farmer rodel, whose house, ornamented with red striped beams, and a pious sentence, enclosed in the form of a heart, stood not far from the josenhans dwelling, had himself appointed by the mayor, guardian of the orphan children. his guardianship consisted in nothing more than in preserving the unsold clothes of their father, and when he met or passed one of the children in the street he would ask, “have you clothes enough?” and, without waiting to be answered, he would pass on. yet the children felt a strange pride in having that great farmer called their guardian. they often stood by the great house and looked longingly at it, as though they expected something, they knew not what, and they sat often down by the ploughs and harrows at the corner of the shed and read over again and again the pious sentence on the house. the house spoke to them if all others were silent.
the sunday before all souls, the children played again before their parents’ deserted house.[17] they seemed, as it were, banished to this place. there came along the wife of farmer landfried from the hochdorfer road. she had a red silk umbrella under her arm and a dark hymn-book in her hand. she had come to make her last visit in the place of her birth. yesterday, her servant in a four-horse wagon had taken all her furniture out of the village, and early this morning with her husband and three children she would move to their lately purchased estate in the far-off district of allgäu. when at some distance she nodded to the children; but they saw nothing but the melancholy expression upon the face of the woman. as she now stood by them she said, “god bless you, children! what do you do here? to whom do you belong?”
“to the josenhans,” answered amrie, pointing towards the house.
“oh! you poor children,” she cried, striking her hands together; “i should have known you, lass! exactly so did your mother look, when we went to school together. we were good comrades and friends, and your father worked with my cousin, farmer rodel. i know all about you—but tell me, amrie, why have you no shoes on? you will take cold in this wet weather. say to mariann that farmer landfried’s wife, from hochdorf, said it was not right to let you run about in this manner; no—you need say nothing. i will speak to her. but, amrie, you must now be sensible[18] and prudent, and take care of yourself. think of it—what if thy mother knew that in this time of the year you went about barefoot!”
the child looked earnestly at the woman as though she would say, “does not my mother then know it?”
“ah, that is the worst of it,” she said, answering the thought of the child, “that you can never know what good and honest people your parents were; that must elder people tell you. think of it, amrie, that it will make your parents happy in heaven when they hear people say, ‘there are the josenhans children, they are a proof of all goodness. there they see plainly the blessing of good and honest parents.’”
at these last words big tears ran down the cheeks of the farmer’s wife. painful emotions (that had, indeed, a wholly different source), at these thoughts and words, made them continue to flow. she laid her hand upon the head of the girl, who, at the sight of her tears, began to weep violently. she felt that a good soul had turned towards her, and a dawning belief that her parents were really lost became clearer to her.
the countenance of the women suddenly lighted. she raised her eyes filled with tears to heaven and said, “thou, good god, has sent this thought to me!” then she turned to the child and said, “listen! i will take you with me! my lisbeth was taken from me at your age. speak! will you go with me to allgäu, and always remain with me?”
[19]“yes,” said amrie, resolutely.
she felt herself seized from behind, and a slight blow upon her shoulder.
“you dare not,” said dami, embracing her, and trembling from head to foot.
“be quiet,” said amrie, “the good lady will take you also. is it not so?” she said, timidly. “my dami may go with us?”
“no, child, that cannot be; i have boys enough at home.”
“then i must remain here,” said amrie, and took hold of her brother’s hand.
there is sometimes in the soul an emotion where fever and frost contend. it has been so with the stranger, and now she looked upon the child with a species of relief. through strong emotion, and influenced by the purest benevolence, she would have undertaken a duty whose significance and difficulty she had not sufficiently considered; and especially as she did not know how her husband would take it. now, as the child herself refused, there intervened a sufficient reason; all was clear again, and she turned quickly from the duty. she had satisfied her heart by proposing it, and now that the objection came not from herself, she had a kind of satisfaction in having offered, without herself taking back her word.
“as you please,” said the stranger; “i will not urge you. who knows? perhaps it would be better that you should grow up first. it is well to[20] learn to suffer in youth; the good comes easier after we have learnt the evil. be only honest and good, and never forget that, on account of your parents, as long as god spares my life you shall have a shelter with me. remember, if it does not go well with you, that you are not left alone in the world. think of the wife of farmer landfried, in zusmarshofen, in allgäu. a word more. don’t say in the village that i would have taken you. it is the way with people—they would blame you because you did not go—but it is as well so. wait, i will give you something to remember me by.” she sought in her pocket, then suddenly putting her hand to her neck she drew out a five stringed garnet necklace, to which there was fastened a swedish ducat, and, throwing the ornament over the neck of the child, she kissed her. amrie looked as one enchanted upon all these proceedings. “for thee, alas! i have nothing,” she said to dami, who stood with a little switch in his hand which he continued to break into small pieces; “but i will send you a pair of leather trousers of my john’s—they are not entirely new, but you can wear them when you are taller. now god protect you, dear children! if it is possible i will come to see you again, amrie. in the mean time send mariann to me in the church. remember always to be good, pray constantly for your parents, and never forget that you have a protector in heaven and also upon earth.”
[21]for convenience in walking she had turned up her outer garment; now, at the entrance of the village, she let it down and went on with quick steps without once turning back.
amrie kept her face bent down in order to see the keepsake upon her neck, but the necklace was too short. dami was chewing the last piece of his stick when his sister, observing tears in his eyes, said, “we shall see—you will have the most beautiful pair of trousers in the village.”
“i will not take them,” said dami, and spit out the last piece of stick.
“and i will ask her to give you a knife. i will stay at home the whole day; perhaps she will come to us.”
“yes! if she were there already,” said dami, without knowing what he said. his anger, and the feeling of being rejected, had excited these suspicious reproaches.
at the first stroke of the bell they hastened back to the village. amrie gave over, with few words, her new ornament into the hands of mariann, who said, “thou art fortune’s child! i will take good care of it. now hasten to the church.”
during the service both children looked constantly at their new friend, and when it was over they waited for her at the door of the church; but the respectable matron was so surrounded by men and women, all claiming her notice, that she could only turn in the circle to answer, sometimes here,[22] sometimes there; thus for the waiting glances of the children she found no attention. she held rose, the youngest daughter of farmer rodel, by the hand. she was a year older than amrie, and thrust herself constantly before the latter, as though pressingly to take her place by the matron. had, then, the respectable matron eyes only for amrie by the last house in the solitude of the village, but in the midst of the people she did not know her? amrie was frightened, when this thought just dawning in her mind was spoken aloud by dami; but while she, with her brother, followed at a distance the great crowd that surrounded the matron, she gave utterance herself to the same thought. the matron vanished at last into the house of farmer rodel, and the children turned quietly back.
“when she comes,” said dami, “tell her that she must go to krappenzacher and tell him that he must treat me better.”
amrie nodded, and the children separated, each to go to the house where they had found shelter.
the fog that had been so great in the morning now came down in pouring rain. the great red umbrella of madam landfried moved here and there in the village, and the form that was under it could scarcely be seen. mariann had not met her, and at coming home she said, “she can come to me—i shall not seek her again.”
the two children wandered out again, and sat[23] down together upon the threshold of their parents’ house. they waited silently, and again the thought came to them, that their parents would never return to them. dami would count how many drops fell from the roof. but they came all too quickly, and he shouted out at once, “a thousand million.”
“she must pass here as she goes home,” said amrie, “and we will call to her. only cry out at the same time with me, and then she will speak to us again.”
so said amrie, for the children waited here only for the landfried to pass.
a whip snapped in the village; they heard the quick step of a horse upon the road, and a carriage rolled by. their friend sat within it.
“our father and mother will come in a carriage to fetch us,” said dami. amrie cast a melancholy glance at her brother. “do not chatter so,” she said. as she turned again, the wagon was close to them, and some one nodded from beneath the red umbrella. it rolled on, only mathew’s dog barked after it, and made as though he would seize the spokes of the wheels with his teeth. at the fish-pond he turned back, barked once more, and then slipped into the house.
“hurrah! she has gone,” cried dami with triumph. “that was the landfried. did not you know farmer rodel’s black horse?”
“don’t forget my leather trousers,” he shrieked[24] with all the strength of his lungs, although the wagon had already vanished in the valley, and was creeping up the little height of the holder meadow. the children turned back silently to the village.
who can tell how this bitter experience struck a tiny root into the inner being of a child, and what may hereafter spring from it? other feelings may immediately overpower the consciousness of this heavy disappointment, but the bitter root has struck into the soul.
