not coming home with the other boys,But running about at night.'"So he went up-stairs to bed.At the stroke of twelve he was full of fright,At the stroke of one he was dead."

Here Nat jerked the rein, fixed his hat more firmly on his head, and sang, perhaps in remembrance of the past: -

"You good-for-nothing boy,Your drink is all your joy;Dancing's what you're made for,And your coat has never been paid for."If I'm a little short,What need you care for't?When I've emptied my glassThey'll fill it, I guess."If I can't pay the scoreThey'll mark it on the door,So every one can readThat I'm running to seed."So seedy I've grown,Not a thing is my own:The world's here and there,But I haven't a share."

Nat suddenly broke off, and cried, "Hee, oh!" to the horse. It was hard to tell whether it occurred to him that Ivo was by, or whether he had forgotten him entirely. So much is certain, however, that this sort of songs is by no means so injurious to the children of a village as is generally supposed. From his very cradle, Ivo had heard all sorts of things spoken of by their most natural designations and without the least reserve, which to those who grow up in towns are first left unmentioned entirely, so that ignorance stimulates curiosity, and are then discussed in ambiguous terms, which aggravate the temptation to evil by the additional zest of the mysterious. Thus, instead of festering in his mind, they glided through it without leaving a trace behind them. Nat was full of reminiscences to-day; and, after a pause, he sang again, in a muffled voice, -

"I'm forty years to-day;My hair is turning gray:If none of the girls will marry me,I'll set my house on fire;If none of the girls will marry me,I'll drown myself in the mire."

Immediately after, he sang again, -

"Sweetheart, sweetheart,How is't with thee,That thou wilt not speak to me?"Hast thou another lover,To make the time pass over,Whom thou likest more than me?"If thou likest him more than me,I'll travel away from thee,I'll travel away from thee."I travel far over distant lands,Leave my love in another's hands,And write her many a line;You must knowWhere I go, -A horseman bold am I."I travel far over distant lands,Leave my love in another's hands;Oh, that is hard to doWhen my love is fair and true!"Oh, that is easily doneWhen love is past and gone!To sleep without a sorrowFrom the even to the morrow;Oh, that is easily doneWhen love is past and gone!"Fine cities too there areWhere I have wander'd far, -In the Spanish Netherlands,And in Holland and in France;But over all this groundMy love nowhere I found."Who made the song and who sang it first?He made it and he sang it first, -A fine young fellow, -When his love was at the worst."

The long-drawn notes swept over the lea as if borne on the wings of old yet unforgotten wishes. But they died away, in all probability, long before reaching the ear for which they were intended.

Could the old ploughman still carry in his heart the roots of so deep-seated a passion?

At eleven o'clock there was another halt and another prayer; the horse was unhitched and received a bundle of clover for his dinner. Ivo and Nat sat down at the edge of the field, in what would have been a fence-corner if there were fences in that part of Germany, and waited for Mag, who soon appeared with their dinner. They ate out of one bowl, with a good appetite, for they had worked hard. The bowl was so entirely empty that Mag said, -

"There'll be fine weather to-morrow: you make the platter clean."

"Yes," said Nat, turning the bowl upside down; "you couldn't drown a wasp there."

After dinner they took a little siesta. Ivo, stretched out at full length, was listening to the many-voiced chirpings among the clover; and, closing his eyes, he said, -

"It is just as if the whole field were alive, and as if all the flowers were singing, – and the larks up there, – and the crickets-" He never finished the sentence, for he had fallen asleep. Nat looked at him for some time with an expression of delight; then he brought a few sticks, fixed them carefully into the ground, and hung the cloth in which the clover had been tied over them, so that the boy slept in the shade. This done, he got up softly, hitched the horse to the plough, and went on noiselessly with his work.

It would be hard to tell whether he kept down the songs which mounted to his lips, or whether solemn thoughts made him so quiet. The dun was very true to the rein, and a slight jerk was enough, without a word, to keep the furrow straight.

The sun was sinking when Ivo awoke. He tore away the tent which was stretched over him, and looked about him in wonder, not knowing, for a while, where he was. On seeing Nat he bounded toward him with a shout of joy. He helped Nat to finish the job, and was almost sorry to find that Nat had managed to plough without him; for he would fain have thought himself indispensable to the progress of the work.

At nightfall they quitted the field, leaving the plough behind them. Nat lifted Ivo on the horse, and walked by his side up the hill; but, suddenly remembering that he had left his knife where the plough was, he ran back hastily, and thus found himself again in the valley. Looking up, he saw the sun set magnificently behind two mountains draped in pine woods. Like the choir of a church built all of light and gold were earth and sky; the treasures of eternity seemed to blink into time; long streamers of all shades of red and purple floated about; the little cloudlets were like, angels' heads; while in the midst was a large, solemn mass of vapor like a vast altar of blue pedestal covered with a cloth of flame. The sight provoked a wish to rise upward and melt in rapture, and again an expectation to behold the bursting of the cloud and the coming forth of the Lord in his glory to proclaim the millennial reign of peace.

On the crown of the hill was Ivo. The horse, bound to the earth and tearing up its bosom all day, seemed now to stride in mid-air and to travel gently upward; his hoofs were seen to rise, but not to stand on ground. Ivo was stretching out his arms as if an angel beckoned to him. Two pigeons above his head winged their flight homeward: they rose high and far, – what is high and what is far? – their pinions moved not: they seemed to be drawn upward from above, and vanished into the fiery floods.

Who can tell the pride and gladness of the heart when, glowing with the spirit of the universe, it overpeers every limit and looks into the vast realms of infinity?

Thus Nat stood gazing upward, free from earth's sighs and sorrows. A beam of the inexhaustible glory of God had fallen into the heart of the simple-hearted working-man, and he stood above all principalities and powers: the majesty of heaven had descended upon him.

The memory of this day never faded from the hearts of Nat and of Ivo.

6.

THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL

An unavoidable change soon separated Ivo from the friend of his childhood. The time had come for taking the first step which led to his future calling. The change was external as well as internal, – the short jacket worn till now being replaced by a long blue coat, which, in anticipation of his growing, had been made too large in every direction.

As he walked toward Horb, with his mother, in this new garb, he dragged his heavy boots along with some difficulty, and often lifted up his hands to prevent the unruly flaps of his coat from flying away behind him. Valentine took but little further trouble about the future of his child. He had tasted the idea of having a parson for his son to the dregs, and would almost have been content had Ivo become a farmer after all. Indeed, the older he grew the less willing was he to take any trouble which carried him out of the beaten track of his daily toil. Mother Christina, however, was a pious and resolute woman, who had no mind to give up the idea which had once entered her head.

The chaplain lived next to the church. Mother and son went into the church first, knelt down before the altar, and fervently spoke the Lord's Prayer three times over. The soul of Mother Christina was full of such feelings as may have visited the soul of Hannah when she brought her son Samuel to the high-priest of the Temple at Jerusalem. She had never read the Old Testament, and knew nothing of the story; but the same thoughts came up in her mind by their own force and virtue. Pressing her hands upon her bosom, she looked steadfastly at her son as she left the church.

In the parsonage she set down her basket in the kitchen, and made the cook a present of some eggs and butter. Then, being announced to the chaplain, she advanced with short steps, dropping a shower of curtsies, into the open parlor. He was a good-natured man, and regaled all his visitors with sanctified speeches and gestures, during which he constantly rolled his fat little hands in and out of each other. Mother Christina listened attentively as if he had been preaching a sermon; and when Ivo was admonished to be diligent and studious, the poor little fellow wept aloud, he knew not why. The good man comforted and caressed him, and the two went on their way composed, if not rejoicing.

Their next visit was to an old widow who lived near the "Staffelbaeck." On the way, Ivo was treated to a "pretzel," which he devoured while sitting behind Mrs. Hankler's stove and listening to the negotiations between her and his mother. The good lady was a dealer in eggs and butter, and an old business acquaintance of Mother Christina's. It was agreed that Ivo should get his dinner at her house, and that Mrs. Hankler was to receive therefor a certain quantity of butter, eggs, and flour.

The moment Ivo had reached home, he threw off his coat, kicked the boots from his feet, and hastened to Nat in the stable. The latter passed his hand over his eyes when he heard that Ivo was now a student.

Next morning our young friend was sad when the time came for his first visit to the grammar-school. He was waked early, and obliged to dress in his best clothes. To make the parting less bitter, his mother went with him to the top of the hill. There she gave him a little roast meat wrapped up in paper, and two creutzers as a precaution against unforeseen emergencies.

Our readers have gone to Horb with us often enough to know the way. But, besides the winding road of only two or three miles which ascends the steep hill, there is a footpath which turns off to the left at the hill-top, and where you cannot walk, but only scamper straight to the Horb brick-yard. Ivo took this path: his heart beat high, and his tears flowed freely, for he felt that he was entering upon a new and a different life.

At the brick-yard he wiped his eyes and looked at the roast meat. It had a delicious odor. He unfolded the paper, and the meat smiled at him as if it wished to be kissed. He tried the least bit, then a little more, and in a short time he had tried every thing but the paper. Yet, had he been ninety years old, he could not have done more wisely: the lunch restored his spirits and his courage, and he walked on with a smiling face and steady eye.

The boys at the school inspected the appearance of the new-comer with the minuteness of custom-house officers. The size of his clothes amused them particularly.

"What's your name?" asked one.

"Ivo Bock."

"Oh, this is Ivo Book,Dress'd in the family frock!"

said a boy with a fine embroidered collar. The muscles of Ivo's face twitched as is usual when a crying-spell is setting in. But, when the boys gathered around him to follow up their words with practical pleasantry, he struck at them with his fists hard and fiercely. The rhymester with the collar now came up and said, "Never mind. Nobody shall hurt you: I'll help you."

"Are you in earnest, or do you only want to fool me more?" asked Ivo, with a trembling voice, still clenching his fists.

"In earnest, 'pon honor. There's my hand."

"Well and good," said Ivo, taking his proffered hand. Perhaps the boy's original intention had been to hit upon a new way of teasing Ivo, or to oppress him with the grandeur of his protection; but Ivo's firmness turned the scales.

The arrival of the chaplain brought them all to order. The instruction given was that usually awarded as the first lesson in Latin grammar. In this country the problem is to decline "penna:" in Germany "mensa" is the word. When it was over, the boy with the embroidered collar, and his younger brother, accompanied Ivo to Mrs. Hankler's door. It was at the hands of the sons of the President-Judge that he received this distinction. Henceforward we may look with composure on his fortunes in the good town of Horb.

Mrs. Hankler's door was locked. Ivo sat down on the step to wait for her. Sorrowful thoughts rose in his mind, though at first of every-day origin. He was hungry. He thought of them all at home, – how they were gathering round the table, while he alone was left outside and hungry in the world, with nobody to care for him. People ran by in a hurry, without even becoming aware of his existence. They were all going to the steaming bowls which awaited them: only he sat there as if he had fallen from the sky and had never had a home. "Every horse and every ox," said he, "has his food given him when it is time; but nobody thinks of me. I have two creutzers in my pocket; but then it would never do to break the money already."8

At last his home-sickness was too much for him: he jumped up and bounded homeward with long strides. As he turned the corner he met Mrs. Hankler, running over with apologies about having forgotten all about it and having been detained. "Come with me," was the peroration, "and I'll cook you some nice turnips, and put some pork in them for your mother's sake: your mother is a dear, good woman. And when you're a minister and I am dead, you must read a mass for me: won't you?"

Ivo was happy the moment he heard somebody talk to him about his mother. He felt as if he had travelled a thousand miles and had left home ten years ago. The Latin, the wide coat, the quarrels, the roast meat, the new comrade, the flight: he seemed to have had more adventures in half a day than formerly in half a year. He ate heartily: still, he was not quite at his ease with the strange old lady; something told him, indistinctly, that he had been removed from the basis of his prior existence, his father's house. A young forest-tree lifted out of its native soil and carried away on rattling wheels to adorn some distant hill might express, if it could speak, what was pressing so heavily on the heart of poor Ivo.

The afternoon studies were easier, being in German, and so conducted that Ivo could put in a word or two of his own now and then. In going home he joined the two other boys from his village, – Johnny's Constantine and Hansgeorge's Peter. Constantine said that it was the rule for the youngest student always to carry the books for the others; and Ivo took the double burden on himself without a murmur.

At the top of the hill they saw Mother Christina, who had come to meet her son. He was relieved of the books immediately. Ivo joyfully ran to meet his mother, but, suddenly checked himself, for he was ashamed to kiss her in the presence of the big boys, and even winced a little at her caresses.

With their caps on one side, and their books under their arms, the two elder students paraded the village.

Ivo had as much to tell at home as if he had crossed the sea. He also felt his own importance when he found that they had cooked and set the table expressly for him. Even Mag, who seldom had a kind word for him, was now in a better humor than usual: he came from abroad.

Thus did Ivo go to and from the grammar-school from day to day.

A great change had taken place with Brindle about this time: he no longer spent all his time in the stable, for he had been yoked. Ivo thought the poor beast suffered from his absence, and was often out of spirits about it.

But in the grammar-school all things went on as well as well could be. Ivo speedily filled up his new coat and his new position, to the admiration of everybody.

His intercourse with Nat could not remain the same, however. Even the detailed reports of Ivo's doings gradually ceased, as there was not often much to be told; and Ivo generally sat down quietly to his books as soon as he got home. With Mrs. Hankler, on the other hand, he was soon on the best of terms. She always said that "Ivo was as good to talk with as the oldest." She told him a great deal about her deceased husband; and Ivo advised her financially whenever a quarter's rent came to be paid.

With the sons of the President-Judge he kept up a friendship for which everybody envied him. And Emmerence, – she was now nine years old, went to school, and minded the schoolmaster's children in recess. At an age when children rarely have any thing more than dolls to play with, she had an exacting living baby to attend to; but she seemed to look upon it all as rare sport. When Valentine was away she was welcome to visit at the house with the child; not otherwise. The carpenter could not bear the child's crying. He was growing more and more querulous and discontented from day to day. Ivo saw Emmerence now and then, but the two children had a certain dread of each other. Ivo, particularly, reflected that it was not proper for a future clergyman to be so intimate with a girl. He often passed Emmerence in the street without speaking to her.

In other respects, also, he was gradually warped away from his favorite associations. When he went into the stable, according to custom, to help Nat feed the steer, the cow, and the dun, his father would often drive him out, saying, "Go away! you have no business in the stable. Go to your books and learn something: you're to be a gentleman. Do you think a man is going to spend all that money for nothing? Hurry up!"

With a heavy heart, Ivo would see the other boys ride the horses to water or sit proudly on the saddle-horse of a hay-wagon. Many a sigh escaped his breast while translating the exploits of Miltiades: he would rather have been on the field by the target-place, raking the new-mown grass, than on the battle-field of Marathon. He would jump up from his seat and beat the empty air, just to give vent to his thirst for action.

He was also enstranged from his home by the occupation of his mind with matters of which no one around him had ever heard. He could not talk about them with anybody, – not even with Nat. Thus he was a stranger in his own home: his thoughts were not their thoughts.

Nat beat his brains to gladden the heart of the poor boy whom he so often saw out of spirits. Ivo had told him with delight of the pretty dovecote which the judge's sons had at home: so Nat repaired the old dovecote, which was in ruins, and bought five pairs of pigeons with his own money, and peas to feed them with. Ivo fell upon his neck when, one morning, without saying a word, he took him up into the garret and made him a present of it all.

Of a Sunday morning Ivo might have been seen standing under the walnut-tree, in his shirt-sleeves, with his arms folded, watching his little treasures on the roof, as they cooed and bowed and strutted and at last flew into the field. From possessions which he could hold in his hand, which walked the earth with him, he had now advanced to such as could only be followed with a loving look. It was only in thought he owned them: caress them he could not. They flew freely in the air, and nothing bound them but their confidence in his goodness. Is not this a symbol of the turn which the course of his life had taken?

When he whistled, the pigeons would come down from the roof, dance at his feet, and pick up the food he threw them. But he could not touch them to express his pleasure: he had to content himself with cherishing them in his soul, if he would not scare them suddenly away.

When Ivo entered the church, his soul was so full of love and childlike confidence that he almost always said, "Good-morning, God." With a happy home feeling, he then went into the vestry, put on his chorister's dress, and performed his functions during mass.

A deep-seated fear of God, sustained by a glowing love for the mother of God, and, above all, for the dear child Jesus, dwelt in the soul of Ivo. With especial joy he used to call to mind that the Savior too had been the son of a carpenter. Of all the festival-days he liked Palm-Sunday most: it made almost a deeper impression upon him than Good Friday. Huge nosegays as high as a man, made particularly odorous with wild sallow and torch-weed, were carried into the church. The nosegays were sprinkled with holy water, and after the ceremony they were hung up in the stables to protect the cattle from all harm. At home, all parties were solemn and serious; no one spoke above his voice, – not even Valentine; everyone was kind and gentle to everybody else, and this made Ivo happy.

But, with all this, a thoughtful spirit soon showed itself in him, even in religious matters. One day the chaplain was explaining that St. Peter carried the keys because he opened the gates of heaven for the redeemed.

"How so?" asked Ivo. "Where does he stay?"

"At the gate of heaven."

"Why, then, he never gets into heaven himself, if he is kept sitting outside all the time opening the door for other people."

The chaplain stared at Ivo, and was silent for some time; at last he said, with a complacent smile, "It is his celestial happiness to open to others the gates of eternal bliss. It is the first of virtues to rejoice in and to strive for the good fortune of others: such is the high calling of the Holy Father at Rome, who has the keys of Peter on earth as well as the keys of all those consecrated by him and by his bishops."

Ivo was satisfied, but not quite convinced; and he pitied in his heart the good Peter who is kept standing at the gate.

A load rested on Ivo's bosom from the day the chaplain told the children that it was their duty to ask themselves every evening what they had learned or what good they had done that day. He tried to act up to the letter of this behest, and was very unhappy whenever he found nothing satisfactory to report to himself. He would then toss about in his bed distractedly. Yet he was mistaken. The mind grows much as the body does: like an animal or a plant, it thrives without our being able, strictly speaking, to see the process. We see what has grown, but not the growth itself.

Another institution of the chaplain was wiser. He made the boys sit, not in the order of their talents, but in that of their diligence and punctuality. "For," said he, "industry and good order are higher virtues, for they can be acquired, than skill and talent, which are born with a man, and so he deserves no credit for them." Thus he constrained the talented to labor, and inspired those of lesser gifts with confidence. Ivo, who to very good natural parts added great consciensciousness was soon near the head of the class, and the President-Judge was pleased to see his sons bring him into his house.

We made the acquaintance of Judge Rellings in the story of "Good Government." Ivo, having heard many anecdotes of his harshness, was not a little astonished to find him a pleasant, good-natured man, fond of playing with his children and of doing little things to give them pleasure. Such is the world. Hundreds of men will be found who, when talking generalities, are liberal to a degree, asseverating that all men were born free and equal, &c., while the members of their household, and sometimes of their family, experience nothing but the most grinding tyranny at their hands. Others, again, – particularly office-holders, – treat all who are not in office like slaves and vagrants, and yet are the meekest of lambs in the four walls of their own dwellings.