Waldfried Part 6

Her glance was full of courage. Her voice seemed so full of sincerity, that her strangest utterances required no added a.s.surance of their truthfulness. Her laughter was so hearty that it seemed contagious.

Rothfuss was quite proud that he could control Martella, just as he did the two bays that he had raised from the time they were foals, and delighted to speak of the fact, that our youngest--as he called Ernst--was the best of marksmen. He had secured the best prize. For there could be no other girl so wise and merry as Martella. And she was so full of merry capers that the very cows looked around and lowed, as if to say, "We, too, would be glad to laugh with you, if we only could.

But, alas! we cannot. We have not the bellows to do it with."

She had named her calf "Muscat." She would nurse it as if it were a younger sister. She maintained that it was a perfect marvel of health and wisdom, and that the old cow was jealous, and tried to b.u.t.t her because she had noticed that the calf had greater love for Martella than for its own mother.

There was one point on which she and Rothfuss always quarrelled. She had an inexplicable aversion to America, of which Rothfuss always spoke as if it were Paradise itself. The manner in which Lisbeth, the locksmith's widow, had been provided for, was his chief argument in its favor. "None but a free state would provide so well for the families of the men killed in battle. How different our Germans are about that."

Towards my wife and myself, Martella was respectful, but diffident.

Ernst came to us but twice during the summer, remaining but a few hours each time.

He wanted Martella to walk or drive around the neighborhood with him, but she refused, saying "that she would not leave home. She had been away long enough."

Ernst was evidently provoked that Martella refused to go with him, but kept his anger to himself.

In that summer, 1865, we had charming harvest weather, and I shall never forget Martella's saying, "I shall help gather the harvest. I was a gleaner once, and know that this is good weather for the farmers. To cut the ears in the morning and carry home the rich sheaves in the evening, without having had a storm during the day, is good for the farmer, but not so pleasant for the poor gleaner. Storms during the harvest time scatter the grain for the poor; for the farmers give nothing away of their own accord."

Rothfuss looked towards me, and nodded approval of her words.

Towards the end of summer, Richard paid us a visit.

Richard had written to us some time before, and had referred to Ernst's conduct in indignant terms. He felt shocked that one who had not yet secured a livelihood for himself, had already linked the fate of another with his own, and had inflicted her presence upon the household. But from the first moment that he saw Martella, he admired her more than any of us had done.

When he offered her his first brotherly greeting, she gazed at him with her brilliant eyes, and said,

"I can see ten years ahead."

"Have you the gift of prophecy?"

"Oh pshaw! I don't mean that. What I mean is that in ten years from now Ernst will look as you now do. But I hope that when that time comes, he will not have to use spectacles."

Richard laughed, and so did Martella quite heartily.

There is nothing better than when two people laugh together at their first meeting.

Later in the season, my daughter Johanna, who is the wife of a pastor in the Oberland who had once been Ludwig's teacher, came with her grown-up daughter to pay us a visit. Johanna's object in coming was to receive the benefit of the milk cure.

At their very first meeting, she unintentionally affronted Martella.

Johanna always wore black silk netted gloves, and when, with too evident an air of a.s.sumed kindness, she offered her hand to Martella, the latter said to her:

"There is no need for a fly-net on your hand. I do not sting."

After this trifling circ.u.mstance, there was many a heart-burning between Martella and Johanna. They were always at cross purposes.

Rothfuss was provoked, as he was unable to satisfy Martella that the pastor's wife had not intended to affront her. Martella refused to be convinced, and persisted in calling Johanna a "fly-net."

When she had once conceived an aversion for any one, she was immovable.

And when Johanna came to the cow stables, which she did twice every day at milking-time, she would always in an ironical tone say, "Good-day, madam sister-in-law."

Johanna found in this a cause for continued ill-feeling, to which, in her discontented and susceptible condition, she readily gave way.

Johanna imagined that she had found the way to Martella's heart, by a.s.suring her how much she pitied her. But that only served to make matters worse; for Martella resented any manifestation of pity.

As our household was conducted on a generous scale, there was much that, in Johanna's eyes, contrasted unpleasantly with her own home. She frequently alluded to the small pay her husband was earning, and often gave us cause to remember that he would have been advanced much more rapidly, if he had not been the son-in-law of a member of the party in opposition to the government. She, in fact, made no concealment of her belief that I was the cause of her husband's and her daughter's infirm health. If it were not that I was in such great disfavor with the government, they would long ago have been stationed in a more genial climate, and would thus have recovered their health.

She maintained that our mode of living was not pious enough, and thought it most atrocious that we indulged Martella in her heathenish ways.

She did not care to go to the village pastor, with whom we had but little intercourse, for she was angry at him. His position brought him little work but generous pay, and she therefore coveted it for her own husband. But then, the wife of our pastor happened to be the daughter of a member of the consistory, which, of course, explains the whole matter.

One peculiarity of Martella's afforded Johanna many an opportunity to read us homilies on our neglect of the child. No matter whether you did her a service or gave her a present, Martella never uttered a word of thanks.

I am unable to explain the trait. It may have been the result of the simple life of nature in which she had been reared.

My son Richard, who pa.s.sed a portion of the autumn holidays with us, was of that opinion.

Richard had a way of laying aside his spectacles after he had been with us for a day or two, and getting along without them until the day of his departure. He thus, with every succeeding year, did much to strengthen his overtasked eyes. I think he used to put his spectacles in the keeping of Rothfuss, who would return them to him on the day he left home.

On this occasion, however, he retained his spectacles, and spent less of his time with Rothfuss than with Martella, who seemed to have become fonder of him than of any of us. In the evenings and on Sundays, she would take long walks with him in the woods, and would talk unceasingly.

One evening Richard said:

"I received the great academical prize to-day. Martella said to me: 'I can hardly believe that you are a professor; you are so--so wise, and have so much common-sense, and can talk like--like a wood-keeper's servant.' Can you imagine greater praise than that?

"And let me tell you, moreover, that Martella is full of wisdom. She knows every creature, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air.

And besides that, she can read the human heart thoroughly. I could not repeat some of her opinions to you without committing a breach of confidence. But I can tell you that she has split many a log, and knows how to swing her axe to the right spot.

"Yes, Ernst is a lucky fellow; I am only fearful that he may not understand her simple nature. She is too wayward. I trust that he may learn to see in her a real incarnation of undefiled holiness and majesty. It is true that in her case they manifest themselves in the form of a girl not given to blissful tears, but the very embodiment of joy itself.

"While walking along the road, she was chewing twigs of pine, and handed a few to me, with the words: 'Taste them; there is nothing half so good as these.'

"When I told her that, as she could get better and more regular fare, she had better give up this habit of chewing pine needles, especially as it excited her nerves, she answered: 'I think you are right. They always excite me terribly.'

"We were about to cross a meadow. I was afraid of the wet places.

'Follow me,' said she, 'and be careful to look out for the molehills, for there is always dry soil underneath them.'"

While Richard was thus discoursing with unwonted enthusiasm, Johanna had risen from the table and had beckoned to her daughter to follow her.

Richard and my wife had noticed this as well as I had done. They did not allude to it, however, but continued their conversation, agreeing that it was best for the present to let Martella have her own way. They thought that she would in due time undoubtedly awaken to a longing for life's n.o.bler forms, and the deeper meaning that lay beneath them.

My wife had no set plan on which to educate Martella.

"She is to live with us, and that of itself will educate her. She sees every one of us attending to his appointed labor. That will, of itself, soon teach her where her duty lies, and will help to make her orderly and methodical. She sees that our lives are sincere, and that, too, must do her good."

My wife was careful to caution Richard against teaching her any generalities, as they could be of no use to her.

Martella was not gentle in her disposition. She was severe towards herself as well as towards others. She had no compa.s.sion for the sufferings of others. Her idea was that every one should help himself as best he could.

She had never cared or toiled for another being. Like the stag in the forest, she lived for herself alone. My wife nodded silent approval when Richard observed, "In a state of nature, all is egotism; gentleness, industry, and the disposition to a.s.sist others are results of culture."