Black Forest Village Stories Part 51

"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 a.s.sistant--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 pa.s.sed over his face. He blushed deeply, and sat for a moment with closed lids and quivering eyeb.a.l.l.s. 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 pa.s.sers-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 G.o.d 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 l.u.s.tre 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 superst.i.tion!"

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 G.o.d, "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: G.o.d 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sed.

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 ap.r.o.n. 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, blus.h.i.+ng.

"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 ap.r.o.n in great embarra.s.sment.

"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."