Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873

It would be wearisome to enumerate all the different features and dispositions of the farm-yard inhabitants. Let us rather pass on to Moro. Perhaps it was no pleasant surprise to some of us when the Hof bauer having made the purchase of a house-dog, it proved to be none other than a large, handsome rusty-black hound which had once sprung out of a house near a crossing of the new railway, trying to attack my father, who had to defend himself with his stick against the disagreeable customer, until a voice from the house made the dog instantly and quietly shrink away. The Hofbauer expressed his regret. He, knowing nothing of the circumstances, had bought the animal out of good-nature, as his master, an Italian and the overseer of the railway, removing to a great distance, was forced to part with it. He was anything but a savage dog, proving, on the contrary, easily cowed; so that the fact of his ever having made such a sally soon surprised us. Whether he missed the occupation of looking after the work-people and guarding the line, or whether he only understood dialectical Italian, certain it is that he proved a most inert, taciturn dog. He would wander about for weeks in listless despondency, doing nothing for his living, and showing no intelligence except in the way of hiding bones. Although really young, his extreme slowness and apathy conveyed the idea of an old dog. He crept sluggishly along in search of some sunny nook where he might snooze in his melancholy. Now, it fell to Moidel's duty to feed this silent, heavy dog, whereupon he, rising gradually out of his secret woes, became her constant docile companion, following her seriously and silently like a shadow, and looking gravely mortified when she refused his attendance at church. He disliked the least approach to a liberty, and, showing no interest in what passed around him, was regarded by the family rather as a pensioner than an active, useful member of the community.

With E–'s arrival, however, a strange though gradual change came over Moro. He seemed from the first to perceive the strong sympathy which she possessed for all dumb creatures; and had he been the spellbound mortal of the fairy tale the transformation could hardly have been more remarkable. As he felt he was no longer unappreciated or misunderstood, he began to divide his attentions between Moidel and his new friend. He became lively and active, condescending to take walks in any direction but Bruneck—a place which, for some inscrutable reason, he persistently avoided. He took to opening his huge mouth and uttering a sonorous bark; unfurled his tail, which, losing its stiffness, wagged incessantly; whilst, developing his liveliness still more, he actually took to committing flying leaps over a five-barred gate, and running wildly backward and forward in the most ludicrous manner in front of the house whenever he perceived his favorite E– or some of her friends watching him.

Autumn had stepped in with the month of September. The harvest was carried, and, according to an old custom, the village held a thanksgiving service before the sowing of the seed-corn began; and, whilst all were generous to their relations, none showed greater hospitality than the worthy Hofbauer, who expected not only all his own connexions, but also those of his dead wife, to share in the annual jubilee.

Arduous were now the labors of the womankind preparatory to the feast. Nanni No. I and Nanni No. 2 of the establishment might be met carrying pounds and pounds of fresh meat into the cellar. In the stube sat Kathi, seated on one of the wooden settees which surrounded the room, her good old face bent silently over a paste board placed on one of the square tables at which the large family took their meals. This was more convenient than in the gewölbe, or huge pantry, which was half buried in provender: besides, Kathi thought, it struck damp. But Moidel might be found there, with a quiet smile on her dear ruddy face, whilst her healthy bare brown arm moved backward and forward with marvelous agility in the beating of eggs. Let us step into the gewölbe, Kathi's domain proper. It is a marvelous place. Look at the gayly-painted chests of the lowest decorative style of art, choking with flour and buckwheat-meal; look at the racks full of heavy, flinty household bread; at the pyramid of oblong bladder-like pastry, called krapfen, which covers the table; at the smoked tongues, pig-cheeks, feet and bologna sausage hanging from the ceiling. Light and air are admitted by a large open window, but the atmosphere is so impregnated with the odor of cummin (the favorite spice of the Tyrol, found in bread, in dishes of vegetables, in puddings and pastry) that any sense of great freshness is excluded. Rudely-made presses contain lint and linen for accidents or sprains, whilst endless lotions and remedies are carefully preserved in a long range of little drawers—cloves, ginger, dried hyssop, fennel, anis and sage, all excellent remedies for keeping the cold out of the stomach, to say nothing of a discreet bottle of schnapps for the same purpose. There is many another herb, dried by the careful Kathi between the two Lady Days, Mary's ascension and Mary's birthday, which may usefully be employed for man or beast—mullein, a very amulet against every kind of cough and sore-throat; plantain, wormwood, red and white mugwort; nor are the scrapings of hartshorn bought from a mountain huntsman forgotten. At this moment, however, no one is dreaming for an instant of being ill: that might happen after, but must not precede the feast.

Kathi and Moidel, experienced cooks and housewives, work steadily on, without feeling the least anxiety for the success of their stupendous efforts. They are only amazed that we should be surprised at the quantity of their work—that they can remain, in fact, so cool in the midst of their hundred and one boilings, singeings, choppings and fryings. Kathi certainly wipes the perspiration off her brow, but Moidel cannot even allow herself leisure for the act. The dinner would not be in time if they stopped to enter the chapel, even for Rosenkranz. So all the womankind repeat their Hail Marys hurrying backward and forward. Then Moidel retires to snatch a few hours of rest, wakes with a start, and is again alert at midnight, when, attended, rather than aided, by two maids in waking stupefaction, the baking, boiling and steaming receive a continuous impetus, Kathi reappearing at four for the last triumphant efforts.

In good time the Hofbauer and Anton are equipped in their gala attire for church, Moidel and the maids, in spite of their nocturnal labors, following them briskly; so that they have not only said their prayers and endeavored to understand the sermon, but actually joined in a procession before the guests arrive. The sweet notes of a processional hymn still float on the silent, balmy air as the sound of advancing wheels is heard. Then several one-horse gigs are seen approaching, and the geese hiss drowsily at the happy-faced bauers and bauerins, and their flocks of healthy, chubby children stuffed in before and behind; and so they drive carefully into the large yard, where Onkel Johann, acting as hostler, proudly though bashfully receives them.

There is a sober gayety and rejoicing about the elders, a suppressed merriment about the youngsters. They do not expect much waiting upon before the feast. They know that a strong but silent friendship exists between them all and their host—that they are ready to help each other in any possible emergency without making a fuss about it. So the Hofbauer can walk back leisurely from church, and Kathi can attend to her onerous duties in the kitchen, without a single visitor feeling slighted.

Soon the crowd of simple guests is seated at table in the large sitting-room, which we have vacated for the occasion. The Hofbauer stands at a side-table and carves, and Anton in his long white apron and bib waits as serving-man. Onkel Johann, however, sits at table. The aunt and Moidel are busy dishing below: they will have their share of good things when they go to the return feasts. Of pickings and leavings there are none: it would be an insult to send away a half-emptied plate; and for the same reason no dish is left untouched, though it is a banquet that might even satiate a work-house. Soup, sausage, roast veal, baked apples and stewed prunes; stewed liver, fried liver, millet pudding; boiled beef with horseradish and beet-root; hung beef; cabbage dished with tongue and pork; noodles; and then a second soup to wash down what has gone before, but followed by more substantial in the form of liver-cake, in which that ingredient has been baked with bread-crumbs, eggs, onions and raisins. Then come batter dumplings, one sort of knödel sprinkled with poppy-seeds, roast beef with salad, and finally coffee.

There is little talking; only a clatter of plates, dishes, knives and forks as the honest guests deliberately but persistently vanquish each stage of the feast.

After coffee, "the mother's own sister" is called aside by Kathi, in order that she, for her own and the dear dead Hofbauerin's sake (of whom, bless her! in Kathi's eyes she is the very image), may be privately presented to us, the foreign Herrschaft. A comely, compact little figure, with delicate features, small hands and feet, and a pair of dove-like eyes.

Wishing to be polite, she says it is gar curios that any of the Herrschaft should understand German. Immediately she fears this implies ignorance on our part, and adds an apology: "But certainly such Herrschaft who are so up in things of heaven and earth would know German."

Then she waits with a sense of relief for one of us to speak. At this moment, however, a bevy of bright, cheerful little peasant-girls, who have been hovering in the distance, taking courage, approach and cluster in a ring around her. She shows by her face that she fears this is a liberty, but is nevertheless relieved by their supporting her. We ask their names, and she goes off into a string of Madels, Lisies, Nannies, who all smile spontaneously, and have not only to set her right as to their ages, but, to their infinite astonishment, as to their relationship to herself.

"Why, mother, I am your daughter!" says one little girl reproachfully. "Why, aunt, my mother is dead, you know!" adds another, pulling at her sleeve and whispering this correction. Then the whole group burst into a shy titter.

The good soul stands calmly this battery of juvenile reproaches: "Ho, are not you all my children? Have I not brought you all through the measles, knitted the stockings for all your feet, until I taught you to knit for yourselves? Souls and bodies, you are all dear to me: I treat you all alike."

She looks so lovingly on them that they are not quite sure whether they have done right or wrong in correcting her. So they stand a dumb, admiring circle, whilst she adds:

"If the Herrschaft ever could get as far as Pfalzen, where I and the children live, they would find no great big house like the Hof, but plenty of small, snug farms amidst corn-fields, in any one of which the Hof-Herrschaft would be made welcome, but more especially in mine. It is not so very far. See from the window! There, over Sankt Jörgen and over the woods rises our tall spire with two other spires; only these are quite a long way from each other, though they are all mixed-like at a distance, just as I mix up the young people. The Herrschaft will not forget the name—Pfalzen?"

Having brought out this invitation with a great effort, she now plunges into a sea of fears as to the liberty she has taken. So one of the Herrschaft, rashly coming to her assistance, assured her it would be impossible for her at least to forget the name of Pfalzen. Somebody had told her of a certain tailor of Pfalzen who, within memory of man, returning from a wedding at Percha, and having passed St. George on his homeward way at eight o'clock of the evening, suddenly saw the road divide before him. This made him stop in astonishment, and before he could decide which way to take it had grown dark. Then he became sore afraid, especially when he espied a group of ladies dressed in white, who came up to him, and, addressing him in playful tones, encompassed and stopped him. He, however, could not stand this, and speaking in a loud tone he reproached them, for, though they were ladies, he soon saw by their rude looks that they meant him mischief. Then they began abusing and tormenting him, until he laid himself down on the ground with his face to the earth. Now the spell seemed broken, for, though the spiteful women remained, they were restrained from hurting him; and with the first sound of the morning Angelus these white ladies, who were nothing but tormenting spirits, fled, and he, rising up, went on his way home.

"Herr Je!" said the gentle little woman, "could it have been the Hof Moidel who told you that? Or could you have heard it at Percha? or by the fire some winter evening? But you have never been in these parts in winter. The tailor, you see, must have found the wedding-wine too strong."

"Barbara the sewing-woman—" began a young voice, which immediately collapsed, the speaker retreating with great impetuosity behind her mother or aunt, whichever it might be.

Then each little member of the maidenly circle looked very odd, and their good relative uttered hurriedly but mildly, "Oh, it's nothing. How could you, Lisi? Behave yourselves, children!"

However, an explanation of the sewing-woman Barbara being pleaded for on our part, the good woman nervously continued: "It is only a foolish story. Only that the sewing-woman Barbara was sweet on Weaver Thomas, and he could not abide her. 'I would rather,' he told her, 'be a beast in the stall than be your wedded husband.' The sewing-woman said he should rue the day he thus insulted her. And sure enough, from that time he could neither eat nor drink, growing poor and thin in the body. Everybody said, 'Sewing-woman Barbara has struck him with the evil eye.' I am not sure but that his teeth chattered, which they say is a sign. A miller urged him to have the letters I.N.R.I. stitched into his clothes (it is a wonderful preservative on corn-bins and stable doors against the evil eye), but Weaver Thomas replied he was sick of stitching. Yet what is to become of the man? Not a drop of wine does he touch now but it flies to his head—not a kreuzer of his hard-earned money does he put into his pocket but it oozes away like water. Ah, it is an ugly story! I wish there were no such fearsome, boggy things. The world would be better without them."

By this time a fat lad had ventured up, and stood gaping behind the maidens. He was not of Pfalzen, but the girls spoke to him as a cousin of the house. In spite of their encouragement, he merely gaped and stared, without answering a word. The pleasures of the table had, in fact, brought him into a state of speechless discomfort. It was not of wine that he had partaken, though it had freely circulated, to judge by the great empty gallon bottles, but he had stuck loyally to the principles laid down and acted on by his elders, of doing full justice to the dishes. Feeling now, therefore, exceedingly the worse for his praiseworthy exertions, he remained leaning disconsolately with his back against the wall long after the church-bells had struck up a merry clang, vigorously calling the Hofbauer, his men-servants and maid-servants and the strangers who were within his gates, to church. Good Kathi, however, whilst clearing away the empty glasses, looked compassionately upon him as on one of her fattening chickens in danger of pip, and patiently inveigled him to a cozy nook down stairs, where his heavy breathing and steady snorts kept time to her monotonous dish-washing. On he slept during prayers, during the hour spent at the Blauen Bock, when the Hofbauer treated the priest and his guests on this auspicious thanksgiving-day. He woke up, however, to do his duty like a man "with a mouthful of supper" whilst the horses were being put into the gigs. Then, in a state of heavy, speechless resignation, he was conveyed to his seat between a bauer and his wife, which, though a tight fit in the morning, had strangely become tighter, and where, circumstances thus pinning his arms to his side, and with his aching head upon his breast in the most uncomfortable of attitudes, the poor fat boy was jolted away in the twilight.

The other relations, all weightier mortals, more or less, than when they arrived, were packed and squeezed into their creaking vehicles; the very small vacuums remaining on or under the seats, to say nothing of broad laps, being filled with krapfen. You would indeed have supposed that the Hof were one great patent krapfen manufactory, with the sole right of making, baking by steam and selling these indigestible, leathery, yet brittle puffs so dear to the Tyrolese palate, had not the figures of men, women and children, humble guests at more modest dwellings, been seen filing along the highway or crossing the moorland slopes, each bearing a light but bulging bundle of krapfen tied up in a gay blue, crimson or yellow handkerchief.

It was indeed a krapfen dispensation. A piled-up offering stood in the little oratory employed as a store-room by us; the cock crowed and the hens clucked for their share of the Herrschaft's krapfen under the parlor windows in the early morning; the men- and maid-servants hurried buoyantly into town to sell their krapfen perquisites to less favored mortals; the pedestrian bricklayer and carpenter, respectable men with money stored away in their broad belts—portions of that great army of Tyrolese who, possessing neither trade nor manufactures in their native land, are forced in an ant-like manner to stray into Bavaria and Austria until they can return laden with their winter store, since the mere fattening of cattle cannot support a nation,—these respectable but footsore men, wending their way from Steiermark, were received with a hearty welcome and krapfen; and the wandering family, who were not at all respectable, but were treated with some distrust and more commiseration—the traveling tinker, his dark-eyed, dark-skinned wife and saucy, grimy children, who were barred and bolted with their barrow, their rags and their kettles in the barn that night as in a traveler's rest—ate with marvelous relish their bountiful-gleanings of this great krapfen harvest.

CHAPTER XII

Cold rain and mist have now set in. The landscape, which has from the first possessed a peculiar charm for us, is often blotted from view. The varied, undivided yet most individual range of dolomites which rises on the edge of the eastern horizon, instead of melting under the soft influences of warm sunshine and quivering air into glowing crimson, purple, palpitating mountains—which only with advancing night turn into gray, motionless pinnacles and battlements of the great dolomitic land that stretches beyond—now remain, whenever visible, cold, hard masses of snow, like rigid nuns of some ascetic order.

It is time to be gone. And Fanni, the sturdy, devoted attendant specially engaged to wait upon us during the last season, is wild to accompany us to Italy—comfortable Italy, where the washing water does not freeze in winter, and where maize polenta is as cheap and plentiful as the brown buckwheat plenten of Tyrol. She has a good stock of clothes: she wants no wages, only her journey paid. Surely we will take her? We give her no hopes, merely promising that if we come another year and she be then out of place, we will gladly employ her. This is a drop of comfort, and she rushes down stairs to convey at least this bit of good news to Kathi.

A few minutes later we find the two women, joined by Moidel, standing; against the cellar door, which is kept closely shut, that the smell emitted by a vat of sauerkraut may not offend the fastidious nostrils of the gentry. Kathi has a sprig of rosemary behind her ear, and her bare arms wrapped up in her blue apron, always in her case a sign of ease and relaxation. She is saying, "Ja, ja, very worrying. Such side ways to get hold of the place!"

"And Munichers too!" adds Moidel—"so pushing, so clamorous!"

The sight of some brown veils and gentlemen's hats above the garden wall leads to the following explanation from Fanni: "Herr Je, just when the Fräulein was speaking of coming back next year, and I was thinking to myself how I would help the Kathi to scrub and clean beforehand, there were four strange Herrschaft below, who would insist on seeing the Hofbauer. And he all in a Schwitz! However, he came out of the stube very slowly, wiping his forehead, and waited to hear their errand. But when they said they had come to secure part of the house from Martini day, and all the rooms not wanted by the Hofbauer from Ascension, he had to wipe his forehead again before he answered. And then he spoke just like a Herr Curat: 'This is no lodging-house, where any one can be quartered, my Herrschaft. Nor believe that those who occupy my spare rooms are casual visitors. Oh no! They are particular friends of mine. This old place stands at their disposal: I wish them to be free to come or to stay away, but I desire no other faces here.' And then," continues Fanni, "out they slunk, quite sheepish, for the Hofbauer looked so tall."

"Freilich" added Kathi, "it is not once nor twice, but ever since our Herrschaft have had an awning of their own on the balcony, and the miller's mule has stood with a lady's saddle at the entrance—ever since the Hofbauer had the plasterer, and let the joiner make some wardrobes and bedsteads this spring, that barefaced strangers have hankered to get the place."

We have to calm Kathi, bidding her remember that we once came as strangers and asked to be taken in.

Well, so the Herrschaft might. There must be a beginning to all good friendships. But it is not for people to thrust themselves in when they see the house inhabited, entering even the bed-rooms, and stripping the currant bushes without once saying, "With your leave." Why, the Grossmutterli had told her as a child that even the empress Maria Theresa—who took a vast fancy to Edelsheim, and passed some nights there—when she walked up the village by herself, and stopped before the Grossmutterli, who was ranging her milk-pans on the bench to dry,—even the stately empress said, "My good woman, you live in an uncommonly handsome house—a schloss, in fact. But I won't give you the trouble to show me the inside. Let me rather go into the orchard, for I see a young apple tree there marvelously full of fruit." Grossmutterli never showed herself disturbed. She pressed down the latch, led the empress to the tree—it's standing yet, but is almost worn out—and Maria Theresa said it was a perfect show: there was not a tree at her castle of Schönbrunn that bore so well; and she gave the Grossmutterli a shining half thaler, which she never parted with.

The next day, Sunday, Kathi stood before us at noon with tears in her eyes. The Jakobi, she said, had not only sent down for the cow's crown and ornaments to go on Tuesday, but word as well that beautiful Nageli, the queen cow, knocking her head against a rock, had broken one horn off. "There's a pretty go!" she continued. "I wish it would bud again. How she will take on! I know her ways: she is greedy of praise. I should not wonder if the vexation dries her milk, for she knows she can never wear a crown again. And Zottel, she's to be queen—a sleek, comely cow, but never used to a crown. However, Jakobi sends word we need not fear her disgracing herself, for he is training her up and down with a milking-stool on her head. Cows are more like mortals than brute beasts. See the way the two that have stayed at the Hof behave when the rest come back. They make the stall purgatory to them through their spite or jealousy. But they grow more good-tempered after a time."

The glittering crown of which poor Nageli's unfortunate accident had deprived her was now produced from its box for us to see—a barbaric structure, in spite of the Christian symbols attached. It was two feet high, a foot and a half wide—all gold wire, tinsel, artificial flowers, tassels, fringes of colored worsted, and surrounded by a halo of spun glass gay as a slice of the rainbow. There was a medallion of the Virgin and Child, and another of Saint Anthony, tutelar saint of the Hofbauer's father, himself and his son—patron, too, of the chapel, and a great helper in the recovery of lost calves and sheep, as well as of household goods. A red velvet gold-fringed pendant in the form of a heart, handsomely embroidered with the cross and sacred initials I.H.S., was suspended to all this grandeur. The great massive cow- and ox-bells, some tulip-shaped, while others were of the ordinary form, appeared better adapted for a belfry than the neck of cattle, and the gay leather collars, embroidered with bright worsteds, had likewise sacred symbols; thus displaying, when worn at the annual procession, both the pride and piety of the bauer.