Black Forest Village Stories Part 14

"Of course," was the answer: "he's more than other folks now."

With all their enthusiasm, the good people did not forget the pecuniary advantage gained by Christian the tailor. It was said that he need take no further trouble all his life. Cordele, Gregory's sister, was to be her brother's housekeeper; and her brother was a fortune to his family and an honor to all the village.

Ivo went home, each of his parents holding one of his hands.

"Father," said he, "I wish Gregory was pastor here."

"That won't do: n.o.body ever becomes pastor where he was born."

"Why not?"

"Confound your why and why not: because it is so," said his father. But his mother said, "He'd have too much bias in the village, and wouldn't be impartial." She either did not know or could not explain to the child that in the case of a native of the village the sanct.i.ty of the office and the reverence of the minister's person would suffer, his human origin and growth being so familiarly known.

After some time Valentine said again, "A minister's life is the best, after all. His hands are never sore with ploughing, nor his back with reaping, and yet the grain comes into his barn: he lies on a sofa and studies out his sermon, and makes his whole family happy. Ivo, if you are good you can be a gentleman. Would you like to?"

"Yes!" cried Ivo, looking up at his father with his eyes opened to their full width. "But you mustn't say 'they' to me," he added.

"Plenty of time to see about that," replied Valentine, smiling.

After dinner Ivo stood on the bench behind the table, in the corner by the crucifix, where his father had been sitting. At first he only moved his lips; but gradually he spoke aloud, and made a long, long sermon.

With the most solemn mien in the world, he talked the most rambling nonsense, and never stopped until his father laid his hand kindly on his head, and said, "There! that's enough, now."

His mother took Ivo upon her lap, hugged and kissed him, and said, almost with tears, "Mother of G.o.d! I would be content to die if our Lord G.o.d would let me see the day on which you held your first ma.s.s."

Then, shaking her head, she added, in a low voice, "G.o.d forgive me my sins! I am thinking too much of myself again." She set down the boy, and placed her other hand on his head.

"And Mag shall be my housekeeper, sha'n't she?" said Ivo; "and I'll have city dresses made for her, just as the parson's cook wears."

Madge, Ivo's cousin from Rexingen, rewarded him for his sermon with a creutzer. Then he ran out to Nat the ploughman, who was sitting under the walnut-tree at the door, and told him that he was going to be a gentleman. Nat only shook his head and pushed the glowing tobacco down into his pipe.

The afternoon service was not so well attended as usual: the morning had absorbed all the devotion of the wors.h.i.+ppers. Toward sundown the young minister, with the chaplain of Horb and some other clergymen, took a walk through the village. All the people who sat before their houses arose and greeted them: the older women smiled on the pastor, as if to say, "We know you and like you. Do you remember the pear I gave you? and I always said Gregory would be a great man some day." The young men took their pipes out of their lips and their caps from their heads, and the girls retreated into a house and nudged each other and looked out stealthily. The children came up and kissed Gregory's hand.

Ivo came also. Perhaps the young clergyman perceived the boy's tremor and the pious warmth of his kiss; for he held his hand a while, stroked his cheek, and asked, "What's your name, my dear?"

"Ivo."

"And your father's?"

"Valentine the carpenter."

"Give my love to your parents, and be good and pious."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ivo hastened home and told the whole adventure.]

Ivo remained spell-bound long after the men had pa.s.sed on: it seemed as if a saint had appeared and conversed with him. He looked upon the ground in wonder; then, hastening home in long leaps, he told the whole adventure.

The family were seated on the timbers under the walnut-tree, Nat not far from them, upon a stone by the door. Ivo went to him and told him what had happened; but the ploughman was out of humor that day, and Ivo sat down at his father's feet.

It had grown dark, and little was spoken. Once only Koch the cabinet-maker said, "I'd like to see you get money under five per cent."

n.o.body answered. Ivo looked up at his father with a silent light beaming out of his eyes: no one could guess what was stirring in that infant soul.

"Father," said Ivo, "does Christian the tailor's gentleman sleep just like other folks?"

"Yes; but not as long as you do: if you want to be a gentleman you must get up early and mind your prayers and your books. Off with you now to bed."

Ivo's mother went with him; and in his evening prayer he included the name of the minister as well as those of his parents and his sister.

The ceremony was not without immediate results. The next day, our old friend Hansgeorge, of the pipe of war, called, with his son Peter, on the chaplain at Horb; and rich Johnny of the Bridge, sometimes called Mean Johnny, brought his son Constantine, a bright, quick-witted lad.

Both of them were admitted to the grammar-school at once: Ivo was yet too young.

We shall probably meet with both of these boys again. For the present we must remain with Ivo and watch the progress of his boyhood as closely as we can.

2.

THE TEACHER.

The schoolmaster of the village was a clear-headed man, but of a violent temper. His fancy and his strong point was music. He had but little influence on Ivo,--which is not surprising, as he had a hundred and twenty boys to attend to. The boy's best teacher--though you would not have thought it--was Nat, who could not write, and hardly read.

Even in towns the servants of a household may be called the "lesser Fates" of the family. In a village this is doubly the case, for the whole house is there a community of labor and repose. When in such close contact with their employers, bad servants become insupportable and are not long retained: one, therefore, who is good enough to be a servant of the family is generally good enough to be intrusted with the company and unconscious education of the children. Nat, at all events, was safe enough. In the crib and on the hay-loft he would erect his professional chair, answer the eager questions of his pupil or tell him wonderful stories.

Nat liked to be with the animals on which he waited; yet, though he could speak to them, and though the dun horse at least was as sensible as a man, they could not give a satisfactory answer to what was told them. Ivo, on the contrary, was always able and willing to clap his hands and say, "Oh, my!" So Nat was never tired of Ivo's company. As a colt runs by the side of the horse, bounding and frisking, so did Ivo skip around Nat wherever he went.

Sometimes they would sit quietly together on the straw, Nat telling the story of Firnut Pete, of the juniper-king, or of the charmed lady of Isenberg; while the m.u.f.fled noise of the feeding horses and cows accompanied the story with a mysterious undertone. Firnut Pete--who wantonly pulled the crests from the young firs while they were still bleeding--is doomed, as a restless ghost, to haunt the heath of Eglesthal; and the juniper-king has one gray and one black eye, which exchange their colors every year. These stories Nat had to tell again and again; for children are not so spoiled as to be always craving for something new.

But these repet.i.tions gave Nat some trouble; for as often as he had forgotten a little of the story, or wished to tell it in a different way, Ivo would say, "Why, that isn't the way it was." Nat would take him on his lap, saying, "You're right: I didn't exactly remember.

There's a good many other things in my head, you see." Then Ivo would tell the rest of the story with great interest, so that Nat was delighted at the aptness of his pupil.

Often, also, they would speak of the fortunes of life, and things of which children brought up in towns have little idea or knowledge until they grow older,--of poverty and wealth, honesty and knavery, trade and barter, and so on; for the life of a village is a life in public: the inmost recesses of every house are known to all the inmates of every other.

One day, as Ivo was going home with his father from the place where the latter had been at work, "Father," he asked, "why didn't our Savior make the trees grow square and save all the trouble of chopping?"

"Why? You stupid boy, there wouldn't be any work for carpenters then, and no chips."

Ivo said nothing; and his father reflected that, after all, the boy had a good head, and that it was not right to speak so harshly to him. So he said, after some time, "Ivo, you must ask your teacher in school, or his reverence the parson, about such things: remember that."

This was well done in Valentine. Few parents are sufficiently shrewd and conscienscious to hit upon this only means of escape from their own ignorance.

But Ivo, instead of going to the schoolmaster or the parson, asked Nat, and received for answer, "Because trees are wanted for a great many things besides building."

Ivo was astonished: that, he thought, was an answer worth giving.

A consequence of his intimacy with Nat was that Ivo had no companion of his own age. But then Nat regarded him as his confidant, and would call him, caressingly, a "good old soul." In particularly-favored moments he would tell him of his dog Singout, who had been with him when he had watched the sheep, and who "had more wit than ten doctors." "I tell you," Nat a.s.severated, "Singout used to understand my secret thoughts: if he only looked at me he knew what I wanted immediately. Did you ever look at a dog right sharp? They often have a face on which grief is poured out, just as if they meant to say, 'I could cry because I can't talk with you.' When I looked at Singout then, he would bark and howl till my heart ached. If I said a single cross word to him, he wouldn't eat a morsel for a whole day. The dumb beast was too good for this world."

"Do dogs go to heaven?" asked Ivo.

"I don't know: there's nothing written about it."