Black Forest Village Stories Part 55

"But there must be some reason for it."

"Why, I don't know what your name is."

"Adolphe Lederer."

"Well, then, Mr. Lederer."

"No; I want you to call me Adolphe."

"Oh, now, don't. What would the folks say?"

"That we love each other," said the teacher, pressing her hand to his heart. "Don't you love me?"

Hedwig bent down and plucked a pink from its stem. The garden-gate opened, and Buchmaier's Agnes came in.

"Good gracious! I'm so glad I'm out!" cried she. "Good-day, Mr.

Teacher. Hedwig, just be glad you needn't go into Bible-cla.s.s any more.

Mr. Teacher, you ought to manage so that big girls like us needn't go any more. It wouldn't do me much good, to-be-sure, for I'm coming out in fall."

"Give me the pink," said the teacher to Hedwig, in a tone of gentle entreaty. Blus.h.i.+ng, she complied, and he pressed the symbol of requited affection to his lips.

"You'll catch it," said Agnes, "when old Ha ha sees that you've plucked one of his flowers: well, for good luck, he's sitting with Beck and playing the new waltz. Won't we dance it at harvest-home? You dance, I hope, Mr. Teacher?"

"A little, but I'm very much out of practice."

"Practice makes perfect:--loldeloleroldelol!" chirped Agnes as she skipped about the garden. "What are you making faces at, Hedwig? Come."

She dragged Hedwig away irresistibly, but with so much awkwardness that they trod into a bed. Agnes loosened the earth, singing, and then said, "Come, let's get out of this garden, where there isn't room to swing a cat; the other girls are all out in the Cherry Copse, and he's been waiting for us this long time, I'll warrant."

"Who?" asked the teacher.

"Why, he," replied Agnes: "if you come along you may see him for nothing: we're good enough for you to go with us, a'n't we?"

The teacher took the hand of Agnes, and, holding it as if it had been Hedwig's, he went out into the fields with the two girls. At the cross-roads, where you turn up to the "Daberwarren," on a hemp-crate, they found a man of powerful frame, tall and straight as a fir, in whom the teacher recognised Buchmaier's ploughman. On seeing them approach, he sprang to his feet and stood rooted to the ground by some strange misgiving; but when Agnes walked up to him his brow relaxed, and he looked bright and cheerful. The teacher saluted Thaddie--such was his name--with great warmth, and the two couples walked on cosily together.

To inspire Thaddie with confidence, the teacher asked a host of questions about the sorrel, and how he took to double harness.

Thus had come to pa.s.s what, a little while before, the teacher would never have dreamed of: his beloved was a peasant-girl, and his comrade a ploughman.

Thaddie and Agnes went before, and the teacher, hand-in-hand with Hedwig, followed, chatting gayly. The teacher was now firmly convinced that there is such a thing as conversing a great deal even without having read books.

Near the "Cat's Well," from which the nurses are said to fetch little children when they are born, the party seated themselves upon a bank and sang. Hedwig had a beautiful contralto voice, and Thaddie sang a good accompaniment. The teacher greatly regretted his limited knowledge of the songs of the people: his musical education, however, enabled him readily to catch the simple melodies and to improvise a tolerable ba.s.s.

With beaming eyes, Hedwig nodded her approbation. Often he was brought to a sudden pause by an unexpected turn in the air, introduced for the purpose of bridging a gap in the story or of smoothing the ruggedness of the rhythm. At such times Hedwig's encouraging look would say, "Sing on, if it does go wrong a little."

[Ill.u.s.tration: He united his voice to those of the villagers.]

Thus he united his voice to those of the villagers. He had come so far that, where he furnished nothing but the tune, the peasants supplied the words and the meaning:--

"I mow by the Neckar, I mow by the Rhine; My sweetheart is peevish, My sweetheart is mine.

"What use is my mowing?

My sickle's not free; What use is my sweetheart?

She won't stay with me.

"And mowing by Neckar, And mowing by Rhine, I'll throw in the ring that She gave me for mine.

"The ring in the water Is nabb'd by the fish; The fish shall be brought to The king in a dish.

"The king he shall wonder Whose ring it might be; Then out speaks my sweetheart:-- 'It belongeth to me.'

"Up hill and down valley My sweetheart shall spring; And find me a-mowing And give me the ring.

"You may mow by the Neckar, Or mow by the Rhine, If you throw in the ring that I gave you of mine."

After a while, Thaddie drew Agnes closer to him, and they sang:--

"La.s.sie, crowd, crowd, crowd; Let me sit close beside you: I love you very much, I can abide you.

But for what folks say You'd be my love to-day; If the folks were all gone You and I'd be one.

La.s.sie, crowd, &c.

"La.s.sie, look, look, look Down my black eyes, and see them Dance in the light The sight of you does give them.

Look, look in them deep: Your likeness they must keep; Here you must stay, And never go away.

La.s.sie, look, &c.

"La.s.sie, you, you, you Must take upon your finger The wedding-ring: And may it linger, linger!

If I can't do so, To the wars I'll go; If you I can't have, All the world is my grave.

La.s.sie, you," &c.

Many other songs they sang,--mostly sad ones, though the singers were in bounding spirits. As the spring flowed on at their feet and meandered through the fields, so the song-fountain in them appeared inexhaustible.

The teacher found himself in a world unknown to him before. Though he had heard and experienced something of the rich tenderness of the rude national ditties of Germany, he had tasted them as we eat the wild berries of the wood on a well-served table: we prefer them to the products of the greenhouse, yet sweeten them with sugar, and, perhaps, wash them down with wine. Here he plucked them fresh from the bush, and ate them not upon a piled saucer, but singly, as they left the stems.

Their deep, untranslatable force and simplicity were revealed to him in all its glory: he felt how much his individual spirit was allied to that of the nation, and saw its lovely representative sitting by his side. He began to aspire to the priesthood of this marvellous spirit.

On returning to Hedwig's house and meeting her grandmother still at the door, he seized the hand of his beloved and pressed it to his heart, saying, "Not in bitter toil shall you lift these hands for me, but to give blessings, as becomes them."

Unable to say more, he walked quickly away.

The village gossips that evening were occupied with nothing but the fact that the new teacher went to see Johnnie's Hedwig.

Our friend, who had been so fond of seclusion, now found it impossible to spend fifteen minutes by himself after school-hours, in his house or out of it. Of all the books in his library, not one seemed to chime in with his frame of mind: and when he undertook to write into his note-book his lucubrations appeared so bare and profitless that he crossed them out immediately.

In the fields he never could collect his thoughts sufficiently to make sketches: he talked with every one he met. The people were friendly; for his open soul beamed out of his eyes. Frequently he would stand by them as they worked, in dreamy silence: he was reluctant to leave them and return to the solitary dignity which a little earlier he had thought indispensable.

Once he saw Hedwig cutting grain in the field, and hastened toward her.

But he did not long remain there: it was insufferable to find himself the only idler among so many hard workers; and yet he was entirely unskilled in field-work, and knew what a sorry figure he should have made had he attempted it. Hedwig had gained in his eyes by having been seen at work. "Hosts and manna should be baked from the ears that she has cut," he said to himself, in turning away.

He was often absent-minded when conversing with her grandmother, and it was only when the old lady spoke of her parents and grandparents that she riveted his attention. It was delightful to climb up this family tree into the dim regions of the past. Her grandfather had fought in the wars of Prince Eugene against the Turks: and she had many of his soldier's stories by heart. At times also, without repining, she would predict that next winter she would meet all her ancestors again. It was easy to divert her mind from such reflections. He loved to make her talk of Hedwig's childhood, of the early loss of her mother, and of how she was distressed to find that her doll could not shut its eyes at night, and pasted paper over them. When the old woman spoke in this strain, her eyes and those of the listener beamed in the same brightness, like two neighbor-billows lit up by one moonbeam.

Hedwig is not mentioned in his note-book. The following pa.s.sage, however, may have been suggested by the reminiscences of her aged relative:--