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LIT T L E B A RE FOOT:
OR,
S 7 R ſ tº E A W/) 7 R US 7.
3 (Lale of villas siſ.
BY BERTHOLD AUERBACH.
.* >
T R A N S L A T E D BY H. W. D U L C K E N, PH.D.
VV I T H S E V E N T Y - F I V E I L L U S T R A T I O N S B Y B. V. A U T H E F.
Iſºrombon :
G E O R G E R O U T L E D G E A N D S O N S,
THE BROADWAY, LUDCATE.
NEW YORK; 416 B. R O O M E S T R E E T

Juvenild
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PRE FACE.
AEW works of fiction have been more popular in Germany than those
wonderfully graphic pictures of village life, which, under the name of
“A)oºſgeschichten,” have, during many years, proceeded at intervals from
the facile Žem of BERTHOLD AUERBACH. And not in Germany alone, Öztt
in Angland, and other Burean countries, and in America, the merits of
these tales have been widely acknowledged and appreciated. The portrai-
£ure of the national character, with its various rough, home/y peculiarities,
which these books contain, and the sterling value of the lessons of life they
2nculcate, have contributed—no less than the interest of the descriptions they
give of that beautiful Schwarzwald, which, lying somewhat apart from
the beaten track of tourists, is still a terra incognita to many a visitor in
Germany—to render these books classics in their own country; and the
"majority of them have appeared in an English form, and have become
popular.
“Aaarfiszele,” which now appears in a more ornamental form than
these books have hitherto assumed, is considered, perhaps, the best of the
PREFACE,
series. The interest of the story, in which the trials and difficulties of the
true-hearted orphan girl and her weak brother are set forth, has led to its
assue in the form of a handsome gift-book in Germany; and, in a similar
form, the book is now offered to the English public. The beautiful designs
of VAUTIER will, it is hoped, speak for themselves; and especial pains have
ôeen taken in the preparation of the book, to render it acceptable in its
new form to a wide circle of readers.
A. W. ZD.
C O N T E N T S.
CHAPTER I.
THE CHILDREN KNOCK AT THE DOOR
T —e—
CHAPTER II.
THE DISTANT SOUL
CHAPTER III.
FROM THE TREE BY THE PARENTS' HOUSE
—Q-
CHAPTER IV.
OPEN, DOOR
—-Q–-
CHAPTER V.
ON THE VILLAGE GOOSE-GREEN, THE “HOLDERWASEN " ...
—-O-
CHAPTER VI.
THE “OWN-BAKER”
CHAPTER VII.
THE SISTER OF MERCY
*
—Q------
CHAPTER VIII.
SACK AND AXE . . . • * * *
—-O-
CHAPTER IX.
AN. UNINVITED GUEST ...
—º-
CHAPTER X.
ONLY A SINGLE DANCE * º
Page
I6
23
39
54
65
78
87
IOI
Contents,
WHAT THE OLD SONG SAYS
HE IS COME
OUT OF A MOTHER'S HEART
CHAPTER XI,
—O-
CHAPTER XII.
—O-
CHAPTER XIII.
—O-—
CHAPTER XIV.
THE RIDER ON THE GREY HORSE ...
BANISHED AND RELEASED
SILVERSTEP
OVER HILL AND WALE , ,
THE FIRST HEARTH-FIRE . . .
HIDT) EN TREASURES
IN THE FAMILY CIRCLE
–0–
CHAPTER XV.
—º-
CHAPTER XVI.
—O-
CHAPTER XVII.
—º-–
CHAPTER XVIII.
—6--
CHAPTER XIX.
—O--
CHAPTER XX.
Page
I I4.
I2O
I3 I
I4O
I46
158
165
176
A &
T 184
189
V
CHAPTER I.
THE CHILDREAV ATAWOCK A 7" 7THE Z)OOA’.
ſº ARLY in the morning two children of six or seven
º, years are wending their way, hand in hand, through
tº the garden-paths outside the village. The girl, evi-
dently the elder of the two, carries a slate, school-
books, and writing materials under her arm ; her
brother has a similar equipment, which he carries
in a grey linen bag slung across his shoulder. The
--- girl wears a cap of white twill, that reaches almost to
her forehead, and from beneath it the outline of the broad brow stands
prominently forth; the boy's head is bare. Only one child's step is heard,
for while the boy has strong shoes on, the girl is barefoot. Wherever the



1 I
Little Barefoot.
way is broad enough, the children go side by side; but where the space
between the hedges is too narrow for this, the girl always walks first.
The white hoar frost has covered the faded leaves of the bushes, and
the haws and berries; and the hips especially, standing on their bare
stems, seem coated with silver. The sparrows in the hedges twitter, and
fly together in disturbed groups at the children's approach; then they
settle down not far from them, only to go whirring up again, till at last
they flutter into a garden, and settle in such force on a pear tree that the
leaves come showering down. A magpie flies up in a hurry from the path,
and shoots across to the great pear tree, where the ravens are cowering.
She must have told them something, for the ravens fly up and circle round
the tree : one old fellow perches himself on the waving crown, and the
others find good posts of observation on the branches below. . They are
very curious to know why the children, with their school implements, are
taking the wrong path, and going out of the village. So one raven flies out
before them, to reconnoitre, and perches on a stunted willow by the pond.
The children, for their part, go quietly on their way, till, by the willows
that skirt the pond, they come upon the high road, which they cross to get
to a humble house that stands on the other side. The house is locked up,
and the children stand at the door and give a low knock. The girl cries
bravely, “Father mother l’—and the boy timidly repeats after her,
“Father mother " Then the girl takes hold of the frost-covered latch,
and presses it, at first gently; the boards of the door creak, but there is no
other result. And now she ventures to rattle the latch vigorously up and
down; but the sounds die away in the empty house, no voice answers.
At last the boy presses his mouth to a crack in the door, and cries,
“Father! motherl’ He looks up inquiringly at his sister, and his breath
on the door has turned to hoar frost.
From the village, that lies shrouded in mist, come the measured sounds
of the thresher's flail, now in sudden volleys, now slowly and with a dragging
cadence; sometimes in sharp crackling bursts, and sometimes with a dull
and hollow beat; now for awhile there is the noise of one flail only, but
presently the others have joined in on all sides. The children stand still
and seem lost. At last they desist from knocking and calling, and sit down
upon some grubbed-up stumps of trees. These stumps lie in a heap
around the stem of the little tree that stands by the house, and is now
radiant with red berries. The children's eyes are still turned towards the
door, but the door remains locked.
“Father got those out of the Mossbrook Wood,” said the girl, pointing
to the stumps; and she added, with a wise look, “they give out plenty of
heat, and keep one warm finely, and are worth something; for there is
much resin in them, and that burns like a torch; but the pay for chopping
them brings in most money.”
“If I was a big man already,” replied the boy, “I’d take father's great
2
77%e Children Åmocć at the ZDoor.
axe, and the beechwood mallet, and the two iron wedges, and the ash
wedge, and then everything would have to split like glass; and then I'd
build up a fine pointed heap, like the charcoal-burner, Matthew, makes in
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The boy presses his mouth to a crack in the door, and cries, “Father / mother!
the wood; and when father comes home, how pleased he will be –But you
must not tell him who did it !” the boy concluded, raising a warning finger
to impress his sister.
She seemed to have a dawning suspicion that it was useless waiting here
for father and mother, and looked at her brother with very mournful eyes;
and when her glance rested on the shoes he wore, she said,

3 l—2
Little Barefoot.
“Then you must have father's boots too. But come, we will play at
ducks and drakes. I can throw farther than you, you shall see.”
As they walked away, the girl said, -
“I will give you a riddle to guess. What wood will warm you without
your burning it 2"
“Schoolmaster's ruler, when you get spatters,” answered the boy.
“No, that's not what I mean. The wood that you chop makes you
warm without your burning it.” And then, pausing by the hedge, she
asked, “On a stick he rears his head, and his jacket it is red, and filled
with stone is he ; now who may he be 2 ”
The boy considered gravely, and cried,
“Stop! you mustn't tell me what it is.--—Why, it's a hip !”
The girl nodded with a look of approval, and, by her face, you would
have thought it was the first time she had given him the riddle to guess;
whereas she had asked him the question very often, and always asked it
over and over again to cheer him up. *
The sun had dispersed the mist, and the little valley stood in glittering
sheen, as the children turned away to the pond to skim flat stones on the
water. As she passed the house, the girl pressed the latch once more;
but the door would not open, and nothing was to be seen at the window.
And now the children played merrily enough beside the pond, and the
girl seemed quite content that her brother should show himself more clever
at the sport than she, and that he boasted of it, and became quite excited
on the occasion; indeed, she manifestly pretended to be less handy than
she really was, for the stones she threw generally plumped down at once
to the bottom—for which she was properly laughed at by her companion.
In the excitement of the game the children quite forgot where they were
and the occasion of their coming; and yet it was strange and sorrowful
enough. -
In the house that was now so closely locked up, there had lived, but a
few days before, one Josenhans and his wife, with their two children—
Amrei (Anna Marie) and Damie (Damian). The father was a wood-cutter
in the forest, and was, moreover, an adept at various kinds of work, for the
house, that was in a dilapidated state when he bought it, had been repaired
and roofed by himself; and in the autumn he was going to whitewash it
inside. The lime was already lying prepared in the trench, covered with
withered branches. The wife was one of the best day-labouring women
in the village—ready for everything, day and night, in weal and in woe;
for she had trained her children well, especially Amrei, that they might
manage for themselves early. Industry and frugal contentment made the
house one of the happiest in the village. Then came a deadly sickness,
that snatched away the mother and the father within a few hours of each
other; and a few days afterwards two coffins were carried away from the
little house. The children had been taken immediately into the next
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Zittle Barefoot.
house, to “Coaly Matthew,” and they did not know of their parents' death
till they were dressed in Sunday clothes to follow the corpses.
Josenhans and his wife had no near relations in the place; and yet there
was loud weeping and much mournful praising of the dead couple; and
the overseer walked with one of the children in each hand behind the
two coffins. Even at the grave the children were quiet and unconscious
—indeed, almost cheerful, though they often asked for their father and
mother; for they dined at the table with the overseer, and every one
was exceedingly kind to them; and when they got up from table, each
received a parcel of cakes to take away. But in the evening, when, accord-
ing to the arrangement of the village authorities, “Crappy Zachy” took
Damie away, and Black Marianne came for Amrei, the children refused to
part from each other, and wept aloud, and wanted to go home. Damie
soon allowed himself to be pacified by all sorts of persuasion; but Amrei
had to be removed by force, and, indeed, would not move from the spot,
so that the foreman of the overseer had to carry her in his arms into
Black Marianne's house. There she found her bed that she had had in
her parents' house, but she would not lie down in it; till at last, exhausted
by crying, she fell asleep on the floor, and was put into bed in her clothes.
Damie also was heard weeping aloud at Crappy Zachy's ; and then he
screamed lamentably, and soon after was silent.
The much-abused Black Marianne, on the other hand, showed on this
the first evening, how quietly anxious she was for her foster-child. It was
many, many years since she had had a child about her; and now she stood
before the sleeping girl, and said, almost aloud,
“Happy sleep of childhood | Happy children that can still weep ! and
before you look round they are asleep–without trouble or tossing to and
fro !”
She sighed heavily.
The next morning Amrei went early to her brother, and helped him
dress himself, and consoled him concerning what had happened to him—
declaring that when father came home he would pay Crappy Zachy out.'
Then the two children went out to their parents' house, knocked at the
door, and wept aloud, until Coaly Matthew, who lived near there, came up
and took them to school. He asked the master to explain to the children
that their parents were dead, because he himself could not make it clear to
them, and Amrei especially seemed determined not to understand it. The
master did all he could, and the children became quiet. But from the
school they went back to the empty house, and waited there, hungry and
forlorn, till they were fetched away.
Josenhans's house was taken by the mortgagee, and the payment the
deceased had made upon it was lost; for the value of houses had decreased
considerably through emigration;–many houses in the village stood empty,
and Josenhans's dwelling remained uninhabited too. All the moveable
6
7%e Children Åmocé at the Door.
property had been sold, and a little sum had thus been realized for the
children, but it was not nearly enough to pay for their board : they were
parish children, and as such were placed with those who would take them
at the cheapest rate.
Amrei one day announced gleefully to her brother that she knew now
where their parents' cuckoo clock was, for that Coaly Matthew had bought
it; and that very evening the children were to be seen outside the house,
waiting till the cuckoo sang ; and then they laughed to one another.
&:
TÉ
Amrei zvent early to her brother, and helped him dress himself.
And every morning the children used to go to the old house, and knocked,
and played beside the pond, as we see them doing to-day; but now they
listen, for they hear a sound that is not usually heard at this season of the
year : it is the cuckoo at Coaly Matthew's house, and he calls eight times.
“We must go to school,” said Amrei; and she walked quickly with her
brother through the garden-path back into the village. As they passed by
the back barn of Farmer Rodel, Damie said, *.
“They’ve threshed a great deal at our guardian's to-day.” And he
pointed to the trusses of threshed ears, that hung like tokens of the
accomplished work over the half-door of the barn.
Amrei nodded quietly.

CHAPTER II.
7" Aſ E D Y S T A W T S O U L.
rich farmer, whose
house, with beams
painted red, and a
pious text in a great
heart over the door,
was not far from the
dwelling of Josenhans,
had let himself be
appointed guardian of
the orphan children
by the village council.
He made the less ob-
jection, as Josenhans
had in former days
served as second man
on his farm. His
guardianship, how-
ever, was practically
restricted to his taking care of the clothes of poor Josenhans that had not
been sold ; and all that he did was sometimes to ask one of the children,
as he passed by, “Are you good P” and then he would march on without
waiting for an answer. Nevertheless, there was in the children a strange
feeling of pride when they heard that the rich farmer was their guardian ;
and they looked upon themselves as something special, and almost grand.
They often stood apart, by the great house, and looked up at it expectantly,
as if they were waiting for something, they knew not what; and often too
they sat by the ploughs and harrows near the barn, and read the Biblical
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text on the house over and over again. The house seemed to speak to
them, if no one else did.
It was the Sunday before All Souls' Day, and the children were again
playing before the locked house of their parents — they seemed to love
the spot, -when Farmer Landfried's wife came down along the road from
ºšiji
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“God greet ye, children /’’
Hochdorf: she carried a great red umbrella under her arm, and a hymn-
book in her hand. She was paying a last visit in her native place; for
already, the day before, the waggoner had carried off her household furni-
ture in a farm-house waggon out of the village, and to-morrow morning
she was to go with her husband and her three children to the farm they
had just bought in distant Allgau. A long way off, at the mill, Dame
Landfried was already nodding to the children—for to meet children on
lirst going out is considered lucky — but the children could not see the

9 2
Zittle Barefoot
greeting, nor could they see the sorrowful features of the farmer's wife. At
last, when she came up to the children, she said,
“God greet ye, children | What are you doing here so early 2 To whom
do you belong 2
“To Josenhans—-there,” answered Amrei, pointing to the house.
“Oh, you poor children l’ cried the farmer's wife, clasping her hands.
“I Ought to have known you, my girl, for your mother looked just as you
do when she went to school with me. We were good companions, and your
father served my cousin, Farmer Rodel. I know all about you. But tell
me, Amrei, why have you no shoes on 2 You might get ill in such weather
as this Tell Marianne that Dame Landfried of Hochdorf told you to
say it is not right of her to let you run about like this. But, no—you need
not say anything.: I will speak to her myself. And, Amrei, you must now
be a great girl, and sensible, and see to yourself. Just think—what would
your mother say if she knew you were running about barefoot at this season
of the year 2 ”
The child looked at the speaker with great eyes, as if to say—“Does
not my mother know anything about it 2." Then the woman continued :
“That's the worst of all, that you poor children cannot know what
upright parents you had, and therefore older people must tell you. Re-
member that you will give real true happiness to your parents, when
they hear yonder in heaven, how the people down here on earth are say-
ing, ‘The Josenhans children are a model of all that's good, and in them
one can see the blessing of honest parents.’”
The tears poured down the woman's cheeks as she spoke these last
words. The painful feelings of her soul, which arose from quite another
cause, burst out irresistibly at these words and thoughts; and sorrow for
herself mingled with her pity for others. She laid her hand upon the head
of the girl, who began to weep bitterly when she saw the woman weeping :
she seemed to feel that this was a good soul inclining towards her, and a
glimmering consciousness began to awake in her that she had really lost
her parents.
Suddenly the woman's face seemed irradiated. She raised her eyes,
which were still tearful, to heaven, and said,
“Gracious God, Thou givest me the thought.” Then, turning to the
child, she went on. “Listen. I will take you with me. My Lisbeth was
just your age when she was taken from me. Tell me, wilt thou go with
me to Allgau, and stay with me?”
“Yes,” replied Amrei, decidedly.
Then she felt some one behind strike her a blow.
“You must not,” cried Damie, throwing his arms round her; and he
trembled all over. -
“Be still,” said Amrei, soothing him. “The kind woman will take you
too. Damie is to go with us, is he not 2"
10
The Dasſant Soul.
“No, child, that cannot be; I have boys enough.”
“Then I'll not go either,” said Amrei; and she took Damie by the hand.
There is a kind of shuddering in which fever and frost seem to strive,
joy at a deed and fear at it. Such a secret shudder had passed over the
strange woman, and now she looked down upon the child with a certain
sense of relief. In an impulse of feeling—urged on by the pure wish of
doing good—she had proposed to do a thing and take upon herself a re-
sponsibility she had not sufficiently weighed; and especially she had not
considered what her husband would think of her taking such a step without
having spoken to him. When the child refused, a reaction set in, and all this
stood clear before her; therefore, with a quick sense of relief, she at once
acquiesced in this refusal of her offer. She had obeyed the impulse of her
heart, by wishing to do this thing; and now that obstacles stood in the
way, she felt glad that it was not to be left undone, and that she had still
not been obliged to retract her promise.
“As you like,” said the farmer's wife. “I will not persuade you. Who
knows 2 perhaps it is better so—that you should grow up first. To learn to
bear sorrow in youth is a good thing, and we soon get accustomed to better
times: all those who turned out really well have had to suffer some heavy
crosses in their youth. Only be good, and keep this in remembrance,
that so long as you are good, there shall always, for your parents' sake, be
a shelter for you with me, so long as God grants me life. Therefore, if
things go badly with you, think that you are not forsaken in this world.
Remember the farmer's wife, Landfried, at Zusmarshofen, in Allgau. And
something more: don't say anything in the village about my proposing to
take charge of you; it's as well not, because of the people, for they would
be angry with you for not going with me. But it's just as well as it is.
Wait ! I will give you something to remember me by.” She felt in her
pockets; but suddenly she put her hand up to her neck, and said, “No,
you shall have this.” Then she blew on her fingers, that were stiff with
cold, till they could do their office; which was to unclasp from her neck a
necklace of five rows of garnets that she wore, with a Swedish ducat hang-
ing from them; and she clasped the ornament round the child's neck, and
kissed her.
Amrei seemed stupefied by all these marvels.
“For you I have unfortunately nothing,” said the good woman to
Damie, who stood by, breaking up a switch he had in his hand into little
pieces; “but I will send you a pair of leather breeches belonging to my
John : they are quite good still. You can wear them when you grow
bigger. And now, God keep you, dear children. If I can, I will come to
you again, Amrei. At any rate, send Marianne to me after church. Be
good children, both of you; pray heartily for your parents in eternity;
and don't forget that you have protectors still, in heaven and on earth.”
The farmer's wife, who had tucked up her dress all round, to walk the
11 2–2
Alittle Barefoot.
quicker, let it down now that she was at the entrance to the village; with
quick steps she went along the street, and she did not turn round again.
Amrei put up her hands to her neck, and bent down her face, and
wanted to examine the coin. But she could not quite succeed. Damie was
chewing at the last fragment of his switch; and now when his sister looked
at him, and saw tears in his eyes, she said,
“You shall see; you’ll get the finest pair of breeches in the village.”
“And I won't have them,” cried Damie ; and he spat out a bit of wood.
“I’ll tell her that she must buy you a knife too. I shall stay at home
all day to-day, and she's coming to see us.” *
“Yes, if she were only come already,” replied Damie, without knowing
what he said; for it was anger and the feeling of being kept in the back-
ground that made him jealous and reproachful. tº
The first bell was ringing, and the children hastened back into the
village. Amrei gave up the newly-acquired trinket to Marianne, with a
short explanation; and Marianne said,
“On my word, you’re a lucky child ! I'll take good care of it for you.
Now make haste to church.”
During the whole service, the children kept glancing across at Farmer
Landfried's wife; and when they came out, they waited at the door; but
the wealthy farmer's wife was surrounded by so many people, all talking
eagerly to her, that she had to keep turning in a circle to answer first one
and then another. She had no leisure to notice the wistful glances of the
children, and their continual nodding. -
Farmer Landfried's wife had Rosie, the youngest daughter of Farmer
Rodel, in her hand. Rosie was a year older than Amrei, who kept moving
her hand involuntarily as she stood afar off, as though she would have put
aside the intruder who took her place. Or had the well-to-do farmer's
wife only eyes for Amrei out yonder at the last house, and when they
were alone, but did not know her among other people 2 Are only the
children of rich people noticed then, and the children of relations 2 Amrei
was startled when she suddenly heard this thought, that began to stir
within her, openly declared; for it was Damie who uttered it. And while
she followed at a distance the large group that surrounded the farmer's
wife, she strove to root up the bad thought out of her brother's mind, and
out of her own too. The object of their solicitude at last disappeared into
the house of Farmer Rodel, and the children turned silently back. Sud-
denly Damie said,
“If she comes to you, mind you tell her that she must go to Crappy
Zachy too, and tell him to be good to me.”
Amrei nodded; and then the children parted, each going to the house
where it was domiciled.
The clouds, that had lifted in the morning, came back in the afternoon
in the shape of a perfect downpour of rain. --
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13
Zittle Barefoot.
gutter in the roof; but they came down too quickly for him, so he made
easy work of it, by crying out at once, “A thousand million ”
“She must come past here when she goes home,” said Amrei, “and then
we'll call out to her; mind you call out loud too, and then we'll have
another talk with her.” -
So said Amrei; for the children were still waiting here for the farmer's
W1te.
* * * * - 㺠s
º
The great red umbrella of Mistress Zand/ried was seen in the village.
Then the cracking of a whip sounded in the village. A trampling and
splashing of horses was heard in the slushy road, and a carriage came
rolling On. -
“You see if that's not father and mother coming in a coach to fetch
us.” cried Damie.
y
Amrei looked round mournfully at her brother, and said,
“Don’t chatter so.”
When she looked back again the carriage was quite close: Somebody in
it beckoned from beneath a red umbrella, and away rolled the vehicle :
only the dog of Coaly Matthew barked after it for awhile, and made as if

14
7%e /Ozsfazzf Sou/.
he would have seized the spokes with his teeth; but at the pond he turned
back again, barked once more at the house door, and then slipped into
the house.
“Hurrah away she goes 1" cried Damie, as if he triumphed in it. “It
was Farmer Landfried's wife. Didn't you know Farmer Rodel's black
horses 2 They carried her off—Don’t forget my leather breeches ' " he
called at the top of his voice, although the carriage had already disappeared
in the valley, and was presently seen creeping up the little hill at Holder-
WaSCI).
The children returned quietly into the village.
Who knows whether this incident may not take quiet root in the inmost
heart, and what may sprout upward from it 2
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15
CHAPTER III.
APROM 7TAZAZ TREA, APP ZTAZAZ FAA’EAVTS’ AIOUSE.
º
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º % ... PON the eve of All
* ºf . Yº": 2S * Souls' Day, Black
º ºfts ºftº: Marianne said to
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ºft ~ the two children,
/zº “Now go and
get plenty
of red
be r ries,
... ---- for we
shall want
them for
thegrave-
yard to-
morrow.”
“I know
where to
find them,
I can get
so me !”
cried Da-
mie, with
quite an
- ' eager joy.
And away he ran out of the village, at such a pace, that Amrei could
hardly overtake him; and when she arrived at their parents' house, he
was already perched up in the tree, and teased her gleefully, crying that
she should come up too; because he knew that she could not. And now
he plucked the red berries and threw them down into his sister's apron.
She asked him to pluck them off with the stems, because she wanted to
*N 3% C

16
From the Tree by the Parents' House.
make a wreath. He answered, “No, I shan't ſ” and yet no berry fell down
after that without a stalk to it.
“Hark how the sparrows are scolding !” cried Damie from the tree.
“They're angry that I’m taking their food away from them.” And when
he at last had plucked all the berries, he said, “I shan't come down at all,
but I’ll stay up here day and night until I drop down dead, and won't
come to you at all any more, unless you promise me something.”
“What is it P”
“That you’ll never wear your necklace that Farmer Landfried's wife
gave you, so long as I can see it. Will you promise me that 2"
“NO!” *tº:
“Then I won't come down any more.”
“Very well,” said Amrei; and she went away with her berries. But
before she had gone far, she sat down behind a pile of wood, and made a
wreath, and kept peeping out to see if Damie was not coming at last. She
put the wreath on her head; and suddenly a nameless terror seized her
on Damie's account. She ran back, and there was Damie, sitting astride
upon a branch, leaning back against the trunk of the tree, with his arms
folded. “Come down I’ll promise what you want,” cried Amrei; and in
a moment Damie was down on the ground by her.
When she got home, Black Marianne scolded her for a foolish child,
for making a wreath for herself out of the berries that were wanted for
her parents' grave. Marianne tore up the wreath, muttering a few words
the children could not understand; then she took them both by the hand,
and went out with them to the churchyard. And passing where two
mounds lay close together, she said,
“There are your parents l’’ ge
Then the children looked at each other in surprise. Now Marianne
made a furrow in each of the mounds in the form of a cross, and showed
the children how they were to stick the berries in. Damie was handy at
the work, and boasted because his red cross was finished sooner than his
sister's. Amrei looked fixedly at him, and made no answer; only when
Damie said, “That will please father,” she gave him a blow on the back,
and said, “Be quiet!”
Damie cried louder, perhaps, than he really meant.
Then Amrei called out, “For Heaven's sake forgive me! forgive me for
doing that to you. Here, I'll promise you that I’ll do all I can for you,
all my life long, and give you everything that I have. I didn't hurt you,
Damie, did I ? You may depend upon it, it shall not happen again as long
as I live—never again—never! Oh, mother 1 oh, father I will be good,
I promise you. Oh, mother 1 oh, father l’
She could say no more; but she did not weep aloud, though it was plain
her heart was almost bursting; not until Black Marianne burst out
crying did Amrei weep with her.
17 3
Zittle Barefoot.
They went home; and when Damie said “Good night,” Amrei whis-
pered in his ear,
“Now I know that we shall never see our parents again in this world.”
Even in making this communication there was a certain pleasure—a
childish pride at having something to impart; and yet, in this child's heart
there had dawned something like a consciousness of that breaking of one
of the great ties in life — the thought that arises with the consciousness
that a parent is no longer with us. When the lips that called thee “child”
have been sealed by death, and breath has departed out of thy life—a
breath that shall return no more.
yie Black Marianne was still sitting at the child's bed, the little one
Sal Cl,
h { { ; seem to be falling and falling, on and on. Let me keep hold of your
and.” ;
And she held the hand fast, and fell into a slumber; but as often as
Black Marianne tried to draw away her hand, she clutched at it. Marianne
understood what this feeling of endless falling in the child's mind signified
—that it was the dawning conviction of the reality of her parents' death,
the sensation of wavering to and fro, and not knowing which way to turn.
It was not till nearly midnight that Marianne was able to quit the bed-side
of the child, after she had repeated her usual twelve Paternosters over and
Over again, who knows how many times 2 A stern, defiant look was on
the face of the sleeping child. She had laid one hand across her bosom :
Black Marianne softly lifted it up, and said to herself, half aloud,
“If there were only an eye that could watch over thee, and a hand that
could help thee, as now in thy sleep, and take the heaviness out of thy
heart, without thy knowing it ! But no man can do that—none but He
alone. Oh I may He do unto my child in the distant land as I do unto
this little one.”
Black Marianne was a shunned woman; that is to say, the people were
almost afraid of her, so harsh did she seem in her manner. She had lost
her husband about eighteen years before. He had been shot in an attempt
that he had made with some companions to rob the stage coach. Marianne
was expecting a child to be born when the corpse of her husband, with its
blackened face, was carried into the village; but she bore up bravely, and
washed the dead man's face, as if she would have washed away his black
crime. Her three daughters died, and only the son, who was born soon
after this, lived to grow up. He turned out a handsome lad, though he
had a strange dark colour in his face; and he was now travelling abroad,
a journeyman mason. For from the time of Brosi, and especially since
that worthy man's son Severin had worked his way with his mallet to high
honour, many of the youngsters of the village had chosen the mason's
handicraft as their calling. The children used to talk of Severin as of a
prince in a fairy tale. And so the only child of Black Marianne had be-
18
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Zittle Barefoot.
like a hen that had hatched a duck's egg, and she was always clucking to
herself after it. .*.
It would hardly be believed, but Black Marianne was one of the most
cheerful persons in the village : she was never seen to be sorrowful, for
she would not have the people pity her. And that's why they would not
take to her. In the winter she was the most industrious spinner in the
village, and in summer the busiest at gathering, so that she had plenty to
sell; and “my John ”— for that was her surviving child's name—“my
John ” was always the subject of her conversation. She said that'she had
taken little Amrei to live with her not from good nature, but that she might
have some living being about her. She loved to appear rough before
people, and thus enjoyed the more the secret consciousness of indepen-
dence.
The exact opposite to her was Crappy Zachy, with whom Damie had
been placed. This worthy was fond of exhibiting himself to people as a
good-natured fellow who would give everything away; but in secret he
-
bullied and ill used his household, and especially Damie, for whom he
received only a small sum as board-money. His real name was Zechariah,
and he had his nickname from the fact that once he had brought home to
his wife a couple of fine trussed pigeons to roast, but they were in fact a
pair of plucked crows, which in that part of the country are called crappies.
Crappy Zachy, who had a wooden leg, spent most of his time knitting
woollen stockings and jackets; and so he used to sit about everywhere in
the village, with his knitting, wherever there was anything to gossip about;
and this gossiping, in the course of which he heard all sorts of news,
brought him in some very welcome windfalls. . He was what they called
the “marriage-maker” of the district; for in those parts, where there are
large separate estates, marriages are generally managed through agents
or middlemen, who find out accurately the relative circumstances of the

20
Aºrome the 7×ee ôy the Parents' A/ouse.
intending couples, and arrange everything beforehand. When a marriage
of this kind had been brought about, Crappy Zachy used to play the fiddle
†:
#
#
§
====tº
Ae used to sit wherever there was anything to gossip about.
at the wedding, for he was a famous performer; moreover, he could play
the clarionet and the horn when his hands were tired from fiddling. In
fact, he was an undoubted genius.

21
Zittle Barefoot.
The whining and over-sensitive ways of Damie were a source of great
disgust to Crappy Zachy, and he tried to cure him of them by giving him
plenty to cry for, and teasing him whenever he could. i.
Thus the two little stems which had grown up out of the same garden
were transplanted into different soils. The position and the nature of the
ground, and the qualities that were inherent in each stem, made them grow
up very differently.

32
CHAPTER IV.
OPEN, DOOR.
Yº ſº tº LL SOULS’ DAY came : it was dull and foggy; and
º, tº the children stood among the congregation in the church-
# yard. Crappy Zachy had taken Damie there in his hand.
§ But Amrei had come alone, without Black Marianne, and
many were angry at the hard-hearted woman, while a few
would not hear of visiting graves, because she did not
know where her husband's grave was. Amrei was quiet and did not shed
a tear, while Damie wept bitterly at the pitying words of the bystanders,
more especially as Crappy Zachy had given him several sly pinches and
pokes. Amrei stood gazing for a time, in a dreamy forgetful way, at the
lights at the heads of the graves, watching how the flame ate up the wax,
and the wick grew blacker and blacker, until at last the light was quite
burnt out.
Among the assembled crowd, a man moved to and fro in handsome
town-made clothes, and with a ribbon in his button-hole. It was the
Councillor of Building Works, Severin, who, in the course of a journey of
inspection, had come to visit the graves of his parents, Brosi and Moni.
His brothers and sisters and other relations always surrounded him with
a kind of deferential respect, and the usual reverence for the occasion was
almost entirely diverted, and nearly all the attention was fixed upon this
Stranger. Amrei also looked at him, and asked Crappy Zachy,
“Is that a bridegroom P”
“Why?"
“Because he has a ribbon in his button-hole.”
Instead of answering her, the first thing Crappy Zachy did was to go up
to a group, and to tell them what a stupid speech the child had made.
And among the graves a loud laugh arose at her foolishness. Only Farmer
Rodel's wife said,
“I don't find anything foolish in this. Though it is a mark of distinc-
tion that Severin has, it is a strange thing to go about in the churchyard
with such a decoration as that, there where we see what we all come to,
whether in our lifetime we have worn clothes of silk or of homespun. I
was put out already to see him wear it at church : a thing of that kind

23
Zittle Barefoot.
ought to be taken off when one goes to church, and how much more in the
churchyard ' "
The report of little Amrei's question must have penetrated to Severin
himself, for he was seen to button his greatcoat hastily, and nodded at the
child as he did so. . Now he was heard to ask who that was; and directly
he heard, he came hurrying across to the children at the new-made graves,
and said to Amrei,
ZXamie wept bitterly at the pitying words of the Öystanders.
“Come here, child. Open your hand : here, I give you a ducat; buy
what you want with it.”
The child stared at him and answered nothing. And scarcely had
Severin turned his back, when she called to him half aloud, “I won't take
any presents " and flung the ducat after him. Many who had seen it
came up to Amrei and rated her; and just as they were about to ill-use
her, she was again saved from their rough hands by Farmer Rodel's wife,
who had already protected her once with words. Even she requested that
Amrei should at least go after Severin and thank him; but Amrei did not
answer in any way: she remained obstinate, so that her protectress also

24
Open, door. - *
left her. With great trouble the ducat was found again, and it was imme-
diately taken care of, to be delivered to the child's guardian.
This incident brought Amrei a strange reputation in the village. People
said she had only been a few days with Black Marianne, and had already
acquired that woman's manners. It was declared to be an unheard-of
t §
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Aſarianne told sparkling and horrifying goblin storics.
thing that a child so sunk in poverty should be so proud ; and as she was
scolded up hill and down dale for this pride, she became thoroughly aware
of it; and in the young childish heart there arose a spirit of opposition, to
keep it all the more. Black Marianne, moreover, did her part to confirm
this state of feeling, for she said nothing can be more lucky for a poor
person than that he should be considered proud, for by that means he

* 25 4.
Little Barefoot.
is saved from first being trampled upon by everybody, and afterwards
from being expected to be grateful for such usage.
In the winter Amrei was a great deal at Crappy Zachy's, for she was
very fond of hearing him play the violin; and Crappy Zachy on one occa-
sion bestowed such high praise upon her as to say, “You are not stupid ;”
for Amrei had observed, after hearing him play upon the violin for a long
time, “It’s wonderful how a fiddle can hold its breath such a long time: I
can't do that.” And when, on quiet winter nights at home, Marianne told
sparkling and horrifying goblin stories, then Amrei would say, drawing a
deep breath when they were finished, “Oh, Marianne, I must take breath
now ! I was obliged to hold my breath all the time you were speaking.”
No one paid much attention to Amrei, and the child could dream just
as she had a mind; only the schoolmaster
said once, at a meeting of the local council,
that he had never seen such a child : she
was at once good natured and obstinate,
dreamy and quick witted. In truth, with
all the childish self-forgetfulness, there
was being developed in little Amrei a
feeling of responsibility, an attitude of
self-defence, in opposition to the world,
its kindness and its malice; while Damie
came crying and complaining to his sister
upon every trifling occasion. He was
always pitying himself, and when he was
tumbled over by his playmates in their
wrestling matches, he always whined,
“Yes, because I am an orphan they beat
me! Oh, if my father and my mother
knew of it !” and then he wept twice as
much over the injury he had received.
Damie let every one give him eatables,
and thus he became greedy, while Amrei
was satisfied with a little, and thus ac-
quired habits of moderation. Even the
roughest boys were afraid of Amrei, al-
though nobody knew how she had proved
her strength; while Damie would run
away from quite little boys. In the school
Damie was always unsteady: he shuffled
his feet, and turned down the leaves of
the books with his fingers as he read. Amrei, on the other hand, was always
ready and attentive; though she often wept in the school, not for the pun-
ishments she herself received, but because Damie was so often punished.

26
Open, door.
Amrei could please Damie best by giving him the answers to riddles.
The children used still to sit frequently by the house of their rich guardian,
sometimes near the waggons, sometimes near the oven behind the house,
at the outside of which they used to warm themselves, especially in the
autumn. And Amrei asked, -
“What's the best thing about the oven 2"
“You know I can't guess anything,” replied Damie, plaintively.
“Then I'll tell you.
“In the oven this is the best, 'tis said,
That he never himself doth eat the bread.’”
And pointing to the waggons before the houses, Amrei asked,
“What's all holes, and yet holds 2" and without waiting long for a reply
she gave the answer: “It’s the chain.”
“Now you must give these riddles to me,” said Damie.
And Amrei replied, “Yes, you may ask them. But do you see the sheep
coming yonder 2 Now I know another riddle.”
“No 1" cried Damie, “no Two are enough for me ! I can't remember
three.”
“Yes, you must hear this one too, or else I'll take the others back.”
And Damie kept repeating anxiously to himself, “The chain;” “Don’t
eat it himself,” while Amrei asked,
“On which side have the sheep most wool 2–Ba, ball on the outside l’
she sang merrily; and Damie ran off to ask his comrades these riddles.
He kept his fists tightly clenched, as if he were holding the riddles fast,
and was determined not to let them go. But when he got to his comrades
he only remembered the one about the chain; and Farmer Rodel's eldest
son, whom he hadn't asked at all (and who was much too old) said the
answer at once; and Damie came crying back to his sister.
Little Amrei's talent for riddles soon began to be talked about in the
village, and even rich serious farmers, who seldom wasted many words on
anybody, and least of all upon a poor child, condescended now and then
to ask little Amrei one. That she knew a great many herself, she had
probably learned from Black Marianne; but that she was able to answer so
many new ones caused universal astonishment. Amrei would soon have
been unable to go across the street or into the fields without being stopped
and questioned, if she had not found out a remedy. She established a
law, that she would not answer a riddle for any one, unless she might pro-
pose one in return ; and she managed to make up such questions, that the
people stood still in amazement. Never had a poor child been so much
noticed in the village as this little Amrei. But, as she grew older, less
attention was paid to her, for people look with sympathetic eye only at the
blossom and the fruit, and disregard the long period of transition during
which the one is ripening into the other.
27 4—2
Alittle Barefoot.
Before Amrei's school-days were over, Fate gave her a riddle that was
difficult to answer. - w .
The children had an uncle, who lived some fifteen miles from Halden-
brunn, at Fluorn, where he was a woodcutter. They had only seen him
once—at their parents' burial, when he walked behind the overseer, who
led the children by the hand. After that time the children often dreamt
of their uncle at Fluorn. They were often told that this uncle was like
their father, and now they were still more anxious to see him; for although
they still believed at times that their father and mothér would suddenly
reappear, and that it could not be that they had gone away for ever, still
they gradually got reconciled to giving up this hope as the years rolled on,
and they had over and over again put berries on the grave, and could long
ago read the two names on the same black cross. They also almost entirely
forgot the uncle in Fluorn, for during many years they heard nothing of
him. -
But one day the children were called into their guardian's house. There
sat a tall man with a brown face. -
“Come here, children,” said this man, as the children entered. He had
a dry, rough way of speaking, and added, “Don’t you know me * *
The children looked at him with wondering eyes. Perhaps some re-
membrance of their father's voice awoke within them. The man continued:
“I am your father's brother. Come here, Lisbeth, and you too, Damie.”
“My name's not Lisbeth—my name's Amrei,” said the girl; and she
began to cry. A feeling of estrangement made her tremble, when her
uncle thus called her by a wrong name: she seemed to feel that there could
not be real affection where her name was not known. -
“If you are my uncle, why don't you know my name 2" asked Amrei.
“You are a stupid child ! Go and give him your hand directly!" cried
Farmer Rodel sharply; and then he added, half in a whisper, to the
stranger, “That’s a strange child. Black Marianne has put all sorts of
odd notions into her head, and you know that she's not right.”
Amrei looked round in astonishment, and gave her hand, trembling, to
her uncle. Damie had done so already, and now said,
“Uncle, have you brought us anything P” - -
“I haven't much to bring with me. I bring myself, and you're to go
with me. Do you know, Amrei, that it's not good of you at all, not to be
fond of your uncle 2 You have no one else in the world. Whom else have
you? You'd better come here, and sit down beside me—nearer still. You
see, your brother Damie is much more sensible. He looks more like our
family, but you belong to us too.”
A maid now came in with a number of articles of a man's clothing, whicn
she laid on the table.
“These are your brother's clothes,” said Farmer Rodel to the stranger;
and the latter went on to say to Amrei :
28
Open, door.
|
“As you see, these are your father's clothes. We shall take those with
us, and you shall go too—first to Fluorn, and then across the brook.”
Amrei, trembling, touched her father's coat and his blue-striped waist-
% %22
Ø/
#. NS
*
. . . º.
~ * .../ſ, , /
~ * *
“These are your brother's clothes,” said A'armer Aodel to the strazgºv.
coat. But the uncle took up the clothes, pointed to the worn elbows, and
said to Farmer Rodel,
“Those are worth very little: I won't have them valued at much ; and
I don't even know if I can wear them yonder, in America, without being
laughed at.”
Amrei passionately clutched the skirt of the coat. That her father's





29
Little Barefoot.
clothes, which she had looked upon as a costly and invaluable treasure,
should be pronounced to be of little value, appeared to grieve her, and that
these clothes were to be worn in America, and ridiculed there, almost
bewildered her; and altogether, what was the meaning of this talk about
America P -
She was soon informed on this point, for Farmer Rodel's wife came, and
with her Black Marianne; and Dame Rodel said,
“Harkye, husband : I think that must not be done so fast—sending the
children off with that man to America.” . . -
“But he's their only living relative—Josenhans's brother.”
“Yes, certainly; but until now he has not done much to show that he
is a relation; and I fancy this can't be done without the Board, and even
the Board can't do it alone. The children have a right of settlement here,
and that can't be taken from them in their sleep, so to say, for the children
can't say what they want themselves, yet. It's carrying people off in their
sleep.” -
“My Amrei is intelligent enough: she's thirteen now, but cleverer than
many a one of thirty, and she knows what she wants,” said Black Marianne.
“You two ought to have become a parish Board,” said Farmer Rodel;
“but it's my opinion, too, that the children ought not to be tied to a rope,
like calves, and dragged away. Well, let the man talk with them himself,
and then we shall see further what is to be done. He is, after all, their
natural protector, and has the right to stand in their father's place if he
likes. Harkye: do you go with your brother's children a little outside the
village, and you women stay here, and let no one persuade them or dis-
suade them.” -
The woodcutter took the two children by the hand, and went out of the
room and out of the house with them.
In the street he asked the children, “Where shall we go 2" -
“If you want to be our father, go home with us,” suggested Damie :
“our house is down yonder.”
“Is it open P” asked the uncle. -
“No, but Coaly Matthew has the key; but he has never let us go in.
I'll run on and get the key.”
And Damie released himself quickly and ran off. -
Amrei felt like a prisoner as her uncle led her by the hand; and yet he
spoke earnestly and confidentially to her now, and told her, almost as if
he were excusing himself, that he had a large family of his own, so that he
could hardly get along, with his wife and five children. But now a man
who was the owner of great forests in America had offered him a free
passage; and in five years, when he had cleared away the forest, he was to
have a great piece of the best farm land as his own property. In gratitude
to God, who had bestowed this upon him for himself and his family, he
had immediately formed the resolution of doing a good deed by taking his
30 -
Open, door.
brother's children with him ; but he would not compel them, and, indeed,
he would only take them at all if they would turn to him with their whole
hearts and look upon him as their second father. Amrei looked at him
with eyes of wonder at these words. If she could only have brought her-
self to love this man | But she was almost afraid of him : she could not
| º º | i.
º tº
-E-Is
º ;
r §§ ! {º}.
º H---- º:
ºf º- sº lº É
º r sº. = * {1}{: t
º - == º - ---
º
t
\gº- ====
º - ºxº- ###
=::::: *:
A strange chill like that of a zault came creeping from the black ground-floor room.
help it;-–and that he thus fell, as it were, from the clouds, and required that
she should love him, rather hardened her against him.
“Where is your wife P” asked Amrei. She probably felt that a woman
would have gone to work more gently and gradually with her.
“I will tell you honestly,” answered her uncle: “my wife does not inter-
fere in this affair, and says she will neither persuade me nor dissuade me.
She is a little sharp, but only at first; and if you are good to her—and you

31
Zittle Aarefoot. - -
are a sensible child—you can twist her round your finger. And if, once in
a way, anything should be done to you that you don't like, remember that
you are at your father's brother's, and tell me about it alone, and I will help
you all I can ; and you shall see that now your real life will begin.”
Amrei's eyes filled with tears at these words; and yet she could not say
anything, for she felt strange with this man. His voice moved her; but
when she looked at him, she felt she would have liked to run away.
And now Damie came with the key. Amrei would have taken it from
him, but he would not give it up. With the peculiar pedantic conscienti-
ousness of a child, he declared he had faithfully promised Coaly Matthew's
wife to give it to nobody but his uncle. The uncle accordingly took it
from him, and it seemed to Amrei as if a magic secret were opened when
the key rattled for the first time in the lock, and turned, and the hasp went
down, and the door opened. A strange chill like that of a vault came
creeping from the black ground-floor room, that had also served as a
kitchen. On the hearth still lay a little heap of ashes, and on the room
door the initials of Caspar, Melchoir, and Balthasar, and the date of the
parents' death still appeared, written in chalk. Amrei read it aloud : her
father himself had written it. - -
“Look,” cried Damie, “the eight is shaped just as you make it, and as
the master won't have it, you know—from right to left.”
Amrei made him a sign to keep quiet. She thought it so terrible and
wrong that Damie should talk here so lightly—here, where she felt as if
she were in church, or even in eternity—quite out of the world, and yet
in the midst of it. She herself opened the room door : the room was dark
as a grave, for the shutters were closed, and only through a chink did one
single Sunbeam force its way, and it rested just on an angel's head on the
earthenware stove, so that the angel seemed to laugh. Amrei crouched
down terrified, and when she looked up again, her uncle had opened one
of the window shutters, and the warm air from without poured in. How
cold it seemed in there ! Nothing of furniture was left in the room but a
bench nailed against the wall. There the mother had spun, and there she
had put Amrei's little hands together, and taught her to knit.
“Come, children, let us go now,” said the uncle; “it is not good to be
here. Come with me to the baker, and I’ll buy you a white roll each; or
do you like buscuits better P” ſº *
“No, let us stay here a little longer,” said Amrei. And she kept on
stroking the place where her mother had sat. Then pointing to a white
patch on the wall, she went on, half in a whisper : “There our cuckoo
clock used to hang, and there our father's discharge from the army; and
there the hanks of yarn used to hang that mother spun : she could spin
better even than Black Marianne–Black Marianne has said so herself:
she always got a skein more out of a pound than any one else; and it was
always so even, and there was not a knot in it. And do you see the ring
32 .
Open, door.
up yonder on the ceiling 2 It was beautiful to see her twisting the threads
there. If I had had any understanding then, I would not have let them
sell mother's spindle: it would have been a legacy for me; but there was
nobody to stand up for us. Oh, mother dear! oh, father dear ! If you
knew how we have been pushed about, it would grieve you even in
eternity.”
Amrei began to weep aloud, and Damie wept with her. Even the
uncle wiped away a tear; and he again urged them to come away from the
place, for he felt angry with himself for having caused himself and the
children this grief. But Amrei said, in a decided way,
“Even if you go, I shall not go with you.”
“How do you mean P You will not go with me at all P”
Amrei started; for now she understood what she had said, and it almost
seemed to her as if it had been an inspiration. But she soon answered,
“No, I don't know about that yet. I only meant to say that I will not
willingly go out of this house now, till I have seen everything again.
Come, Damie, you are my brother; come up into the loft. You remember
where we used to play at hide-and-seek, behind the chimney P And then
we’ll look out of the window, where we dried the truffles. Don't you
remember the bright florin piece father got for them 2"
Something rustled and pattered across the ceiling. All three started.
But uncle said quickly,
“Stay where you are, Damie ; and you, too. What do you want up
there 2 Don't you hear how the mice are rustling P” *
“Come with me: they won't eat us!” Amrei insisted; but Damie de-
clared that he would not go; and although Amrei felt a secret fear, she
took heart and went upstairs alone. But she soon came down again,
looking as pale as death, with nothing in her hand but a bundle of old
Straws.
“Damie says he’ll go with me to America,” said the uncle, as she came
forward; and Amrei replied, breaking up the straws in her hand,
“I’ve nothing to say against it. I don't know yet what I shall do, but
he can go alone if he likes.” tº
“No,” cried Damie, “I shan’t do that. You did not go with Dame
Landfried when she wanted to take you away, and so I shall not go alone,
but with you.”
“Well, then, think it over; you are sensible enough,” said the uncle, to
conclude the matter; and he closed the window shutter, so that they stood
in the dark, and then hurried the children out at the door and through the
passage, locked the house door, and went to carry back the key to Coaly
Matthew ; and then he went back to the village with Damie only. When
he was some way off, he called to Amrei :
“You have time till to-morrow morning : then I shall go away, whether
you go with me or not.” -
33 * 5
Zettle Barefoot.
Amrei was left alone. She looked after the retreating figures, and
wondered how one person could go away from another.
“There he goes,” she thought; “and yet he belongs to thee, and thou
to him.”
As in a sleeper's dream, a subject that has been lightly touched upon
is renewed, interwoven with all sorts of strange details, so was it now with
Amrei in her waking dream. Damie had only made passing mention of
the meeting with Farmer Landfried's wife. The remembrance of her had
half faded away; and now it suddenly rose up fresh like a picture of past
life in a vision. Amrei said to herself almost aloud :
“Who knows if she may not thus suddenly think of thee, nobody knows
why? And perhaps at this very moment; for in this place she promised
to be a protector to thee when thou shouldst come : it was yonder, by the
stunted willows. Why is it only the trees that remain, so that one can see
them always * Why does not a word become like a tree, that stands fast,
and by which one can hold 2 Yes, and one can, if one will ; then one is
as well off as a tree—and what an honourable farmer's wife says is firm
and true; and she wept, too, because she had to go away from her native
home, though she has long been married away from the village, and she
has children of her own; and one of them is named John.”
Amrei was standing by the tree whence they had plucked the berries;
and she laid her hand on the trunk, and said,
“You—why don't you go away too P Why don't the people tell, you
to emigrate 2 Perhaps it would be better for you, too, elsewhere. But,
to be sure, you are too large, and you have not placed yourself here, and
who knows if you would not wither away elsewhere 2 You can only be
hewn down, but not transplanted. Nonsense ! I have been obliged to go
away from my place too. If it were my father, then I should be obliged
to go with him. He would not need to ask me i and he who questions too
long, goes astray. No one can advise me in this matter, not even Marianne.
And, after all, with my uncle it's this way. He thinks: ‘I do you a good
turn, and you must repay me.' If he's hard towards me, and towards
Damie because he's clumsy, and we have to run away, where are we to go
in the wild, strange world 2 And here everybody knows us, and every
hedge, every tree has a familiar face.—You know me, dont you ?” she said,
looking up at the tree, “Oh, if you could but speak | God created you
too, and why cannot you speak 2 You knew my father and mother so
well, too, why cannot you tell me what they would advise me to do 2 Oh,
dear father oh, dear mother I am so sad to have to go away. I have
nothing here, and hardly anybody, and yet I feel as if I were driven out
of my warm bed into the cold snow. Is this great sorrow that I feel a
sign that I ought not to go 2 Is it the true voice of conscience, or is it
only a foolish fear 2 Oh, good Heaven I do not know. If only a voice
would come from heaven now, and tell me!”
34
Open, door.
The child trembled with a secret dread, and the sense of the difficulties
of life arose for the first time vividly within her. And again she went on
half-thinking, half-talking to herself; but this time in a more decided way.
“If I were alone, I know for certain I should not go. I should stay
here; for it would be too sorrowful. Good : remember thou that. So of
one thing thou art sure; as to thyself thou art decided. But what foolish
sº
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Again she went on, half thinking, half-talking to herself.
thoughts are these ? How can I imagine that I am alone, and without
Damie 2 I am not alone; I belong to Damie, and he belongs to me. And
for Damie, it would be better that he had a fatherly authority over him : it
would help him up. But why do you want any one else, Amrei ? Can
you not take care of him yourself, if it be needful ? And if he gets
settled in that way, I can see very well that he'll be nothing but a servant
all his life long, a drudge for other people; and who knows how uncle's
children will behave to us? Because they're poor people themselves, they'll
play the masters with us. No, no I'm sure they're good; and it's a fine
thing to be able to say, ‘Good morning, cousin.' If uncle had only brought








35 5—2
Little Barefoot.
one of the children with him, I could settle it much better, and then I
could find out about things. Oh, good Heavens ! how difficult all this is l’’
Amrei sat down by the tree, and a chaffinch came hopping along, picked
up a seed, looked round him, and flew away. Something crept over
Amrei's face; she brushed it away. It was a ladybird. She let it creep
about on her hand, between the mountains and valleys of her fingers, till it
came to the point of the last finger, and flew away. ... "
“What a tale he’ll have to tell about where he has been ſ” thought
Amrei. “And a little creature like that is well off : wherever it flies, it is
at home. And hark how the larks are singing ! They are well off: they
are not obliged to think what they ought to say and what they ought to
do. And yonder the butcher is driving a calf out of the village, with his
dog. The butcher's dog has a very different voice from a lark's; but then
you can't drive a calf by singing like a lark.” -
“Where's the colt going P” Coaly Matthew called out of his window to
a young lad who was leading away a fine young colt by the halter.
“Farmer Rodel has sold it,” was the reply; and soon the colt was
neighing farther down in the valley.
Amrei, who heard that, thought again: •
“Yes, a creature like that can be sold away from its mother, and the
mother hardly knows of it; and whoever pays for it, to him it belongs;
and a person cannot be sold, and he who is unwilling may not be led away
by a halter. And yonder comes Farmer Rodel with his horses, and a great
colt frisks beside them. You will be put into harness soon, colt, and
perhaps you will be sold too. A man cannot be bought; he only hires
himself out. An animal gets nothing more for its work than its food and
drink, nor does it want anything else; but a person gets money for wages.
Yes, I can be a maid now ; and with my wages I can apprentice Damie,
and he wants to be a mason. And when we are at uncle's, Damie won't
be mine, like he is now. And hark now the starling is flying home
into the house that father made for him ; and he's singing merrily again.
And father made the house for him out of old planks. I remember how
he said that a starling won't go into a house if it's made of new wood, and
I feel just in the same way.—Now, tree, you know about it. If you rustle
so long as I am here, I shall remain.” And Amrei listened intently: soon
it seemed to her as if the tree were rustling, but then when she looked
up at the branches, they were quite still, and she did not know what it
was she heard.
And now something came along the road with a great cackling, and
with a cloud of dust flying before it. It was the flock of geese coming
home from the common pasture, the Holderwasen. Amrei thoughtfully
imitated their chattering for a long time as she sat. Then her eyes closed,
and she slumbered. w
A whole spring-crop of blossoms had burst forth in this young soul;
36
Open, door.
and the blossoming trees in the valley, as they drank in the evening dew,
shed forth their incense over the child that had gone to sleep on the home-
soil, from which she could not tear herself.
It had long been dark when she awoke, and a voice was crying,
“Amrei, where are you ?”
She stood up, but did not answer. She looked wonderingly at the stars,
and it seemed to her as if this voice came from heaven : not until the cry
was repeated did she recognize the voice of Black Marianne, and then she
answered,
“Here am I l’”
Z%ere her eyes closed, and she slumbered.
And now Black Marianne came up, and said,
“Oh it's good that I have found you. They are like mad all through
the village. One says he saw you in the wood ; another that he met you
in the fields, and saw you running along, lamenting, and that you would
listen to no call. And I began to fear you had jumped into the pond. You
need not be afraid, dear child: you need not run away. No one can compel
you to go with your uncle.” - - -
“And who said that I will not go P” Suddenly a gust of wind blew
through the branches of the tree, so that it rustled loudly. “And certainly
I will not ſ” Amrei concluded, and held fast to the tree with her hand.
“Come home; there’s a heavy storm in the air, and the wind will blow
it down upon us directly,” urged Black Marianne.
Amrei came back into the village, almost staggering, with Black Mari-
anne. What did that mean,—that people had seen her running through
field and forest ? Or was it only Black Marianne's fancy P

37
Zittle Barefoot.
The night was pitch dark, but now and then vivid lightnings flashed upon
the houses, showing them in a bright glare, so that their eyes were dazzled,
and they had to stand still ; and when the lightning had disappeared, no-
thing more could be seen. In their own native village the two seemed
lost, as if in a strange place, and hastened onward with uncertain tread.
Then the dust whirled up in eddies, so that they felt bewildered and had
to stand still ; then they worked their way onward again, hot and weary,
and at last got to the shelter of their home just as the first heavy drops
were falling.
A gust of wind blew open the house door, and Amrei cried,
“Open to us!”
She might have been thinking of a fairy tale in which a magic castle
opens at a mysterious word.

38
g CHAPTER V.
ON THE VILLAGE GOOSE-GREEW, THE “HOLDER WASEN.”
º, CCORDINGLY, when her
a uncle came next morning,
* Amrei declared that she
would remain where she
was. There was a strange
mixture of bitterness and
admiration in her uncle's
reply.
“Yes, certainly,
you take after your
mother : she would
never have anything
ſº 2 to say to us. But I
*\º can't take Damie
with me alone, even
if he wanted to go.
For a long time he
won't be able to do
anything but eat
#xº~ bread : you would
have been able to
earn it too.”
}*WS”y - º Amrei declared
~r whº ºrz that for the present
*-* & sº . . . she would do that
where she was, and that if her uncle remained in the same mind, she
and her brother could come out to him at a future time. In truth, the
interest her uncle now expressed for the children made her waver a little
in her resolution; but in her sedate way, she did not venture to show any
signs of this. She only said, -
“Give my love to your children, and tell them that I feel it very hard
never to have seen my nearest relations; and now they are going across
the seas, and perhaps I shall never see them in my life.”
Then her uncle got up quickly, and only commissioned Amrei to give



, - 39
Little Barefoot.
his love to Damie, for he had no time to stop and bid him farewell. Then
he went away. *
When Damie came soon afterwards, and heard of his uncle's departure,
he wanted to run after him; and even Amrei had the same impulse. But
she constrained herself, and did not follow it. She spoke and acted as if
she were obeying some one's command in every word and in every move-
ment; and yet her thoughts went wandering along the road by which her
uncle had gone. She went through the village, leading her brother by
the hand, and nodded to all the people she met. She seemed now to have
come back to them all. They had wanted to tear her away, and she
thought every one else must be as glad as she was herself; but soon she
noticed that they would not only have willingly let her go, but that they
were angry with her because she had not gone. Crappy Zachy opened
his eyes wide at her, and said,
“Child, you have an obstinate head of your own, and the whole village
is angry with you, because you have thrust away your good fortune from
you. Who knows whether it would have been good fortune 2 but they
call it so now, and whoever looks at you casts up to himself how much you
receive from the parish. So make haste and get yourself off the public
rates.”
“But what am I to do P” r
“Farmer Rodel's wife would like to have you in her service, but the
farmer won't have it.”
Amrei seemed to feel that henceforward she must be doubly brave,
that she might escape reproach from her own conscience and from others;
and so she asked again,
“Don’t you know of anything at all P”
“Yes, certainly; but then you must not be ashamed of anything except
begging. Have you not heard that foolish Fridolin yesterday killed two
geese belonging to a farmer's wife 2 The goosekeeper's place is vacant,
and I advise you to take it.”
That was soon done; and at noon Amrei drove the geese to the “Holder-
wasen,” as the grazing-place on the little eminence by the King's Well was
called. Damie helped his sister faithfully to do this.
Black Marianne, however, was very much put out about this new service,
and maintained, not without reason,
“It’s a thing that's remembered against a person all her life long, to
have had such a place. The people never forget it, and always come back
upon it; and every one will think twice about taking you into their service,
because they will say, ‘Why, that's the goose-girlſ' And if any one takes
you from compassion, you'll get bad wages and bad treatment, and they'll
always say, ‘That's good enough for the goose-girl.’”
“That won't be so bad,” replied Amrei; “and you have told me many
hundred times how a goose-girl became a queen.”
40
On the Village Goose-Green, the “Holderwasen.”
“That was in old times. But who knows 2 you belong to the old world :
sometimes it seems to me as if you could not be a child; and who knows,
you old-fashioned soul, if a wonder won't happen in your case ?”
This hint that she had not stood upon the lowest step of the ladder of
honour, and that there was something through which she could descend
farther, startled Amrei. For herself she did not make anything of it; but
Be was employed by his guardian, Farmer Åodel, in the capacity of a scar, c, ow.
from that time forth she would not allow Damie to keep the geese with her.
He was a man—he was to be one—and it could do him harm if it were
said of him, some time or other, that he had kept the geese. But with all
the pains she took, she could not make this clear to him, and he sulked with
her. For it is always thus: at the point where people leave off under-
standing each other an inward opposition begins; want of mental power
displays itself in outward wrong and a disposition to take offence.
Amrei was almost glad that Damie could be so angry with her for so
many days; for he was learning the way to stand up against the world
and to maintain his own will.

41 {;
Zittle Barefoot.
Damie, however, soon got a place for himself. He was employed by his
guardian, Farmer Rodel, in the capacity of a scarecrow. He was set to
swing a rattle all day long in the farmer's orchard, to scare the sparrows
from the early cherries and from the salad-beds. At first this duty amused
him, as a game, but he soon gave it up again.
It was a cheerful but at the same time a laborious office that Amrei
had undertaken ; especially it often seemed hard to her that she could
do nothing to attach the creatures to her; indeed, they were hardly to be
distinguished from one another. And it was not a bad remark that Black
Marianne made to her one day, when she came home out of the Mosswell
Wood, and said,
“Those animals that live in herds are always stupid if you take them
separately.”
“And I think so too,” observed Amrei. “The geese are stupid because
they know too many different things. They can swim, and run, and fly;
but they are not properly at home in the air, or on the land, or in the
water. That's what makes them stupid.”
“I maintain,” declared Marianne, “that there's the making of an old
hermit in you.” *-, s
In truth there was developed in Amrei a strange hermit-like propensity
to dream, oddly interwoven with all kinds of bright life-schemes, as in all
her dreams and musings she would go on knitting industriously, and never
drop a stitch ; and, as here at the corner by the wild pear tree, the intoxi-
cating nightshade and the refreshing strawberry grew so close beside each
other that they seemed almost to spring from the same root, so were clear
insight into the future and dreamy contemplation near to each other in the
soul of the child.
The Holderwasen was not one of those lonely sequestered spots which
the world of fiction seems to seek out for its gleaming glittering legends.
Through the midst of the Holderwasen ran a field-road to Endringen, and
not far from it stood the particoloured barrier-posts, with the coats of arms
of two sovereign princes whose dominions adjoined each other here. With
country carts and chaises of all kinds the peasants used to drive past, and
men, women, and girls went to and fro, with hoe and scythe and sickle.
The gardes-champêtres of the two dominions used also often to pass by,
their bright musket-barrels glittering to herald their approach, and gleaming
long after they had passed. Amrei was almost always accosted by the
garde-champêtre of Endringen when she sat by the way-side, and often he
made inquiries of her as to whether this or that person had come by; but
she could never give the required information; or perhaps she concealed
what she knew from him, with the instinctive aversion the people, and
especially the village children, have for his class, whom they invariably look
upon as well-armed enemies of the human race, going to and fro seeking
whom they may devour. -
42
On the Village Goose-Green, the “Aſolderwasem.”
Theisles. Manz, who used to sit here by the road-side breaking stones,
hardly spoke a word to Amrei : he would go sulkily from stone-heap to
stone-heap, and his knocking was almost more incessant than the tapping
º%
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º
\--> *
- fºr:*
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ºr r- /
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ºf
ãº
Amrei often felt herselſ carried away into the world of dreams.
of the woodpecker in the Mosswell Wood, and seemed akin to the piping
and chirping of the grasshoppers in the neighbouring meadows and clover-
fields.
But in the midst of all this human activity, Amrei often felt herself

* - 43 6— 2
Little Barefoot.
carried away into the world of dreams. As the larks in the air sing and
rejoice, and ask not where is the boundary of this man's or of that man's
field, as they soar up across the boundary-marks of countries, so the soul
of the child forgot the bounds that hem in the narrow circle of real life.
What is habitual becomes strange, and what is wonderful seems to be a
thing of every day. Hark, how the cuckoo is calling ! That is the living
echo of the woods, that calls and replies to itself, and now the bird is sit-
ting above you in the wild pear tree; but you must not look up, or he will
fly away. How loudly he cries, and how indefatigably! How far it sounds—
to what a distance one can hear it ! The little bird has a clearer voice than
a man. Go, sit on the tree, and imitate his cry, and you will not be heard so
far as the bird, that is not greater than your hand. Silence —perhaps, after
all, he is an enchanted prince, who suddenly will begin to speak. Yes, give
me a riddle to guess : let me consider. I will find the answer, and then
I shall set you free, and we will go together into your golden castle, and
take Black Marianne and Damie with us; and Damie shall marry the
princess your sister; and we will let Marianne cause her John to be sought
for throughout the whole world, and whoever finds him shall have a kingdom
for his reward. Oh, why is it not all true 2 And why have we thought
out all this, if it is not true 2 k
While Amrei's thoughts thus soared away beyond all bounds, the geese
also felt themselves unfettered, and enjoyed themselves in the neighbouring
clover-fields, or even among the barley and oat crops. Waking from her
dreams, Amrei would then, with much labour, drive the geese back again ;
and when these freebooters had come home to their regiment, they had a
great deal to tell about the promised land in which they had been regaling
themselves. There was no end of gabbling and chattering; and long after-
wards a goose would here and there sleepily repeat some word of deep
meaning to herself, and here and there one would put her head under her
wing, and begin dreaming. &
And again Amrei would be borne upward. “See yonder the birds
are flying : no bird in the air stumbles, not even the swallow in her darting
flight; always firm and always free. Oh, if I could only fly How beau-
tiful must the earth appear from up yonder, where the lark is Hurrah !
ever upward and upward, and farther and farther I shall fly abroad
through the wide world to Farmer Landfried's wife, and see how she does,
and ask if she still thinks of me.”
“Dost think of me in the distant land P’’ suddenly sang Amrei, as a
result of all this thinking, and soaring, and dreaming. And her breath,
that had come quicker at the thought of flight, as though she were already
Soaring in the upper air, now became quiet and calm.
But not always do the cheeks glow in waking dreams—not always does
the sun shine bright on the opening blossoms and the waving corn. Even
in the spring came those raw cold days, in which the blossoming trees stand
44
7%eisles Manz has posted himself farther down, by the red painted crucifix.
like shivering strangers, for days together the sun is hardly seen, and a
sharp frosty feeling pervades nature, only broken now and then by the rising
of a gust of wind, that sweeps the blossoms from the trees and carries them
away. The lark alone still rejoices in the air, probably above the clouds,
and the finch utters his plaintive chirp from the wild pear tree against
whose stem Amrei is leaning. Theisles Manz has posted himself farther
down, by the red painted crucifix under the linden tree; the hail rattles
down in sweeping showers, and the geese stand with their beaks stretched

45
Zittle Barefoot.
up, to prevent, it is said, their soft skulls from being broken by the hail-
stones; but yonder, behind Endringen, it is already bright again, and the
Sun Soon breaks out, and the mountains, the woods, the fields, everything
looks like a human face that has wept out its fear, and now stands beaming
with joy. The birds in the air and in the trees are rejoicing, and the geese
that have been cowering together in the shower, and stretched up their
beaks in wonder, venture to separate again, and graze and gabble, and talk
over the past occurrence with the young downy brood that has never
before witnessed anything of the kind.
Directly after Amrei had been surprised by the first storm, she had
provided for future contingencies. She always carried with her an empty
corn-sack, which she had inherited from her father, when she went out to
the pasture. Two crossed axes, with her father's name, were still plainly
to be seen painted upon the sack; and when storms came she would cover
herself with the sack, almost wrapping herself in it : there she sat under a
protecting canopy, and looked up at the strange, wild conflict in the sky.
A cold shudder, that gave place to despondency, often began to take pos-
session of Amrei. She was often ready to weep over her destiny, that had
thus thrust her forth alone, forsaken by father and mother; but she early
acquired an art and a power difficult to acquire and to practise—to swallow
down her tears. That makes the eyes fresh and clear, and doubly bright
in all misfortune, and helps us out of it.
Amrei especially conquered her despondency by thinking of a proverb
of Black Marianne's, that ran thus: “Whoever doesn't want his hands to
freeze, must double up his fists.” Amrei did this, morally and physically :
she looked defiantly out into the world, and cheerfulness soon overspread
her face; she rejoiced in the splendid lightning, and imitated the thunder
to herself, in a low voice. The geese, who had gathered themselves
together again, looked astonished; but they are well off. All the clothes
they need grow on their bodies, and for that which has been plucked from
them in spring, there's some more already; and now that the storm is over,
everything rejoices again in the air and on the trees, and the geese enjoy a
rare feast; they are crowding together, and tugging at snails and frogs
that have ventured forth.
Of the manifold thoughts that dwelt in Amrei, Black Marianne alone
had an inkling now and then, when, returning from the forest, she put down
her load of wood and her bag of collected cockchafers and worms beside
the goose-girl. Then Amrei said one day,
“Auntie, do you know why the wind blows P”
“No ; do you ?”
“Yes, I have found it out. You see, everything that grows must bestir
itself. The bird yonder flies, and the beetle creeps, the hare, the stag, the
horse, and all the beasts run, and the fish swims, and the frog too; and
there stand the tree, and the corn, and the grass, and they cannot go away,
46
On the Village Goose-Green, the “Holderwasem.”
Jº.
and yet are to stir themselves; and so the wind comes, and says, “Just
you stand still, and I will stir you, thus. Do you see how I turn you, and
twist, and bend, and shake you ? Be glad that I come ; otherwise you
would get mouldy, and would never come to anything. It's good for you
if I make you tired : you will feel it.’”
Black Marianne used in general to make only one reply to such speeches
as these; and that was her usual one :
“I declare that in you there's the soul of an old hermit.”
Only once Marianne turned the quiet meditations of Amrei into a new
channel.
The quail was already piping in the high-growing rye-field, and near
Amrei a field-lark sang on the ground nearly a whole day long, hopping
to and fro, and singing so heartily, that it seemed like breathing the very
joy of life. That sounded much more sweet than even the song of the
sky-lark, that soars in the air; and often the bird came quite close to Amrei,
and she said to herself, almost aloud,
“Why can I not tell you that I will do you no harm 2 Stay here !”
But the bird was shy, and always hid itself again. And Amrei considered
quickly, and said to herself, “It’s well, though, that birds are shy, or one
could not drive away the thievish sparrows.”
When Marianne came at noon, Amrei said,
“I should like to know what such a bird has to say the whole day long,
for he's never done talking.”
To this Marianne replied,
“Look you, such a little creature cannot keep anything to itself, and talk
to itself quietly; but in mankind there's always something talking within,
that never leaves off, but does not grow loud : there are thoughts that sing,
laugh, and speak, but quite quietly, so that one can hardly hear it oneself;
but when a bird like that has finished singing, he has no more to say, and
either eats or goes to sleep.”
When Black Marianne moved away with her load of wood, Amrei looked
after her with a smile. “She is a bird that sings quietly,” she said ; and
nobody but the sun saw how the child sat for a long time smiling to herself.
Thus, day after day, Amrei lived on. For hours she would sit dreamily
watching how the shadows of the twigs of the wild pear tree, as the boughs
moved by the wind, flitted on the ground, so that the dark points seemed
to creep to and fro like ants, and then she would gaze at a bank of clouds
shining motionless in the sky, or at the rushing, driving clouds that seemed
to push one another on. And, as in the wide space without, so in the mind
of the child all kinds of cloudy pictures melted together, standing motion-
less, or hurrying after one another, rising up and melting away, and taking
their being and substance only from the passing moment. But who knows
how the cloudy creations in the sky and in the mind arise, and to what
they may change 2
47
Little Barefoot.
§-
When the spring comes upon the earth, you cannot comprehend all the
thousandfold wakening and sprouting on the land, all the mingling and
rejoicing in the trees and in the air. Fix one single lark with your eye,
and it soars aloft, and for awhile you can see how its wings quiver; then
for awhile you can still distinguish it as a black point, but then it is gone :
you can only hear a singing, and you know not whence it comes. And if
you could listen only to a single lark in the wide space for a whole day
long, you would hear that it sings quite differently in the morning, at noon,
and in the evening; and if you could follow it from the first faint carol of
spring, you would hear what entirely different tones it mingles in its song
in spring, summer, and autumn. And already a new brood of larks is
singing over the first stubble-fields.
And when Spring begins to bloom in a human soul, when the whole
world is opened before it and within it, you cannot grasp and hold fast
the thousand voices that surround it, the thousand buds that arise on its
soil, and its continual progress. You Only know that it is singing and that
it is budding.
And how quiet life is then, like that of a plant that has taken root.
There is the meadow hedge by the wild pear tree, where the sloes blossom
early, and seldom get ripe. And what a beautiful blossom there is on
this tree, and already little pears have come and are turning red, and the
poisonous nightshade also is beginning to turn black. Then come those
bright ripe harvest days, when the sky is of such a cloudless blue that one
can see the moon, as it increases and then decreases, all day long, like a
little rounded cloud in the heavens. Out in the fields, and in the mind of
man, it’s like holding one's breath quietly, before reading a soul.
What a busy life there was soon, on the road that led through the
Holderwasen The empty waggons drove rattling past; and in some sat
women and children, laughing, and well shaken by the movement of the
waggon and by their own merriment; and then the laden wains wended
slowly homewards, creaking at intervals, with the male and female reapers
walking beside them.
Amrei had hardly more benefit from the rich harvest than her geese,
who sometimes crowded up in a forward and bold manner to the waggons,
and plucked a full ear that hung down.
When the first stubble-field lies bare in the broad landscape, then, in
spite of the joyful season, a certain feeling of sorrow comes upon the human
mind. Expectation has ripened into fulfilment, and where everything stood
waving in fulness it is now empty and bare. The times are changing;
summer is on the decline.
The spring on the Holderwasen, in whose flowing water the geese used
to disport themselves merrily, had the best water in the whole neighbour-
hood; and the passers-by seldom failed to drink at the broad spout, while
their horses tramped on ; and then they would run after them, calling out
48
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Little Barefoot.
and wiping their mouths. Others used to water their horses here as they
came home from the fields.
Amrei gained the favour of many people by a little earthen pitcher she
had begged from Black Marianne; and as often as a passer-by paused at
the well, Amrei would come forward and say,
“Here, you can drink better from this.”
When the pitcher was returned, many a friendly glance rested, for a
longer or a shorter time, upon her; and that pleased her so well that she
used to be almost angry when people went by without drinking. She would
then stand with her earthen pitcher by the well, and fill it, and pour the
water out; and if all these invitations were of no avail, she would surprise
the geese with an unexpected bath, and give them a good wetting.
One day, a little Bernese waggon, drawn by two handsome greys, came
rattling along; a broad upland farmer almost filled out the seat that was
made for two. He stopped by the road-side and asked,
“Girlie, have you nothing one can drink out of P”
“Yes, certainly; I'll get it you.”
And Amrei briskly brought her pitcher filled with water.
“Ah !” said the farmer, stopping to take breath after drinking a long
draught; and with his mouth streaming, he continued, speaking half into
the jug : “There's no water like this in all the world, after all.”
He took up the jug again, and made a sign to Amrei that she was to be
quiet, for he had begun to drink thirstily again; and it is especially dis-
agreeable to be addressed while you are drinking : you finish your draught
in a hurry, and feel an oppression afterwards.
The child seemed to understand that; for not until the farmer had given
back the jug, did she say,
“Yes, the water is good and wholesome; and if you like to water your
horses, it's rare and good for them : they won't get the cramp.”
“My horses are warm, and must not drink now. Do you belong to
Haldenbrunn, my girl P”
“Of course I do.”
“And what's your name P”
“Amrei.”
“And to whom do you belong P”
“To nobody now. My father was Josenhans.”
“What! Josenhans who served at Farmer Rodel's P”
“Yes.”
“I knew him well. It was hard that he died so soon. Wait, child, I'll'
give you something.” He brought a great leather bag out of his pocket,”
groped in it a long time, and said at last, “There, take this 1"
“I don't want anything—no, thank you, I'll take nothing.”
“Take it : you can take it from me. Is Farmer Rodel your guardian P”
“Yes.”
50
On the Village Goose-Green, the “Holderwasen."
... -----------
“He might have done something cleverer than make a goose-girl of you.
God keep you.” tº º
Away rolled the waggon, and Amrei stood with a coin in her hand.
“‘You can take it from me.' . . . Who is the man who said that,
and why does he not make himself known 2 Why, that's a groschen, there's
a bird upon it. Well, it won't make him poor, nor me rich."
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A mrei brisk/y brough/ Aer Aiſcher filled with water.
That whole day Amrei did not offer her pitcher to any one else. She
was greatly afraid of having something else given to her.
When she got home in the evening, Black Marianne told her that Farmer
Rodel had sent for her, and that she was to go over to him directly
Amrei hastened to his house; and, as she went in, Farmer Rodel called
to her,
“What have you been saying to Farmer Landfried ?”
“I don't know any Farmer Landfried.”
“He was with you at the Holderwasen to-day, and gave you something.”
“I did not know who it was, and here's his money still.”
“I’ve nothing to do with that. Now, say openly and honestly, you





51 - 7—2
Little Barefoot.
tiresome child, did I persuade you to be goose-keeper ? And, if you don't
give it up this very day, I'm no guardian of yours. I won't have such
things said of me.” -
“I’ll let everybody know that it's no fault of yours; but to give up the
service is what I can't do. For this summer, at least, I must keep to it.
I must finish what I have begun.” - …”
“You’re a cross-grained shrub,” said the farmer, and walked out of the
room; but his wife, who was lying ill in bed, called out, g
“You’re quite right: stay as you are. I prophesy that it will go well
with you. Even in a hundred years they will say in this village of one who
has done well, “He has the fortune of Brose's Severin and of Josenhans's
Amrei.’ Your dry bread will fall into the honey-pot yet.”
The sick wife of Farmer Rodel was looked upon as crazy; and seized
with dread as if at a spectre, Amrei hurried away without a word of reply.
Amrei told Black Marianne that a wonder had happened to her. Farmer
Landfried, of whose wife she thought so often, had spoken to her, had
taken her part with Farmer Rodel, and had given her something. And
she showed the piece of money. Then Marianne called out, laughing,
“Yes, I might have guessed, myself, that it was Farmer Landfried.
That's just like him —gives the poor child a bad groschen.” *
“Why is it bad P” asked Amrei; and the tears came into her eyes.
“Why, that's a bird groschen : they're not counted full value, and that's
only worth a kreutzer and a half.”
“He only intended to give me a kreutzer and a half,” said Amrei,
decidedly. And here, for the first time, an inward contrast showed itself
between Amrei and Black Marianne. The latter almost rejoiced at every
bad thing she heard about people, whereas Amrei put a good construction
on everything. She was always cheerful, and however much she lost her-
self in solitary dreams, she never expected anything; and so, everything
that she received was a surprise to her, and she was always thankful for it.
“He intended to give me just a kreutzer and a half, and no more; and
that is enough, and I am content.” She repeated that obstinately to herself
many times, as she sat alone eating her soup, just as if she were speaking
to Marianne, who was not in the room at all, but was now milking her goat.
That very night Amrei sewed two patches of cloth together, put the
groschen between them, and hung it like an amulet round her neck, and
hid it in her bosom. It seemed as if the bird stamped on the coin were
awakening all kinds of feelings in the heart on which he rested; for, full .
of inward rejoicing, Amrei sang and hummed all kinds of songs, all day
long, from morning till evening. And while she did so, she always thought
of Farmer Landfried. For now she knew the farmer and his wife too, and
had a remembrance from each of them; and it always seemed to her as if
she were only to be left here a short time longer, and then the little Bernese
waggon would come with the two sº horses, and the farmer and his wife
On the Village Goose-Green, the “Aolderwasen.”
would be sitting inside, and would come to fetch her, and would say,
“You are our child.” For certainly the farmer would tell at home about
his having met her.
Often she looked thoughtfully up at the autumn sky, it was so bright, so
cloudless; and on the earth, the meadows are still so green, and the hemp
is spread out to dry like a fine net; the meadow-saffron peers forth from the
ground, and above the ravens are flying, and their black plumage shines
in the sunlight. Not a breath of air is blowing; the cows are feeding in
the stubble-fields; there's singing and cracking of whips in all the country
round, and the wild pear tree rustles in itself, and showers down its leaves.
Autumn has come.
So often as Amrei now returned in the evening, she looked inquiringly
at Black Marianne, expecting the latter would say that Farmer Landfried
had sent to fetch her; it was with a heavy heart that she drove the geese
into the stubble-fields that were so far from the road, and she always turned
again towards the Holderwasen. But already the hedges stood bare, the
larks hardly even twittered now in their low heavy flight, and still there
came no news; and Amrei felt a deep dread of the winter, fearing it as she
would a prison. However, she consoled herself with the pay she now
received, and which was certainly handsome. None of her subjects had
fallen; there was not so much as a wing injured among them. Black
Marianne not only sold the feathers which Amrei had collected, for a good
price, but also instructed Amrei not to receive the piece of Allhallows'
cake that used to be given according to universal custom, besides the fee
for every goose she had kept, but to have this cake changed for bread;
and thus they had enough bread for nearly the whole winter—rather stale
bread, certainly; but as Black Marianne said, Amrei had a set of sound
mouse's teeth, with which she could nibble anything.
When the sound of threshing was heard all through the village, Amrei
said one day,
“All through the summer, the corn in the fields hears nothing but the
song of the lark; and now the people beat him on the head with a flail :
that sounds differently.” *
“There's the making of an old hermit in you !” was again the remark
of Black Marianne.
&a
.* C H A P T E R V I.
\\ sº THE “O WN-BAA ER.”
º : y Nº w
ºs // AN Sºn
- - % Nºë º ë º
| º §§ WOMAN who leads a solitary life, and bakes her bread
|||}/ / /º/º NT Nº. e &
Zºº, § A for herself quite alone, is called an “own-baker;” and
Z//sº N \ § -: o * , " . . .
%gº N such an one, as a rule, has all kinds of peculiarities.
|\ |\ \ No one had more right and more inclination to be an
* \\ “own-baker” than Black Marianne, though she had
never anything to roast; for Oatmeal porridge and potatoes, and potatoes
and Oatmeal porridge, were her only provisions. She always lived apart,
for herself, and did not like to associate with people. Only towards autumn
she used to be full of restless impatience : about that season she would talk
much to herself, and often accosted people of her own accord, especially
strangers who passed through the village; for she was making inquiries
whether the bricklayers from this place or that had yet returned to their
winter quarters, and whether they had not brought news of her John.
When she once more boiled and washed the linen she had bleached during
the summer, for which purpose she remained up all night, she always kept
muttering to herself. No one could understand exactly what she said, but
the burden of it was intelligible, for it was always, “That is for me, and
that is for thee;” for she was in the habit of saying twelve Paternosters
daily for her John ; but on this washing night they became innumerable.
And when the first snow fell, she was always especially cheerful; for now
there would be no more work in the open air, and now he would certainly
come home. At those times she would often talk to a white hen she had
in a coop, and tell her that she would have to be killed when John came.
She had repeated these proceedings for many years, and the people
never left off telling her that it was foolish to be thus continually thinking
of the return of her John ; but she was not to be moved, and so the people
took a dislike to her.
This autumn it would be eighteen years since John had gone away, and
every year John Michael Winkler was gazetted in the paper as missing,
which would be done till his fiftieth year. He was now in his thirty-sixth.
In the village, the story went that John had gone among the gipsies;
and once, indeed, his mother had mistaken a young gipsy for him--a gipsy
who was a striking likeness of the missing man, for he was under-sized,
like him, and had the same dark compºsion and seemed rather pleased at
- 5






7%e “Ozyn-A'aéer.”
*-*-* ===== <= ---as-s-s-s-s-s-s
being taken for John. But the mother had put him to the proof, for she
had still John's hymn book and his confirmation verse; and whereas the
Stranger did not know this verse, and could not tell who were his sponsors,
or what had happened to him on the day when Brose's Severin arrived
with his English wife, and when the new well was dug at the council-
house,_whereas he did not know these and other tokens, he could not
be the right man. And yet Marianne used
to give the gipsy a lodging whenever he
- - , . . . ; came to the village, and the children used
to cry “John " after him in the streets.
John was advertised as being liable to
military duty and as a deserter; and though
his mother declared that he would have
slipped through under the measuring-stick
as “too short,” she knew that at his return
he would not escape punishment, and con-
sidered that this was the reason why he did
not return ; and it was very strange to hear
how, in the same breath, she would pray for
the welfare of her son and the death of the
i
#-
-s
f
º
ºsº|
Žº
ºrſ.º. reigning prince; for she had been told that
ºnmºnº when the sovereign died, the successor to
º
|ſ,
ºl,
º
the throne would proclaim a general am-
nesty for all past offences.
Every year Marianne used to get the
º
3, #.
\
i' . . . A
) º schoolmaster to give her the leaf of the
Ş l newspaper in which John was advertised
; § for; and she always put it by his hymn-
‘S’(,), book. But this year it was a good thing
that Marianne could not read, and the
-: *. schoolmaster sent her another leaf instead
of the one she wanted. For a strange whisper went through the whole
village. Wherever two people met, they were talking of something, and
said, “Black Marianne must not be told anything about it. It would kill
her. It would drive her crazy.” For a report had come from the Am-
bassador in Paris, that had passed through a number of higher and lower
officers till it reached the parish authorities. It was a report stating that,
according to a communication received from Algiers, John Winkler of
Haldenbrunn had perished in that colony, in an outpost engagement.
There was much talk in the village of the strangeness of the fact that
so many high departments should have taken so much trouble about the
dead John. But this stream of well-directed information was arrested
before it had come to the end of its course. At a meeting of the parish
overseers, it was determined that nothing at all should be said to Black











55
Zittle Barefºot.
Marianne about it. It would be wrong, they said, to embitter the las
few years of her life, by taking her one comfort away from her. -
But instead of keeping the report secret, the first thing the overseers
did was to talk of it in their homes; and now the whole village knew about
it, except only Black Marianne. Every one looked at her with strange
glances; every one was afraid of betraying the secret to her; and no one
addressed her, and her greetings were scarcely returned. It was only the
peculiar disposition of Marianne that prevented her from noticing this. .
And if, indeed, any one spoke to her, and was drawn in to say anything
about John's death, it was done in the conjectural and soothing way to
which she had been used for years; and Marianne did not believe it any
more than formerly, because nobody said anything about the certificate of
decease.
It would have been better if Amrei had known nothing about it; but
there was a strange seductive charm in getting as close as possible to a
subject that was forbidden ; and accordingly every one spoke to Amrei of
the mournful event, warned her not to tell Black Marianne anything about
it, and asked if the mother had had no presentiments or dreams of her son's
death—if his spirit did not haunt the house. Amrei was always trembling
and quaking in secret. She alone was always near Black Marianne, and
it was terrible to have something she was obliged to conceal from her.
Even the people in whose house Black Marianne rented a small room
could not bear any longer to have her near them; and they showed their
sympathy, in the first instance, by giving her notice to quit. But how
strangely things are associated in life Through this very thing Amrei
experienced joy as well as grief, for her parents' house was opened to her
again. Black Marianne went to live there; and Amrei, who at first used
to go to and fro in it in an awe-struck way, and always thought when she
made a fire or carried water, that now her father and mother must come,
afterwards felt quite at home in it. She span day and night, till she had
earned enough to buy back from Coaly Matthew the cuckoo-clock that had
belonged to her parents. Now, at any rate, she had a piece of furniture of
her own. But the cuckoo had fared badly among strangers : he had lost
half of his voice, and the other half seemed to stick in his throat; he could
only cry “coock"—and as often as he did that Amrei almost involuntarily
added the missing “koo.” t
When Amrei complained that the cuckoo-clock had only half its voice,
and altogether was not so beautiful as it had been in her early childhood,
Marianne said, -
“Who knows how it would be, if one could have back, in later years,
what had made one quite happy in one's childhood P I fancy it would have
only half its sound, like your cuckoo-clock. If I could only teach it you,
child ! It cost me much, myself, to learn it. Never wish back anything of
yesterday ! But one cannot teach such a thing as that : one can only get
56 Q
*
* ©
The “Own-Baker.”
that by half a pint of heart-drops and half a pint of tears well mixed
together. That can't be bought at any chemist's. Don't fasten yourself
to anything, to any person, or to any place, and then you can fly.”
Black Marianne's speeches were wild and shy, and they only came out
in the twilight, like the wild animals in the forest. Amrei had some diffi-
culty in growing accustomed to her. -
Black Marianne could not bear the cuckoo cry, and hung up the striking-
weight to the clock, saying she had always the clock in her head, and it
was wonderful how true this was. At any minute she could tell the time,
though it was of very little consequence to her; but there was an especial
excitement about this waiting, expectant woman; and as she was always
listening to hear her son come, she was especially wakeful; and though
she visited nobody in the village, and spoke to none, she knew all, even
the most secret things that went on in the place. She could guess many
things from the manner in which people met each other, and from words
she caught up here and there. And because this seemed wonderful, she
was feared and avoided. She used often to describe herself, by a local
expression, as an “ageing" woman, and yet she was exceedingly active.
Every day, all the year round, she ate a few juniper berries, and people
said that was the reason she was so vigorous and showed her sixty-six
years so little. The fact that the two sixes stood together, to mark her
age, caused her, according to an old country saying,” which, however, was
not universally believed in, to be regarded as a witch. It was reported
that she sometimes milked her black goat for hours together, and that this
goat gave an astonishing quantity of milk; but that Marianne, in milking
this goat, was really drawing the milk out of the udders of the cows that
belonged to persons she hated, and that she had an especial grudge against
Farmer Rodel's cattle. And Marianne's successful poultry-keeping was
also looked upon as witchcraft; for where could she get the food from, and
how was it she had always chickens and eggs to sell ? It is true she was
often seen in summer collecting cockchafers, grasshoppers, and all kinds of
worms, and in moonless nights she was seen gliding like a will-o'-the-wisp
among the graves; she carried a bit of burning wood, and collected the
great black worms that crept out, and muttered all kinds of things to her-
self. It was even said that in the quiet winter nights she held wonderful
conversations with her goat and with her fowls, who had their winter
quarters in her room. The whole budget of tales of witches and sorcerers,
partly laid to sleep by School education, woke up again, and attached itself
to Black Marianne.
Amrei sometimes felt afraid in the long silent winter nights, when she
sat spinning by Black Marianne, and nothing was heard but now and then
the sleepy clucking of the fowls and a dreamy bleat from the goat; and
* This old country saying is founded on the similarity in sound between sechse (six) and here (witch).
º
*57 8
Little Barefoot.
it really seemed magical how quickly Marianne span. She even once said,
“I think my John is helping me to spin;" and then, again, she complained
that this winter, for the first time, she could not think wholly and solely
of her John. She took herself to task for it, and called herself a bad
mother, and complained that she always felt as if the features of her John
were gradually vanishing, -as if she were forgetting what he had done at
such and such a time, how he had laughed, sang, and wept, and how he
had climbed the tree and jumped into the ditch.
She was seen gliding like a will-o'-the-wisp among the graves.
“It would be terrible,” she said, “if that could pass away from one's
memory, so that one remembered nothing clearly about it.” And then,
with a visible effort, she would tell Amrei all about her John, to the
minutest detail, and Amrei felt a kind of shudder at being thus compelled
continually to hear a dead man spoken of, as if he were still alive. And
then again, Marianne would exclaim,
“It’s quite a sin that I can't weep any more for my John. I once heard
that one can weep for a lost one so long as he is alive, and, after that, until
his body is decayed : when he has become dust, then there's an end of
weeping. No, that cannot be—that must not be My John cannot be
dead | Thou must not do that to me, Thou that dwellest above, or I shall
throw down this wretched life all at once There, there, in front of my
door, sits Death—there is the pond, and there I can drown myself like a

º 58
7%e “Ozome-A’aéer.”
blind dog; and that I shall do if Thou dost that to me ! But, no—pardon
me, gracious God, that I dash myself against the wall in this fashion; but
oh do Thou open a door for me, and let my John come in Oh, what
joy that will be –Come and sit down here, John. Don't tell me anything
—I don't want to hear anything : you are here, and now everything is
well. The long, long years have been but a moment. What care I where
you have been wandering 2 Where you have been, I have not been ; and
now you are here, and I will not let you out of my hand till my hand is
cold in death ! Oh, Amrei –and my John must wait till you are grown
up ! I say nothing more. Why don't you say something P”
Amrei felt a choking sensation in her throat. It always seemed to her
as if the spectre of the dead man were standing there; and the secret was
in her keeping, and she had but to speak, and the roof would fall in and
bury everything.
But, sometimes, Marianne was talkative in another way, though every-
thing rested on the same foundation—the memory of her son. And here
the ordering of things seemed to involve a difficult question.
“Why,” thought Amrei, “should a child be dead here, for which the
mother is waiting, trembling, yearning with her whole soul, and I and
Damie are lost children, and would so gladly grasp a mother's hand and
that hand lies mouldering in dust?
That was a dark, dismal region, to which the thoughts of the poor child
were carried; and she knew no other escape from the confusion than the
expedient of repeating her multiplication table to herself.
Especially on Saturday evenings Black Marianne was fond of talking.
Following an old superstition, she never span on a Saturday evening, but
always knitted; and when she had a story to tell, she used first to unroll a
long piece of her ball of thread, so as not to be interrupted, and then she
would talk away as she knitted on without interruption.
“Oh, child,” she often concluded, “remember something I shall tell you
—for, indeed, you are cut out for a hermit : whoever wants to live right
on, Ought to be quite alone, and care for nobody, and want nóthing of any-
body. Do you know who is rich 2 He who wants nothing but what he
can get for himself. And who is poor P He who is waiting for something
that's to come to him from without. There he may sit waiting for his
hands that are on another man's body, or for his eyes that are in some one
else's head. Keep alone, by yourself; and then you have your hands
always with you, and you need no others, and you can always help yourself.
Whoever waits for what is to come to him from another is a beggar : only
hope for something from Fortune, from a brother, even from God Himself,
and you are a beggar—standing there and holding out your hand, that
somebody may put something into it. Stay alone : that is the best, and
then you have everything in one. Alone !—what a good thing it is to be
alone ! Look you deep in the ant-hill : there lies a little glittering stone;
59 8—2
Little Barefoot. -,
and whoever finds that, can make himself invisible, and nobody can do any-
thing to him; but the ants creep and swarm about, and who can find it 2
And there is a secret in the world, but who can understand it 2 Take it
to yourself, and keep it. There's no such thing as fortune and misfortune.
Every one can make anything he chooses of himself, if he knows himself
rightly, and other people too; but only on one condition : he must remain
alone—alone—alone, or else it is no use !”
Out of her deepest soul Marianne gave the child some more dark words.
The child could not understand them; but who knows, even when a thing
is but half understood, how much remains fixed in the attentive listening
mind. And then Black Marianne would look wildly round her, and cry,
“G)h, if I could only be alone ! But I have given myself away, and one
piece of me is underground, and another piece is wandering about in the
world—who knows where 2 I wish I were the black goat yonder.”
However cheerfully and brightly Black Marianne might begin to speak,
the end of her speech always sank into gloomy complaint and mourning;
and she, who wanted to be alone, and to think of nothing, and to love
nothing, only lived to think about her son, and to love him.
Amrei took decisive measures to release herself from this painful position
of being alone with Black Marianne. She demanded that Damie should
be taken into the house; and as Marianne was vehemently opposed to it,
Amrei first threatened to leave the house herself, and then coaxed Mari-
anne in such a childish way, and was so careful to do whatever would please
her best, that the old woman gave in at last.
Damie, who had learnt from Crappy Zachy to knit wool, used now to sit
beneath the parental roof; and at night, when the brother and sister were
asleep in the garret, each of them used to wake the other when they heard
Black Marianne downstairs running to and fro and muttering to herself.
But through the domestication of Damie at Black Marianne's came
strife. Damie was particularly discontented at having been compelled to
learn a miserable trade that was only fit for a cripple. He wanted to be a
mason; and although Amrei was very much against it; for she predicted
that he would not keep to it, Black Marianne supported him in his scheme.
She would have liked to make all the young lads masons, and then to
have sent them out on their travels, that they might bring her news of her
ohn. *.
J Black Marianne seldom went to church, but she always liked any one
to borrow her hymn-book to take to church : it seemed to give her a kind
of pleasure that her hymn-book should be there; and she was especially
pleased when any strange journeyman, who was working in the village,
borrowed the hymn-book that John had left behind him, for the same
purpose: it seemed as if John himself were praying in his native church,
when the words were spoken and sung out of his book; and now Damie
had to go twice to church every Sunday with John's hymn-book.
60
The “Ozem-Baker.”
But though Marianne did not go to church herself, she was always to be
seen at every solemn ceremony in the village, or any of the places round
about. There was not a funeral at which Marianne did not attend as one
of the mourners; and at the funeral sermon, and the blessing spoken over
the grave even of a little child, she wept so violently, that one would have
thought she was the nearest relation; but on the way home she was always
especially cheerful. This weeping seemed a real relief to her. All the year
round she had to swallow down so much secret so, J w, hat she felt thankful
at being able to weep.
Could people be blamed if they thought her an uncanny person, espe-
cially as they had a secret on their lips from her ? The habit of avoiding
Black Marianne was partly extended to Amrei herself; and in several
houses, where the girl called to offer help or sympathy, she was made to
see distinctly enough that her presence was not wished for, especially as
she began to show an individuality of character that astonished the whole
village. Except on the coldest winter days, she used to go barefoot, and
people said she must know some secret method to prevent herself from
falling ill and dying. -
Only in the house of Farmer Rodel they were glad to have her, for the
farmer was her guardian ; and his wife, who had always taken her part,
and promised one day, when Amrei was older, she would take her into the
house, could not carry out this plan. She herself was taken by another.
Death came and took her. Generally the heaviness of life is felt in later
years, when one friend after another is called away, and only a name and
a memory of him remains; but it was Amrei's lot to experience this in
youth; and it was she and Black Marianne who wept more bitterly than
all the others at the burial of Farmer Rodel's wife.
Farmer Rodel was always complaining how hard it was that he would
have to give up the property so soon. Not one of his three children was
married yet. But hardly a year had passed, and Damie had begun to
work out his second spring in the quarry, when a double wedding was
celebrated in the village; for Farmer Rodel's eldest daughter and his only
son were to be married on the same day; and on this day he gave up the
property to his son; and at this double wedding it was fated that Amrei
should get a new name and be introduced into a new life.
In the space in front of the great dancing-floor the children were
assembled; and while the grown-up people danced and rejoiced within,
the children imitated them outside. But strange to say, no boy and no
girl would dance with Amrei : no one knew who had said it first, but a
voice was heard to call out, “No one will dance with you, you're Little
Barefoot l” and “Barefoot, Barefoot, Barefoot ” was re-echoed on all sides.
Amrei was ready to weep; but here she quickly made use of the power
with which she resisted jeering and insult; she pressed back her tears,
took her apron by the two ends, and danced by herself so gracefully and
- * * 61
Zittle Barefoot.
prettily, that all the children stopped to look at her. And soon the grown-
up people nodded to each other, and a circle was formed, of men and
women, round Amrei; and Farmer Rodel especially, who on this day had
comforted himself with double rations, snapped his fingers and whistled
the waltz the musicians within were playing, and Amrei danced on and
on, and seemed to know no weariness. When at last the music ceased,
Farmer Rodel took Amrei by the hand, and said,
“You clever girl, who taught you to do that so well ?”
“Nobody.”
“Why don't you dance with any one P”
“It’s better to do it alone; then one has not to wait for anybody, and
have one's partner always with one.”
“Have you had anything from the wedding yet P” asked Farmer Rodel,
smiling complacently.
“NO.” *
“Then come in, and eat,” said the proud farmer; and he led the poor
child in, and sat her down at the wedding table, at which feasting was
going on all day long. Amrei did not eat much. Farmer Rodel wanted
to make the child tipsy, for a jest; but she answered bravely, &
“If I drink more, I shall have to be led, and shall not be able to go
alone; and Marianne says, “alone' is the best conveyance, for then the
horses are always harnessed.”
All were astonished at the child's wisdom.
Young Farmer Rodel came with his wife, and asked the child, to tease
her,
“Have you brought us a wedding present 2 for if one eats so, one ought
to bring a wedding present.”
The father-in-law, moved by a most unheard-of impulse of generosity,
secretly put a sixpenny piece into the child's hand. But Amrei kept the
coin fast in her hand, nodded to the old man, and said to the young couple,
“I have the promise and an earnest of payment. Your deceased mother
always promised me that I should serve her, and that no one else should
be nurse to her first grandchild.”
“Yes, my deceased wife always wished it,” said the old farmer; and he
seconded the request. What he had refused to do for his wife while she
lived, for fear of having to provide for an orphan, he now did, when he
could no longer please her with it, to give himself the appearance before
the people, as if he did it out of respect for her memory. But even now
he did it not from kindness, but in the correct calculation that the orphan
would be serviceable to him, the deposed farmer, who was her guardian;
and the burden of her maintenance, which amounted to more than her
wages, would fall on others, and not on him. . . 2 ”
The young couple looked at one another, and the young farmer said,
“Bring your bundle to our house to-morrow. You can come to us.”
62 w -
7/he “Ozwn-ÆaÆer.”
“Very well,” said Amrei, “to-morrow I will bring my bundle; but now
I should like to take my bundle with me. Give me a little bottle of wine;
and this meat I will wrap up and take to Marianne and my Damie.”
They let Amrei have her way; but old Farmer Rodel said to her
secretly,
“Give me my sixpence again : I thought you were going to give it."
gº
º, A * S$s. * : * ~ *
2 * : * - * & sº N. - ... • *
\ .
_^ .* .* >
lº. sº - agº" -*. 2” *
Š3_º...?
- * ~ * *
f :
• ‘N--
*.* - ** ..
. .” ~~~~
* * *. - --- ---
2.4 y Z. 2, ºff ~--- * * *
Farmer Rodel wanted to make the child' /i/sy, for a fºst.
- s: - … " .
: r=2 …
* …'
“I’ll take it as handsel-money from you,” answered Amrei slyly; “ you
shall see, I will give you value for it.”
Farmer Rodel laughed half angrily to himself, and Amrei went away
to Black Marianne with money, wine, and meat.
The house was locked up ; and there was a great contrast between the
loud music and noise and feasting in the wedding house, and the silence
and solitude here. Amrei knew where she might wait for Marianne on
her way home, for the old woman almost always went to the stone quarry,
and sat there for a time behind the hedge, listening to the tapping of
chisel and mallet. It seemed to her like a melody, carrying her back to
the times when John used to work here too, and so she often sat there
listening to the tapping.

















63
Alittle Barefoot,
Sure enough Amrei found Black Marianne here, and half an hour before
the usual time she called Damie up out of the quarry; and here by the
rock a wedding feast was held, more merrily than yonder amid the noisy
music. Damie especially rejoiced aloud; and Marianne was cheerful too;
but she would not drink a drop of wine, for she declared that no wine
should moisten her lips until she drank it at her John's wedding. When
Amrei told, as they sat cheerfully together, how she had got a place at
young Farmer Rodel's, and was going there to-morrow, Black Marianne
started up in furious anger; and picking up a stone, and pressing it to her
bosom, she said,
“It would be better a thousand times, that I had this in me—a stone
like this—than a living heart. Why cannot I be alone P Why did I let
myself be led away to like anybody again P But now it's past for ever !
As I throw away this stone, so do I throw away all affection for any person
whatever. You false, faithless child ! Hardly can you shake your wings,
before you fly off. But it is well ! I am alone, and my John shall remain
alone too, when he comes; and what I wished to come to pass shall be as
nothing.”
And she ran off towards the village.
“She’s a witch, after all,” said Damie, when she had gone. “I won't
drink the wine : who knows if she has not bewitched it P”
“You can drink it; she is only a strict ‘own-baker.' I know how to
make her right again,” said Amrei consolingly.
*
CHAPTER VII.
TA/ E S /.S. T E R O AP M E R C V.
URING the next year there was plenty of life in
Farmer Rodel's house. “Barefoot,” for so Amrei was
now called, was handy in every way, and knew how to
make herself popular with every one : she could tell
the young farmer's wife, who had come to the place as
a stranger, what was the custom of the village; she
studied the habits and characters of those around her,
and learned to adapt herself to them; and she managed to do all sorts of
kindnesses to old Farmer Rodel, who grumbled all day long, and could not
get over his chagrin at having had to retire so early; and she told him
how good his daughter-in-law was, only that she did not know how to
show it. And when, after about a year, the first child came, Amrei showed
so much joy at the event, and was so handy in everything that had to be
done, that all in the house were full of her praise; but according to the
fashion of such people, they were more ready to scold her for any trifling
omission than to let this praise be known.
But Amrei did not expect much; and especially she knew so cleverly how
to carry the first little grandson to its grandfather, and how to take it away
again at the right moment, that it was a sight to behold. At the coming
of the child's first tooth that she was able to show the grandfather, old
Rodel said, -
“I will give you a sixpence, for the pleasure you have given me. But
remember, it is the one you stole from me at the wedding; now you can
keep it honestly.”
Meanwhile Black Marianne was not forgotten. It was certainly a heavy
piece of work to get right with her again. Marianne would have nothing
to say to Barefoot at first, and her new mistress would not allow her to go
to Marianne's, especially not with the child, as it was always feared that
the witch might do the babe a mischief. Great perseverance and patience
were required to overcome this opposition, but it was effected at last.
Indeed, little Barefoot brought matters to such a pass, that Farmer Rodel
several times paid a visit to Black Marianne; which was reported as a
wondrous event all through the village. These visits, however, were soon
discontinued ; for Marianne said once,
“I am nearly seventy years old, and have got on till now without the

65 9
Little Barefoot.
friendship of a yeoman farmer; and it's not worth while to alter that
now.” -
Naturally enough, Damie was often with his sister. But young Farmer
Rodel objected to this; alleging, not without reason, that he would have
to feed the big boy, for that in a house like his, one could not see whether
a servant did not give him all kinds of things. Therefore he forbade
ºl.
|||}
Hº W
§§
§§§
|
|
£specially she knew so cleverly how to carry the first little grandson to its grandfather.
Damie to come to the house, except on Saturday afternoons. Damie had,
however, already seen too much of the comfort of being in such a wealthy
farmer's house; his mouth watered for the flesh-pots, and he wanted to
be there, if only as a servant. The stone-chipping was such a hungry life.
Barefoot had many objections to make. She told him to remember that
he was already learning a second business, and ought to keep to it; that
it was a mistake to be always wanting to begin something new, and then
to suppose that one could be happy in that way; that one must be happy
in the place where one was, if one was to be ever happy at all. Damie

66
The Sister of Mercy.
allowed himself to be pacified for a time; and so great was already the
acknowledged influence of Little Barefoot, and so natural did it seem to
assume that she managed for her brother, that he was always called “Bare-
foot's Damie,” as if he were not her brother, but her son; and yet he was
a head taller than she, and did not act as if he were subordinate to her.
Indeed, he often declared his annoyance that he was not considered as
good as she, because he had not such a tongue in his head. His discontent
with himself and with his business he always in the first instance vented
on his sister. She bore it patiently; and because she showed in public
that she was obliged to give him his way, she gained more influence and
power through this publicity; for everybody said that it was very good of
Barefoot to do what she did for her brother; and she rose in public esti-
mation by letting him treat her thus unkindly, while she cared for him like
a mother. For she washed and darned for him at night so busily, that he
was one of the neatest boys in the village; and instead of taking two stout
pairs of shoes, which she received as part of her wages every half-year, she
paid something extra to the shoemaker to make two pair for Damie instead,
while she herself always went barefoot; and it was only on Sunday, when
she went to church, that she was seen wearing shoes at all.
Little Barefoot was exceedingly annoyed to find that Damie, though no
one knew why, had become the general butt of all the joking and teasing in
the village. She took him sharply to task for it, and told him he ought not
to allow it; but he retorted that she ought to speak to the people about it,
and not to him, for that he could not stand up against it—that was not to be
done. And, in fact, Damie was secretly not displeased to be teased every-
where. Sometimes, indeed, it hurt him when everybody laughed at him,
and boys much younger than himself took liberties with him ; but it
annoyed him a great deal more if people took no notice of him, and then
he would openly make a fool of himself, and expose himself to insult.
Barefoot, on the other hand, was certainly in some danger of developing
into the hermit Marianne had always professed to recognize in her. She
had attached herself to one single companion, the daughter of Coaly Mat-
thew; but this girl had been away for years, working in a factory in Alsace,
and nothing was heard of her. Barefoot lived so entirely apart, that she
was not reckoned at all among the young people of the village : she was
friendly and sociable with those of her own age, but her only real playmate
was Black Marianne. And just because Barefoot lived so much by her-
self, she had no influence upon the behaviour of Damie, who, however
much he might be teased and tormented, was always depending on the
company of others, and could never be alone like his sister.
But now Damie suddenly emancipated himself; and one fine Sunday he
exhibited to his sister the money he had received as an advance from
Scheckennarre, of Hirlingen, to whom he had hired himself as a farm
Servant.
67 9–2
Little Barefoot.
“If you had told me that,” said Barefoot, “I could have told you of a
better place. I would have given you a letter to the wife of Farmer Land-
fried, in Allgau; and there you would have been treated like a son of the
house.”
“Oh I don't talk to me about her,” said Damie, sulkily; “she has owed
me a pair of leather breeches for thirteen years, which she promised me.
Don't you remember 2—when we were little, and thought we had only to
knock, and mother and father would open the door. Don't talk to me of
Dame Landfried. Who knows whether she ever thinks of us, or indeed
if she’s alive still P” *
“Yes, she's alive. She's a relative of the house where I serve, and they
often speak of her. And all her children are married except one son, who
is to have the farm.”
“Now, you want to disgust me with my new place,” said Damie, com-
plainingly; “and you go and tell me I might have got a better one. Is
that right?” And his voice trembled.
“Oh I don't always be so soft-hearted,” said Barefoot. “Am I talking
away any of your good fortune 2 You always are ready to cry out, as if
the geese were biting you. And now I will only tell you one thing, and
that is, that you should hold fast to what you have, and take care to remain
where you are. It's no use to be like a cuckoo, sleeping on a different tree
every night. I could also get other places, but I won't, and I have brought
it so far that I am well off here. Look you, he who is every minute spring-
ing to another place will also be treated like a stranger : people know that,
perhaps, to-morrow he won't belong to the house, and so they don't make
him at home in it to-day.”
“I don't want your preaching,” said Damie ; and he was about to go
angrily away. “You are always scolding me, and towards everybody else
you are good natured.”
“That's because you are my brother,” answered Barefoot, laughing, and
smoothing down the angry boy.
In truth, a strange difference had developed itself between the brother
and sister. Damie had a certain begging propensity, and a kind of sudden
pride with it; while Barefoot was always good natured and yielding, but
was still supported by a certain self-respect, which she never failed to pre-
serve, with all her helpfulness.
She succeeded now in pacifying her brother, and she said,
“Look, I have an idea; but first you must be good tempered, for that
coat must not lie on an angry heart. Farmer Rodel has still our dear
father's clothes in his possession; you are tall now, and they will just fit
you, and that will give you a good appearance, if you come in such respect-
able clothes to the farm. Then your fellow-servants will see where you come
from, and what respectable parents you had.” * -
Damie saw that this was sensible; and, after many objections—for he
68
The Sister of Mercy.
did not want to give up the clothes so soon——Barefoot induced old Farmer
Rodel to hand over the garments to Damie ; and then Barefoot took him
up at once to her room, and he had to put on his father's coat and waistcoat
there and then. He objected; but when she had set her heart on a thing
it had to be done. Only the hat Damie could not be induced to put on ;
and when he had attired himself in the coat, she laid her hand on his
shoulder, and said,
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Tears fºll on the paternal coat that had been drawn to the day once more.
---
w
‘There, now you are my brother and my father; and now the coat goes
afield again, and there's a new man in it. Look, Damie, you’ve there the
finest coat of honour there can be in the world : hold it in honour, and be
as worthy and honest in it as our dear father was.”
She could say no more, but laid her head on her brother's shoulder; and
tears fell upon the paternal coat that had been drawn to the day once more.
‘You say I am soft-hearted,” said Damie, “and you are much worse
yourself.”
In truth, Barefoot was deeply moved by any event; but she was strong

69
Zittle Barefoot.
and elastic, like a child. It was with her as Marianne noticed when she
went to sleep for the first time in the old woman's house, waking and sleep-
ing, laughing and weeping, close by one another; she felt every occurrence
and every emotion strongly, but soon got over it and recovered her balance.
She went on weeping. * •
“You make one's heart so heavy,” said Damie, fretfully; “and it's hard
enough to have to go away from one's home, and live among strangers.
You ought rather to cheer me up, than to come so—so 5 y
“Honest remembrances are the most cheering,” replied Barefoot: “they
.don't make one heavy at all. But you are right: you have enough to carry;
and then a single pound put upon the load can weigh one down. I am
foolish, after all. But now, come, let us see what the sun says to it, when
father walks out in its light once more.—No, I didn't mean to say that.
Come, you must know yourself where we have still to go, and where you
ought to take leave; for if you are only going a couple of miles away, you
are still going away from the village, and then you ought to take leave
there. It's hard enough for me that I am not to have you with me any
longer—no, I mean that I am not to be with you any longer; for I don't
want to rule over you, as the people say I do. Yes, yes—old Marianne
was right: alone is a great word : one can't learn all that's included in it.
So long as you were living on the other side of the way—even if I did not
see you for a week together—it did not matter; for I could have you at
any moment, and that was as good as being together; but now—well, it's
not out of the world, after all . . . . But remember, and don't overlift
yourself, or hurt yourself in your work. And when any of your things are
torn, send them to me, and I'll mend them for you, and knit for you still.
And now, come, and we will go to the churchyard.” sº
Damie objected to this arrangement, under the plea that he felt the
parting heavy enough, and did not want to make it heavier. His sister
gave up the point. He took off his father's clothes again, and Barefoot
packed them in the sack which she had once worn as a cloak, in the days
when she kept the geese; this sack still bore her father's name upon it.
But she specially charged Damie to send her back the sack at the first
opportunity. e
The brother and sister went away together. A cart belonging to Hir-
lingen was passing through the village. Damie hailed it, and quickly
loaded his possessions on it. Then, hand in hand with his sister, he went
out of the village; and Barefoot sought to cheer him up by saying,
{ { R. you remember the riddle I asked you there by the oven P”
( & O.” *
{ { tººk : ‘What is the best about the oven P’”
( { O.”
“‘Of the oven, this is the best, 'tis said, that he doth never eat the bread.”
“Yes, you can be cheerful; you're going to stay at home.” &
70
The Sister of Mercy.
“But it was your own wish; and you can be cheerful too, if you only
wish strongly enough.”
In silence she walked on with her brother to the Holderwasen. There,
under the wild pear tree, she said,
“Here we will say good bye. God bless you ! and don't be afraid of
anything.”
They shook one another warmly by the hand, and then Damie walked
onward towards Hirlingen, and Barefoot turned back towards the village.
Not till she got to the foot of the hill, where Damie could not see her, did
she venture to lift up her apron and wipe away the tears that were running
down her cheeks; and she said, half aloud to herself,
“God forgive me for repeating those words about being alone! I thank
º for giving me a brother; and may he be spared to me so long as I
ive.”
She returned to the village: it seemed empty to her; and in the twilight,
while she was rocking Farmer Rodel's children to sleep, she could not bring
a song upon her lips, whereas usually she sang like a lark. She was always
thinking, Where was her brother now 2–what were they saying to him 2–
how was he being received 2 and yet she could not picture it to herself.
She would have liked to go and tell every one how good he was, and that
they ought all to be good to him; but she consoled herself with the thought
that nobody could manage altogether for another; and she hoped that it
would do him good if he had to get on for himself.
When it was already night, she went up into her room, washed herself
again, did her hair, and put on fresh clothes, as if it were morning; and
with this strange repetition of the day, she seemed to awake afresh.
When all were asleep, she went over once more to Black Marianne; and
without a light, she sat there for hours by her in the dark room. They
said, What a feeling it was to have some one out in the world, who was a
piece of oneself! Not until Marianne had fallen asleep did Barefoot creep
away. Even then she took the bucket, and brought water for Marianne,
and laid the wood on the hearth, heaped up in such a way that it only
required to be kindled next morning. And then, at last, she went home.
. . What is liberality that consists in giving money P A power that has
been put into our hands, and that we put out of them. What a different
thing it is to give the strength that is innate, a piece of one's life; and yet
more, when it is the only piece the giver has at his disposal
The hours of rest, the Sunday liberty that was given to Barefoot, she ,
offered to Black Marianne; and, in addition, bore to be found fault with
and scolded, when she had done anything against the customs of that
peculiar woman. It never occurred to her to think or to say, “How can
you scold and cavil at me, when I am making you such presents 2 " . She
was hardly aware that she was giving anything. Only on Sunday evenings,
when she sat with the lonely woman silently in front of the house, and had
- 71
Little Barefoot.
heard for the thousandth time what a smart lad John used to be on Sundays,
and when the young men and maidens walked through the village singing
all kinds of songs, then she became dimly conscious that she was sitting
here sacrificing her enjoyment; and in a low voice she would sing the
songs which were sung in company by those who walked past together.
But when she looked at Marianne she would pause, and think that after
all it was perhaps a good thing that Damie was no longer in the village.
He was no longer the butt of every one's jests; and when he should come
back, he would doubtless be a lad whom all would respect. .
In winter evenings, when they span and sang in the house of Farme
Rodel, Barefoot was allowed to join in ; and though she had a bright clear
voice, she still was content almost always to sing the second voice. Rose,
the still unmarried sister of Farmer Rodel, who was a year older than
Barefoot, always sang the first voice; and it was an understood thing that
Barefoot's voice must be at her service, as she herself was. This Rose,
who was a proud, snappish person, regarded and treated Barefoot as a beast
of burden in the house; though certainly not so much before people as in
secret. And just because Barefoot was famous in the whole village for
working hard in Farmer Rodel's household affairs, and keeping everything
in order, it was a constant practice with Rose to be always declaring how
much patience she was obliged to have with Barefoot, whose goose-girl
habits stuck to her everywhere, and how she looked upon it as a charitable
duty not to display Barefoot in the eyes of the world as she really was.
An especial subject of raillery, and of not always charitable jesting, was
furnished by Barefoot's shoes. The girl nearly always went in the con-
dition her name expressed, except that in winter she sometimes wore a pair
of the farmer's boots, that had been cut down; and yet every half-year
she drew the accustomed pair of shoes that formed part of her wages. All
these shoes stood untouched, up in her room, and yet Barefoot went about
as proudly as if she had them on all at once : she wore them mentally, in
the consciousness of possession. -
Six pairs of shoes had thus accumulated and stood side by side while
Damie was in service at Scheckenmarre's, The shoes were stuffed with
hay, and Barefoot greased them from time to time, that they might remain
supple. Barefoot was now quite grown up; not very tall, but strong and
sturdy. She was always poorly dressed, but looked clean and pleasant;
and this pleasantness is the beauty of poverty, that costs nothing and can-
not be bought. Only because Farmer Rodel thought it due to the honour
of his establishment did Barefoot put on a better dress on Sundays, wherein
to show herself to the people; but she would soon take it off again, and
sit by Marianne in her working-dress; or she would stand by her flowers,
which she cultivated in old pots, at her garret window. Pinks, musk, and
rosemary throve splendidly there; and though she had planted many a slip
of each on her parents' graves, everything seemed to grow doubly fast, and
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10
Little Barefoot.
-
the pinks hung down in clusters almost to the covered walk that ran round
the whole house. The projecting thatched roof of the building, moreover,
formed a capital protection for the flowers; and when Barefoot was at home
there never fell a warm rain that she did not carry her flower-pots down
into the garden, that they might drink their fill of rain close to their mother
earth. A little plant of rosemary, which grew in that very jug which
Barefoot had once kept for general use on the Holderwasen, and which
was formed like a little tree,
claimed her especial care ;
and Barefoot often clenched
her right fist, and struck the
ſ|}/º *A*- other upon it, and said to
./;%Wºº- herself,
% #/.3% ºf E= “At the wedding of my
/* y §§ gy | - Hºss }. *...* º .#
ºs ...”g-" "
#jºsa'ºzzº: "... e
%:§§ aſſº É Another thought rose in
". %. º º || º w º iº-, her — a thought that made
#ººl § §. | ||||| her redden to the temples as
R | § | | she bent down to smell the
（) | º | rosemary. . She seemed to
§§ º | draw something from it, like
rººms a fragrance of the future :
) l i A - she would not dwell on the
thought, and in a violent hurry
she put back the little rose-
mary among the tall plants, so that she saw it no more—and was just shutting
her window when she heard the bell tolling the alarm of fire.
“There’s a fire at Scheckennarre's, at Hirlingen I’’ was the report that
presently spread. The engine was brought out, and Barefoot climbed upon
it, and rode away with the men who belonged to it.
“My Damie my Damie "she kept repeating, in great alarm, to herself.
But it was day, and in the day-time people are not burnt to death when
there's a fire. And sure enough, when they arrived at Hirlingen, the house
was burnt down already; but by the wayside, in an orchard, stood Damie,
who was just tying the two piebalds—fine, handsome horses—to a tree;
and oxen, bulls, and cows were all running about in confusion.
They stopped the engine, and let Barefoot get down; and with a cry of
“God be praised that nothing has happened to you !” she hurried towards
her brother. But he made no reply, and stood with both his hands resting
on the neck of one of the horses.
“What is it? Why don't you speak 2 Have you hurt yourself P”
“I've not hurt myself, but the fire has hurt me.”














74
The Sister of Mercy.
“What's the matter P’’
“All I have is lost; my clothes, and my little bit of money ! I've no-
thing now but what I've got on me.”
“And are father's clothes burnt too 2" -
“Are they fireproof?” retorted Damie, angrily. “Don’t ask such stupid
questions.”
Aarºfool climbed upon iſ, and rode away with the men who belonged to it.
Barefoot felt ready to cry at this ungracious reception by her brother;
but she quickly felt, as if by intuition, that misfortune, in its first shock,
often makes people harsh, unkind, and quarrelsome ; so she only said,
“Thank God that you have escaped with your life. Father's clothes—
certainly, in those there's something lost that cannot be replaced ; but they
would have been worn out sooner or later.”
“All your chattering will do no good,” said Damie, who kept on stroking
the horse. “Here I stand like a miserable sinner. If the horses there
could speak, they'd tell a different story; but I’m born to misfortune.
Whatever I do that's good is of no use; and yet y y
He could say no more. His voice faltered.
“What has happened P’’ -
“There's the horses, and the cows, and oxen—not a head of them has
been burnt. Look, that horse yonder tore my shirt across, when I pulled
him out of the stable. My near-side horse did me no harm ; he knows me.
Eh, Humple, you know me 2 We know each other, don't we ?”

75 10—2
Zittle Barefoot.
The horse laid his head across the neck of the other, and stared at
Damie, who now went on :
“And when I went joyfully to tell the farmer that I had saved all the
cattle, he says, “You needn't have done that; it was all well insured, and
they'd have had to pay me good money for it.’ ‘Yes,’ thinks I to myself,
“but that the poor beasts are to die, is that nothing 2 If it's paid for, does
that make up for everything 2 Doesn't life mean anything P’ The farmer
must have seen in my face what I was thinking of; for says he to me, ‘Of
course, you saved your clothes and your property P’ and then I said, ‘No,
not a stitch. I ran into the stable directly.’ And so he said, ‘You’re a
noodle !’ ‘Why," said I, ‘you’re insured ' If the cattle would have been
paid for, then my clothes will be paid for; and there were some clothes of
my dead father's among them, and fourteen guilders, and my pocket watch,
and my pipe.' And says he, ‘Go, smoke it ! My property's insured, but
not the servants'.’ And I said, “We’ll see that, and I'll go to law about it.’
And then he said, ‘Now, you may go at once. Threatening a lawsuit is
giving notice. I would have given you a few guilders; but now you shan't
have a farthing. And now take yourself off!’ And so here I am ; and I
think I Ought to take my near-side horse with me, for I saved his life, and
he would be glad to go with me—wouldn't you ? But I haven't learnt to
steal, and I shouldn't know what to do now ; and the best thing I can do
is to jump into the water. I shall never get to be anything, and I have
nothing.”
“But I have something still, and I'll nelp you out.”
“No, I won't do that any longer—always hanging upon you. You
have to earn it hard enough.”
Barefoot succeeded in comforting her brother, and brought him round
so far that he went home with her; but they had scarcely gone a hundred
paces, when something came trotting behind them. The horse had broken
loose, and had followed Damie, who was obliged to drive back the creature
he was so fond of, by flinging stones at it.
Damie was ashamed of his misfortune, and would hardly show himself
before the face of any one ; for it is the peculiarity of weak natures that
they do not feel satisfaction in their own self-respect, but always wish to
show, by some outward victory, how much they can really do : misfor-
tune they regard as evidence of their own weakness; and if they cannot
hide it, they hide themselves.
Damie would not go farther than the first houses in the village. Black
Marianne gave him a coat that had belonged to her slain husband. Damie
felt a terrible repugnance at putting it on ; but Barefoot, who had before
looked upon her father's coat as something sacred, found just, as many
arguments now to demonstrate that there was nothing in a coat after all,
and that it did not matter in the least who had once worn it.
Coaly Matthew, who lived not far from Black Marianne, took Damie as
76
The Sister of Mercy.
his assistant at the wood-felling and charcoal-burning. This solitary kind
of life suited Damie best : he only wanted to stay till the time came for
him to be a soldier, and then he would go as a substitute, and remain a
soldier all his life; for in a soldier's life there's justice and order, and no
one has brothers and sisters, and no one has his own house, and a man is
provided for, as regards clothing and meat and drink; and if there should
be war, why, a brave soldier's death is the best, after all.
Such were the sentiments Damie brought out on Sunday in the Moss-
brook Wood, when Barefoot came out to the charcoal-burner's, to bring
her brother yeast, and meal, and tobacco, and wanted to show him how—
in addition to the general charcoal-burner's fare, which consists of bread
baked with yeast—he might make the dumplings he prepared for himself
more savoury. But Damie would not hear of this ; he said he would have
them just as they came out; he rather liked swallowing down a bad meal
when he might have had a better; and altogether, he had a kind of satisfac-
tion in letting himself go, until he should, one day, be decked out as a soldier.
Barefoot fought against this continual looking forward to a time that
was to come, while the present was allowed to slip by. She was always
wanting to set up Damie, who was much given to moping, and was fond of
pitying himself ; he seemed to find a sort of satisfaction in his downward
course—for it gave him an opportunity of pitying himself to his heart's
content, and did not require that he should make any exertion. With great
difficulty Barefoot managed to prevail so far that he, at least, bought an
axe of his own out of his earnings; and it was his father's axe, which Coaly
Matthew had bought at the auction in the old days.
Barefoot often came back out of the wood in complete despair; but this
despondency never lasted long. Her inward confidence in herself, and the
bright courage that was in her, involuntarily burst forth at her lips in song;
and those who did not know her would never have thought that Barefoot
either had a care then, or had ever had one in her life.
The cheerfulness arising out of the feeling that she was sturdily and
untiringly doing her duty, and acting as a Samaritan to Black Marianne
and Damie, impressed an unalterable serenity on her countenance. In the
whole house there was no one who could laugh so heartily as Barefoot.
Old Rodel declared that her laughter sounded like the song of the quail;
and because she was always serviceable and respectful to him, he gave her
to understand that he should one day remember her in his will. Barefoot
did not take much notice of this, or build much upon it; she only looked
for the wage to which she had a true and honest claim; and what she did,
she did from a feeling of quiet benevolence, without expectation of reward.
C H A P T E R V I I I.
S'A C K AAV D A A. E.
º º º
tº lºº - ULY was Scheckennarre's house rebuilt, in hand-
tº lºſº | somer style than before ; and the winter came, and
A\||...}: with it the drawing for recruits. Never had there
Sºy º been greater lamentation over a “lucky number"
than arose when Damie drew one, and was declared
exempt. He was in despair, and Barefoot felt very
much in the same way; for she had looked upon this soldiering as a capital
method of setting Damie up, and getting him out of his slovenly ways.
Still she said to him,
“Take this as a token that you are to depend on yourself now, and to
be a man. But you still behave like a little child that can't shift for itself,
and that has to be fed.”
“You’re reproaching me now for feeding upon you.”
“No, I didn't mean that. Don't always be in such a pitiful way—always
standing there, as if you were saying, “Who’s going to do anything to me
—good or bad P’ Strike about for yourself " -
“And that’s what I'm going to do, and I shall strike with a good swing,”
quoth Damie. - lº
For a long time he would not state what his real intention was ; but he
went through the village with his head singularly erect, and spoke freely
to everybody; he worked diligently in the forest among the wood-cutters;
he had his father's axe, and with it almost the bodily strength of him who
had swung that axe so sturdily in the days that were gone. -
When Barefoot met him one evening in spring returning from the Moss-
brook Wood, he asked, taking the axe from his shoulder, and showing it,
“Where do you think this is going P” -
“Into the forest,” answered Barefoot. “But it won't go alone; it must
be swung.” •
“You are right; but it's going to its brother, and one hacks here, and
another hacks there, and the trees crack like loaded cannons, and you hear
nothing of it—or, if you will, you may ; but no one else in this place.”
“I don't understand one peck of all your bushel,” answered Barefoot.
“I’m too old to guess riddles now. Speak out.”
“Well, I'm going to uncle in America.” $o
“Indeed 1 going to start to-day ?” said Barefoot, laughing. “Do you
- 78


#
Sacé and Aze.
remember how Martin, the mason's boy, once called up to the window to
his mother, ‘Mother, throw me out a clean pocket-handkerchief; I'm going
to America’ ” Those who were going to fly so quickly are all here still.”
“You’ll see how much longer I shall be here,” said Damie ; and he
went into the house of Coaly Matthew without another word.
Yeº-º- • ,
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“Indeed! going to start to-day 2”
Barefoot wanted to laugh at Damie's ridiculous plan, but she could not :
she felt that there was some meaning in it; and that very night, when
every one was in bed, she went to her brother, and declared to him, once
for all, that she would not go with him. She thought thus to conquer him;
but Damie said, quite shortly, “I’m not tied to you!” and became the more
confirmed in his plan.



79
Zittle Barefoot.
Then there welled up in the girl's mind once more all that flood of
rushing thoughts that had come upon her once in her childhood; but this
time she did not ask advice of the tree, as if it could have answered her;
and all her deliberations came to this conclusion—“He’s right to go, and
I am right, too, to stay here.” She felt an inward rejoicing that Damie
could make such a bold resolve—at any rate, it showed manly determina-
tion; and though she felt deep sorrow at the thought of perhaps being
henceforth alone in the wide world, she still thought it right that her
brother should thrust forth his hand thus freely and boldly. Still, she did
not yet quite believe him.
The next evening she waited for him, and said,
“Don’t tell anybody about your plan of emigrating, or you'll be laughed
at if you don't carry it out.”
“You're right,” answered Damie; “but it's not for that. I'm not afraid
to bind myself before other people. So surely as I have five fingers on
this hand, so surely shall I go before the cherries are ripe here—if I have
to beg or to steal my way through, to get off. There's only one thing I'm
sorry for, and that is that I must go without playing Scheckennarre a
trick that he'd remember the longest day he has to live.”
“That's the true braggart's way—that's the real way to ruin!” cried
Barefoot, “to go off, and leave a feeling of revenge behind one ! Look—
over yonder our parents are lying. Come with me—come with me to their
graves, and say that over again there if you can Do you know who turns
out a bad man 2 The lad who lets himself be spoilt. Give up that axe
You are not worthy to have your hand where father had his hand, unless
you tear that thought out of your mind, root and branch I Give up that
axel No man shall have that who talks of robbing and murdering. Give
up that axe, or I don't know what I shall do!”
Then said Damie, in a frightened tone,
“It was only a thought. Believe me, I never intended it, and I can't do
anything of the kind; but, because they always call me the ‘skittle-boy,'
I thought I ought for once to threaten, and swear, and strike as they do.
But you are right. Look: if you like, I'll go this very day to Schecken-
narre, and tell him that I have not a hard thought in my heart against
him.”
“You need not do that: that would be too much ; but because you listen
to reason, I'll help you all I can.”
“The best would be if you went with me.” -
“No, I can't do that; I don't know why, but I can't. But I have taken
no oath against it. If you write to me that you are doing well at uncle's,
then I'll come after you ; but to go out into the fog, where one knows
nothing. . . . . I'm not fond of change; and, after all, I'm doing well
here.—But now let us consider how you are to get away.”
It is a peculiar feature in many emigrants, and gives evidence of a dark
80
Sacé and Aace.
side of human nature in general, and of the condition of Germany in
particular, that persons who are going away for their whole lives, have a
tendency to take vengeance before they go, when they can do so with
impunity; and with many, the first thing they do when they arrive in the
New World, is to write to the magistrates and courts of justice they have
left in the Old World, making all sorts of revelations about undetected
CI 11116S.
There had been terrible instances of this propensity in that neighbour-
hood; and Barefoot accordingly broke out into more vehement anger,
when her brother wanted to associate himself with those who shoot at
others from an ambush. Consequently, she was doubly glad when she had
conquered this bad impulse of Damie's; for of all benefits, the conscious-
ness of having brought off a man from the path of error and crime leaves
the most pleasant feeling in the mind.
With all the clear good sense that was natural to her, she now weighed
the circumstances of the case. The uncle's wife had written to her sister
that the family was doing well, and so they knew where their uncle was to
be found. -
Damie's savings were very trifling, and Barefoot's were not enough to
make up the deficiency. Damie declared that the parish ought to give him
a handsome contribution; but his sister would not hear of it, and declared
that this ought to be the last resource when everything else had failed.
She did not explain what else she could try. Her first idea certainly was
to make application to Dame Landfried at Zusmarshofen ; but she knew
what a bad appearance a begging letter would have in the eyes of a rich
farmer's wife, who, after all, had perhaps not any ready money; then she
thought of old Farmer Rodel, who had promised to remember her in his
will—could he be induced to give her now what he intended for her, even
if it should be less 2 Then, again, it occurred to her that perhaps Schecken-
narre, with whom things were going on especially well, might be induced
to contribute. -
She said nothing to Damie about all this; but when she made an inspec-
tion of his wardrobe, and with infinite difficulty induced Black Marianne to
let her have a bit of linen on credit from the old woman's heaped-up stores,
and when she immediately proceeded to cut out this linen, and sat up at
night to make shirts of it—Damie began to tremble at all these steady, active
preparations. He had certainly given himself an air as if the plan of emi-
gration were irrevocably fixed in his mind ; and yet he seemed almost to
be bound now—to be under compulsion—as if he were forced by his sister's
strong will, to accomplish his purpose; and that sister appeared to him
almost hard-hearted—as if she were forcing and thrusting him away. He
did not, indeed, dare to say this openly, but only brought out all kinds of
querulous complaints; and Barefoot looked upon these as the effect of
regret at having to go—the feeling that would gladly take advantage of
81 11
Little Barefoot.
little obstacles, and represent them as hindrances to the fulfilment of a
purpose we would gladly leave unfulfilled.
First of all : he attacked old Farmer Rodel, and, in plain words, asked
him to let her have the legacy he had long ago promised her at once.
Old Rodel said, -
“Why do you press it so 2 Can't you wait 2 What's the matter with
Ou P''
y “Nothing's the matter with me; and I can't wait.”
Then she told him that she was fitting out her brother, who was going
to emigrate to America. That was a good chance for old Rodel. , Now he
could give his natural hardness the appearance of benevolence and prudent
forethought; and accordingly declared to Barefoot that he would not give
her one farthing now, for it should not be his fault if she ruined herself for
that brother of hers. - -
Barefoot now begged him to be her advocate with Scheckennarre. At
last he was induced to consent to this; and he took great credit to himself
for thus consenting to go begging to a man he did not know, on behalf of
a stranger. He delayed the fulfilment of his promise from day to day; but
Barefoot would not cease from importuning him; and so, at last, he set forth.
But, as might have been anticipated, he came back empty-handed ; for the
first thing Scheckennarre did was to ask how much Farmer Rodel him-
self was going to give; and when he heard that for the present Rodel did
not intend to give anything, the course was clear for Scheckennarre, and
he took it accordingly.
When Barefoot told Black Marianne how much she felt hurt at this hard-
heartedness, the old woman said,
“Yes, that's just how people are ' If a man were to jump into the water
to-morrow, and to be taken out dead, they would say, each of them, “If he
had only told me what was amiss with him, I should have been very glad
to help him in every way, and to have given him something. What would
I not give now if I could restore him to life l’ But, to keep a man alive,
they won't stir a finger.”
Strangely enough, the very fact that the whole weight of things always
fell upon Barefoot, made her bear everything more easily. “Yes, one must
always depend on oneself alone” was her secret motto; and instead of let-
ting obstacles discourage her, she only became more energetic. She scraped
together and turned into money whatever of her possessions she could lay
hands on ; and the rich necklace she had received in old days from Farmer
Landfried's wife went its way to the widow of the old sexton—a worthy
female who, in her widowhood, did a considerable trade by lending money
at high interest on pledges; the ducat, too, that she had once thrown after
Severin in the churchyard, was brought into requisition ; and, marvellous
to relate, old Farmer Rodel offered to obtain a considerable contribution
from the parish council—of which he was a member—for the purpose of
82
Sacé and Aze.
Damie's emigration! He was fond of doing virtuous and benevolent things
with the public money.
Still Barefoot felt almost frightened when he announced to her, after a
few days, that everything had been granted—but upon the one condition
that Damie entirely gave up his right of settlement in the village. Of
course, that had been understood from the first, and no one had expected
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The first thing Scheckenmarre did was to ask how much Farmer Rodel himself was going to give.
anything else; but still, now that it was an express condition, it seemed a
formidable thing to have no home anywhere. Barefoot said nothing about
this thought of hers to Damie, who seemed cheerful and of good courage.
Black Marianne, especially, urged him strongly to go; for she would have
been glad to send the whole village away into foreign parts, if only she
could at last get tidings of her John ; and now she had strongly taken up
the notion that the said John had gone across the seas. Crappy Zachy had
indeed told her that the reason she could not cry any more was because
the ocean—the great salt flood—absorbed the tears that would have been
shed for any one who had travelled across it.
Barefoot received permission from her employers to accompany her

83 ll—2
Zittle Barefoot.
brother, when he went to the town to conclude the arrangement for his
passage with the agent. Greatly were both of them astonished when they
heard, on arriving at the office, that this had been already done. The
council of overseers had already taken the necessary steps, and Damie was
to have his rights as one of the village poor, and was to undertake the
responsibilities of that position. On board the ship, before it sailed out
into the wide ocean, he would have to sign a paper attesting his embarka-
tion, and not till then would the money be paid.
The brother and sister came back sorrowfully to the village. Damie
had been seized with a fit of his old despondency, because a thing had now
to be carried out which he himself had wished; and Barefoot felt deeply
grieved at the thought that her brother would, to a certain extent, be ex-
pelled from his native land. At the boundary, Damie said aloud to the
sign-post on which the name of the village and of the district were painted
ll D,
P. You there ! I don't belong to you any longer, and all the people who
live here are no more to me than you are.” 4.
Barefoot wept; but she resolved within herself that this should be the
last time until Damie's departure, and until he was fairly gone. And she
kept her word.
The people in the village said that Barefoot had no heart, because her
eyes were not wet when her brother went away. People like to see the
tears for themselves, for what do they know about those that are wept in
secret P But Barefoot was vigilant and kept a brave countenance.
Only, in the last days before Damie set out, she for the first time failed
in her duty; for she neglected her work, and was always with Damie: she
let Rose scold her for it, and only said, “You are right.” But still she ran
after her brother everywhere; she would not lose a minute of his company,
so long as he was still there; she seemed to think she could do something
especial for him every moment, or say something especial, that should be
of use to him all his life, and was vexed with herself for saying only quite
ordinary things, and for sometimes even quarrelling with him.
Oh, these parting hours How they oppress the heart How all the
past and all the future seem crowded together into one moment, and one
knows not how to set about anything rightly, and only a look or a touch
must tell all that is felt -
Still, Amrei found good words to speak. When she counted out his stock
of linen to her brother, she said,
“Those are good, respectable shirts; keep yourself respectable and good
in them.” And when she packed up everything in the big sack, on which
their father's name was still to be seen, she said, “Bring that back full of
glittering gold. Then you shall see how gladly they'll give you back your
right of domicile here; and Farmer Rodel's Rose, if she's still unmarried,
then will jump after you over seven houses.” And when she laid their
84
Sacé and Aace.
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, she said, “How smooth the handle is How
often that has gone through our father's hand
father's axe in the great chest
him her hand /o/, //Me Was/ / /12.
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So, now I have a motto for you, ‘Sack and axe.
in, those are the best things, and they make one keep
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8
5
Zittle Barefoot.
cheerful, and well, and happy. God keep you ! and say very often to your-
self, ‘Sack and axe.’ I will do the same thing; and that shall be our sign,
our remembrance, our call to each other when we are far, far apart, till you
write to me, or come to fetch me, or do what you can, as God shall will
it. ‘Sack and axe.” Yes, it's all included in that. So one can treasure
up everything--one's thought, and what one has earned.”
And when Damie sat in the light waggon, and she gave him her hand
for the last time, and for a long while would not let him go, till at last he
drove away, she called after him with a loud voice,
“‘Sack and axel’ Don't forget that l”
He looked back, and waved his hand to her; and then he was gone.

CHAPTER IX.
A W UAV / M W I 7" E D G U E S T.
!.
R y( LORY to America " the village watchman
㺠cried several nights, to the amusement
% of all, when he cried the hour, instead
£º of the customary thanksgiving to God.
||||}** - Crappy Zachy, who, being a man of no
Niğli, lºſi; ; , ; , . consideration himself, was fond of speak-
ing evil of the poor when he found him-
self among what he called “respectable
people,” said on Sunday when he came
out of church, or on an afternoon when
he sat on the long bench outside the
---. “Heathcock,”
“Columbus was a real benefactor.
•” From what did he not deliver us 2 Yes,
America is the pig-trough of the Old World, into which everything is shot
that can't be used in the kitchen—cabbage, and turnips, and all sorts of
things together; and for the gentlemen piggies who live in the castle behind
the house, and understand French, for they cry “Oui ! oui !’ there's very
good feeding there.” .
In the general dearth of subjects of interest, Damie and his emigrating
naturally formed the theme of conversation for a considerable time, and
those who belonged to the council praised their own wisdom in having rid
the place of a person who would certainly have come to be a burden on
the community. For a man who goes driving about from one trade to
another will drive to ruin at last.
Of course, there were plenty of good natured-people, who reported to
Barefoot all that was said of her brother, and told her how he was made a
laughingstock. But Barefoot only laughed; and when there came a first
letter from Bremen, written by Damie—and nobody had ever thought that
he could put down everything so properly — then she exulted before the
eyes of men, and read the letter aloud several times; but in secret she was
sorry to have lost such a brother, probably for ever. She reproached herself
for not having put him forward enough ; for now it showed itself what a
sharp lad Damie was, and so good too ! He, who wanted to take leave of
º*22
.
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87
Little Barefoot.
the whole village, as he had taken leave of the post at the boundary, now
filled almost a whole page with remembrances to separate people, and each
one was called “the dear” “the good" or “the worthy;” and Barefoot
gained much praise everywhere when she delivered these greetings, and
each time pointed accurately to the place, and said,
“See, there it stands !”
For a time Barefoot was silent and abstracted, and seemed to repent
having let her brother go, or not having gone with him. Formerly she had
always been heard singing in stable and barn, kitchen and chamber, and
when she went out, with the scythe over her shoulder and the grass-cloth
under her arm ; but now she was silent : she seemed to be violently sup-
pressing some kind of feeling. But there was one good way of letting the
songs be heard once more. In the evening she put Farmer Rodel's chil-
dren to sleep, and then she sang incessantly, even long after the children
were asleep. Then she would hurry to Black Marianne, and supply her
with wood and water, and whatever the old woman wanted.
On Sunday afternoons, when all were amusing themselves, Barefoot used
often to stand quiet and motionless at the door-post of her house, looking
out into the world and at the sky, and dreamily letting her thoughts wander
far away, wondering where Damie was now, and how he was getting on ;
and then for a long time she would stand gazing at an overturned plough,
or watching a fowl burying itself in the sand. When a vehicle passed
through the village, she would look up, and say almost aloud,
“They are driving to somebody On all the roads of the world there
is no one who is coming to me, and no one thinking of me; and do I not
belong here too P” and then she always felt as if she were expecting some-
thing, and her heart beat quicker, as if for some one who was coming. And
involuntarily the old song rose to her lips:
“All the brooklets in the wide world,
They run their way to the sea ;
But there's no one in the wide world
Who can open my heart for me.”
“I wish I was as old as you,” she said once, when she came to Black
Marianne, after dreaming in this way. -
“Be glad that a wish is but a word,” replied Black Marianne. “When
I was your age I was merry; and down there in the plaster mill I weighed
a hundred and thirty-two pounds.” -
ºbut you are the same at one time as at another, and I am not even at
all. *
“If one wants to be ‘even,' one had better cut one's nose off, and then
one's face is even all over. You little simpleton | don't fret your young
years away, for no one will give you them back. The old ones will come
of themselves.” -
88
77te C/mánvited Guest.
Black Marianne did not find it very difficult to comfort Barefoot; only,
when she was alone, a strange dread came over her. What did it mean 2
And now an exciting rumour began to pervade the village. For many
days there was a talk of a wedding that was to be celebrated at Endringen,
with such festivities as had not been seen in the country within the me-
mory of man. The eldest daughter of Dominic and Ameile, whom we
know, from Lehnhold, was to marry a rich wood merchant of the Murg
Valley; and it was said there would be such a merry-making as had never
been seen yet.
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At the counci/./house frºm?, there the true gossiping went on.
The day came nearer and nearer. Wherever two girls meet, they draw
each other behind a hedge or into the passage of a house, and there's no
end of their talking, though they declare vehemently that they are in a
particular hurry. It is said that every one’s coming out of the Oberland,
and the whole of the Valley of the Murg, for a distance of sixty miles; for
they're a large family. At the council-house pump, there the true gossip-
ing went on ; but not a single girl would own to having any new garment,
lest she should lose the pleasure of seeing the surprise and admiration of
her companions when the morrow should come. In the excitement of
question and answer, the business of water-carrying was forgotten, and Bare-
foot, who had arrived last, went away first with her full bucket. What was
the dance to her ? And yet she felt as if she heard music everywhere.
Next day Barefoot had much running to and fro in the house; for she
was to dress Rose. She received many a secret knock while the business
of hair-plaiting was going on ; but she bore it in silence.

89 12
-
Mittle Barefoot.
Rose had a splendid head of hair, and was determined it should make
a grand show. To-day she wished to try something new with it. She
wanted to have a Maria Theresa braid, as a certain artistic plait of four-
teen pieces is called in these parts: that would create an effect as something
new. Barefoot succeeded in accomplishing the difficult task; but she had
scarcely finished, when Rose in anger tore the whole structure down; and
wild enough she looked with all the bands hanging down over her head
and face; but for all that, she was handsome and stately, and of a goodly
circumference, and her whole demeanour seemed to say, “There must not
be less than four horses in the house into which I shall one day marry.” And,
indeed, many farmers' sons were courting her; but she did not seem to care
to decide in favour of any one of them. She now determined to keep to
the country fashion of two plaits hanging down the back, with red ribbons
interwoven, reaching almost to the ground. At last she stood adorned
and ready ; and now she required a nosegay. She had let the flowers that
belonged to her run wild; and in spite of all objections, Barefoot was obliged
to yield to her importunities at last, and rob her own cherished plants at the
window of almost all their blossoms. Rose also demanded the little rose-
mary plant; but Barefoot would have been torn in pieces rather than give
up that ; and then Rose jeered and laughed, and then scolded and mocked
at the stupid goose-girl, who gave herself such obstinate airs, and had only
been taken into the house out of charity. Barefoot did not reply, but only
looked at Rose with a glance before which Rose cast down her eyes.
And now a red woollen rose had come loose on the left shoe, and Bare-
foot had just knelt down to sew it on carefully, when Rose said, half in
shame at her own behaviour, and yet half jeeringly, -
“Barefoot, to-day I will have it so—-to-day you must come to the dance.”
“Do not mock so. What do you want of me?”
“I am not mocking,” persisted Rose, still in a somewhat jeering tone.
“You Ought to dance once too, for you are a young girl, and there will
be some of your equals at the dance : our waggoner is going too, and per-
haps a farmer's son will dance with you: I’ll send you some one who is
standing out.”
“Let me alone, or I shall prick you.”
“My sister-in-law is right,” said the young farmer's wife, who had sat
silent until now. “And I’ll never give you a good word again if you
don't go to the dance to-day. Come, sit down, and I will get you ready.”
Barefoot felt herself flushing crimson, as she sat there and her mistress
dressed her; and when she put her hair away from her face and turned it all
back, Barefoot felt ready to sink from her chair, when the farmer's wife said,
“I shall arrange your hair as the Allgau girls wear it. That will suit
you very well, for you look like an Allgau girl, sturdy, and brown, and
round ; you look like the daughter of Farmer Landfried's wife at Zusmars-
hofen.” - - -
90
7%e C/minvited Guest.
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foot sat motionless, and scarcely breathed.

91
Little Barefoot.
parted in the middle, and as she sat with her arms folded together, and had
to let her mistress do what she liked with her, and her mistress, who had
to stay at home for family reasons, bustled about her, she really felt as if
she had been suddenly bewitched, and must not speak a word, for fear of
breaking the charm, as she sat with her eyes modestly cast down.
“I wish I could deck you thus for your wedding,” said the farmer's wife,
who seemed overflowing with kindness to-day. “I should like to see you
mistress of a respectable farm, and you would not be a bad bargain for
any one; but in our days such things don't happen, for money runs after
money. Well, do you be contented. So long as I live, you shall not want
for anything, and if I die—and I don't know, but I seem to fear the heavy
hour so much this time—look, you will not forsake my children; but you’ll
be a mother to them, will you not P’’ - -
“Oh, good heavens ! how can you think of such a thing 2" cried Bare-
foot; and the tears ran down over her cheeks. “That is a sin; and one
may commit a sin by letting thoughts come into one's mind that are not
right.”
“Yes, yes, you may be right,” said the farmer's wife. “But wait; sit still
a little: I will bring you my necklace and put it round your neck.”
“No ; pray don't do that I can wear nothing that is not my own; I
should sink into the ground for shame of myself.”
Yes; but you can't go as you are ; or have you perhaps something of
your own 2" - -
Barefoot said, hereupon, that she had certainly had a necklace, which
she had received from Dame Landfried as a child; but that, on account of
Damie's emigration, it was in pledge with the sexton's widow.
Barefoot was now told to sit still, and had to promise not to look at her-
self in the glass till the farmer's wife returned, who now hurried away to
bring the jewel, herself being surety for the money lent upon it.
What a thrill now went through Barefoot's soul as she sat there ! she,
who was always the servant of others, now herself waited upon ; and, in-
deed, almost like under a spell. She was almost afraid of the dance; for
now she was so well and so kindly treated—perhaps she might be pushed
about, and nobody would look at her, and all her outward adornment and
her inward feeling would go for nothing. -
“But no,” she said to herself, “if I have nothing more of it than that I
have been glad, that will be enough ; and if I had to undress directly, and
stay at home, I should still be happy.” -
The farmer's wife now came back with the ornament, and broke out into
a mingled strain, in which praise of the jewel alternated with blame of the
sexton's wife, who could take such usurious interest from a poor girl. She
promised to pay the loan that very day, and to deduct it gradually from
Barefoot's wages. -
Now at last Barefoot was allowed to look at herself. The mistress her-
92
The Unimzyżted Guest.
self held the glass before her, and the faces of both of them glowed, and
seemed quite irradiated with sympathetic joy. -
“I don't know myself! I don't know myself!” Barefoot kept on repeat-
ing, and she felt her face up and down with both hands. “Good heavens !
if my mother could only see me like this But she will certainly bless
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you from heaven for being so kind to me, and you will have help given
you in the heavy hour; you need fear nothing.”
“But now you must make another kind of face,” said the farmer's wife,
“not such a pitiful one. But that will come when you hear the music.”
“I fancy I hear it already,” replied Barefoot. “Yes, listen, there it is l’
And, in truth, a great waggon decorated with green boughs was just

e - 93
Zittle Barefoot.
driving through the village, and in the waggon all the musicians were
riding, and in the midst of them stood Crappy Zachy, blowing the trumpet
till he woke the echoes far and wide. - •
And there was no staying in the village; every one hastened to be up
and away. The light Bernese chaise-carts with one and two horses, some
from the village itself, some from the neighbouring villages, that had to pass
by here, chased each other as if they were racing. Rose mounted to her
brother's side in the front seat of their chaise, and Barefoot rode in the
basket-seat at the back. She kept looking down, so long as they were
driving through the village, she felt so ashamed. Only as she passed the
house that had been her parents', she ventured to look up ; Black Marianne
waved her hand from the window, the red cock crowed on the wood-heap,
and the old tree seemed to nod and wish her good luck.
Now they drove through the valley, where Manz was breaking the stones,
and now over the Holderwasen, where an old woman was keeping the
geese. Barefoot gave her a friendly nod. -
“Good heavens !” she thought, “how does it happen that I sit here so
proudly driving along in festive attire 2 And it is three miles to Endringen,
and yet one would appear only just to have started.”
And now the word is already given to alight, and Rose is surrounded
by all kinds of friends; and many of them ask, -
“Is that not a sister of your brother's wife P”
“No, it's only our maid,” answered Rose. -
Several beggars from Haldenbrunn, who were here, looked at Barefoot
in astonishment, evidently not recognizing her; and not till they had stared
at her for a long time did they cry out, “Why, it's Little Barefoot!”
“That is only our maid.” That little word “only ” sméte painfully on
the girl's heart ; but she recovered herself quickly, and smiled; for a voice
within her said, “Don’t let your pleasure be spoilt by a single word. If
you begin anything new, you are sure to step on thorns at first.”
Rose took Barefoot aside, and said, g
“You can go for the present to the dancing-room, or wherever you like,
if you have any acquaintances in the place. When the music begins I shall
be sure to see you again.”
And so Barefoot stood, as it were, forsaken, feeling as if she had stolen
her clothes and did not belong to her company at all, and as if she were
an interloper: “How comes it that thou goest to such a wedding 2" she
asked herself; and she would have liked to go home again. She went up
and down through the village, and passed by the beautiful house that had
been built for Brosi, and in which there was plenty of life to-day; for the
wife of that high official was staying here for a summer visit with her sons
and daughters. Barefoet went back through the village, not looking to the
right nor to the left, and yet wishing that some one would accost her, that
2.
she might have a companion.
!
94
7%e Uninvited Guest.
&
At the end of the village she encountered a smart horseman on a grey
horse, who came riding into the village. He was attired in a farmer's dress,
but not that of the country, and looked proud enough. Now he pulled up,
rested his right hand with the whip in it on his hip, and patting his horse's
neck with his left, called out,
X-
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--~~~
Chased each other as if they were racing.
“Good morning, pretty mistress | Tired of the dance already ?"
“I'm tired of idle questions already,” was the reply.
The horseman rode on ; and Barefoot sat for a long time behind a hedge,
and many thoughts flitted through her brain. Her cheeks glowed with a
flush brought into them by anger at herself, for her sharp reply to a harm-
less question, by bashfulness, and a strange inward emotion; and involun-
tarily the old song rose to her lips :
“There were two lovers in Allgau,
Who loved each other so true.”

95
Zittle Aarefoot.
She had begun the day in expectation of joy, and now she wished herself
dead. She thought, “To fall asleep here, behind the hedge, and to wake
no more, how good that would be You are not to have any gladness, why
should you run to and fro so long 2 How the grasshoppers are chirping
in the grass, and a warm fragrance rises from the earth, and a linnet keeps
singing on and on, and seems to dive into himself with his voice, and to
bring out finer and finer notes, and yet to be unable to say with his whole
heart what he has to say; and up in the air the larks are singing, and every
bird sings for himself, and no one listens to the others or joins in with the
others—and yet everything is . . . .”
Never in her life had Amrei gone to sleep in broad daylight, still less,
in the morning; and now she had drawn her handkerchief over her eyes,
and the sunbeams kissed her closed lips, which, even in sleep, were pressed
defiantly together, and the redness on her chin became redder. She had
slept about an hour, when she woke up with a start. The horseman on
the grey horse was riding towards her, and the horse had just lifted up his
fore feet to bring them down on her chest. It was only a dream, and Amrei
gazed round her, as if she had fallen from the sky. She saw with astonish-
ment where she was, and looked at herself in wonder; but the sound of
music from the village soon woke up the spirit of life within her, and she
went with new strength into the village, where everything had become
livelier. She felt she had rested from the many things she had already
experienced that day. And now, if only the dancers came, she would dance
till the next morning, and never rest, and never feel tired.
The fresh glow of a child's sleep was on her face, and every one looked
at her in astonishment. She went to the dancing-room ; the music was
playing, but in an empty room, for no dancers had come yet. Only the
girls who had been hired to-day to attend on the guests were dancing with
one another. Crappy Zachy looked at Barefoot for a long time, and then
shook his head. Evidently he did not know her. Amrei crept along close
to the wall, and so out of the room again. She met Farmer Dominic
Furche, who to-day was radiant with satisfaction.
“Beg pardon,” said he, “but does the mistress belong to the wedding
guests 2" -
“No ; I am only a maid, and came with the daughter of the house,
Farmer Rodel's Rose.”
“Good ; then go up to the farm, to the wife, and tell her that I sent you,
and that you are to help her : we can't have hands enough in my house
to-day.”
“Because it's you, I'll go gladly,” said Amrei; and she set out at once.
On the way she thought a good deal about it, that Dominic himself had
been a servant; and . . . . “Yes; such a thing happens only once
in a century. And it cost many a pang before he came to the farm ; and
that's a pity.”
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13 2

Little Barefoot.
“I will fall to at once; for I must confess that I am hungry, and I won't
give you the trouble to press me.” º
Amrei now remained in the kitchen, and gave the waitresses all the
dishes in such a clever way, and soon knew how to manage and arrange
everything so well, that the farmer's wife said,
“You two Amreis, you and my brother's daughter, can manage all this,
and I will stay with the guests.”
Amrei of Siebenhofen, who was nicknamed the “Butter Countess,” and
was known far and wide as proud and stubborn, was particularly friendly
to Barefoot; and once the farmer's wife said to the latter,
“It’s a pity you're not a lad : I believe Amrei would marry you on the
spot, and not send you home, as she does all her suitors.”
“I have a brother, who's still to he had ; but he's in America,” replied
Barefoot, laughing. -
“Let him stay there,” quoth the Butter Countess; “it would be better
if we could send all the men folk away, and be here by ourselves.”
Amrei did not leave the farm till everything had been put back in its
place; and when she pulled off her apron, it was still as white and unruffled
as when she had put it on.
“You’ll be tired, and not be able to dance,” said the farmer's wife, when
Amrei at last took her leave with a present. -
But Amrei answered,
“How should I be tired 2 This was only play; and, believe me, I feel -
much better for having done something to-day. A whole day for pleasur-
ing ! I should not know how to get through it, and I've no doubt that
was why I was so sad this morning; but now I feel quite inclined for a
holiday—quite out of harness | Now I'm just inclined for dancing, if I
could only get partners.”
Ameile did not know how to show greater honour to Barefoot than by
leading her about in the house like a wealthy farmer's wife, and showing
her in the bridal room the great chest with the wedding presents; she
opened the tall blue cupboards, with the name and the date painted upon
them, and crammed full of the outfit, with plenty of linen, and all tied up
with ribbons of various colours, and decorated with artificial flowers. In
the wardrobe were at least thirty dresses, and near it were the high beds,
the cradle, the distaff with the beautiful spindles, all hung with children's
clothes—presents from the wife's former playfellows.
“Oh, kind Heaven "cried Barefoot, “how happy a child of such a house
must be l’’ º
“Are you jealous P” said the farmer's wife; and, remembering that she
was showing all these things to a poor girl, she added, “Believe me, much
gear cannot do it. There are many happier, who do not get so much as a
stocking from their parents.”
“Yes, yes: I know that ; and I am not jealous of the beautiful things,
98
The Uninvited Guest.
but rather that your child can thank you and so many people for the good
things she has received from them. Such clothes from a mother must
keep one doubly warm.” -
The farmer's wife showed her approval of Barefoot by accompanying
the girl as far as the forecourt, as she would have done to a visitor who
had eight horses in the stable.
There was already a great crowding when Amrei came to the dancing-
floor. At first, she remained timidly standing on the threshold. Where is
the throng of children that used to roam about at such feasts, and get a
foretaste of the pleasures of life 2 Why, of course, they have been banished
by our high and mighty Government; the Church Commission and the
School Commission have driven away the children, and forbidden them to
look on at a merry-making—much less may they dance together to the
music, as they used to do in Amrei's childhood. That is another of those
quiet murderous thrusts that are dealt by our Government boards.
In the empty courtyard, across which somebody hurried every now and
then, the gendarme was pacing up and down, solitary. When he saw
Amrei coming along, with a radiant face, he went towards her, and said,
“Good morning, Amrei ! Art thou here, too P”
Amrei started, and turned quite pale. Had she done anything punish-
able P Had she gone into the stable with a naked light P. She examined
her past life, and could think of nothing ; and yet he seemed as intimate
with her as if he had taken her up already. Thinking thus, she started as
if she were a criminal, and at last answered,
“Thank you : I don't know why we should call each other ‘thou.' Do
you want anything of me?” -
“Oho, how proud you are You can answer me properly. I don't want
to eat you up. Why are you so angry 2 Eh P” assº
“I am not angry, and I don't want to harm any one: I am only a foolish
girl.”
“Don’t pretend to be so submissive
“How do you know what I am P.”
“Because you flourish about so with the light.”
“What ?—where 2 Where have I flourished about with a light 2 I
always take a lantern when I go into the stable.”
The gendarme laughed, and said,
“I mean your brown peep-eyes; you flourish with the light in them.
Your eyes are like two balls of fire.”
“Then go out of my way, for fear of being burnt. You might be blown
into the air with all that powder in your cartridge-box.”
“There's nothing in it,” said the gendarme, embarrassed, but wishing to
make some kind of retort. “But you have scorched me already.”
“I don't see it : you seem quite right as yet.—But that's enough. Let
me go.” -
y )
99 l3—2
Little Barefoot.
“I don't keep you, you little crib-biter: you could lead a man a hard life .
who was fond of you.”
“Nobody need be fond of me,” said Amrei ; and she rushed away as if
she had got loose from a chain.
She stood under the door, where many spectators were crowding to-
gether. A new dance was just beginning, and she swayed herself to and
fro to the tune : the feeling that she had got the better of some one made
her more cheerful than ever, and she would have taken up the cudgels
against the whole world, as well as with a single gendarme. But her tor-
mentor soon appeared again : he posted himself behind Amrei, and said
all kinds of things to her. She gave him no answer, and pretended not to
hear him; she nodded to the people as they danced by, as if she had been
greeted by them. Only when the gendarme said, “If I were allowed to
marry, I would take you,” she said,
“Take me, indeed But I shall not give myself.” .
The gendarme was glad to have at least got an answer from her, and
continued:
“If I might dance once, I would have one with you directly.”
“I cannot dance,” replied Amrei.
Just then the music ceased. Amrei pushed against the people in front
of her, and made her way in to seek some retired corner. She heard some
one behind her say, “She can dance better than any one up or down the
country.” *
CHAPTER X.
O M L Y A S I W G Z E D A M C E.
%
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º/ OWN from the musician's stage,
% Crappy Zachy handed a glass
g to Amrei. She sipped at it, and
handed it back; and Crappy
ɺl Zachy said,
º - - -- == “If you dance, Amrei, I'll
* . * * == play all my instruments, so that the angels might come
down from the sky and join in.”
“Yes, unless an angel comes down from the sky and
asks me, I shall not get a partner,” said Amrei, half
mocking, half sorrowful; and then she began to think why there must be
a gendarme at a dance. But she did not keep to this thought long, but
immediately went on to say to herself, “He is a man, after all, like any-
body else, though he has a sword on ; and before he became a gendarme,
he was a lad like the rest; and it must be a plague for him.—But what's






IOI
Alittle Barefoot.
that to me? I’m obliged to be only a looker-on, too, and I don't get any
money for it.”
For a short time things were conducted in a much quieter and staider
fashion in the dancing-room; for the “Englishwoman,” as Agy, the wife of
Severin the building councillor, was still called, had come with her chil-
dren to the dance. The rich wood merchants set the champagne-corks
popping, and offered a glass to the Englishwoman : she drank the health
of the young couple, and then made each one happy by a gracious word.
On the faces of all there appeared a constant complacent Smile. Agy
honoured many a young fellow who drank to her from the garlanded glass,
by sipping from hers; and the old women who sat near Barefoot were loud
in praise of the Englishwoman, and stood up a long time before she came,
when she turned to speak a few words to them. And when Agy had gone
away, the rejoicing, singing, dancing, stamping, and shouting §e out with
fresh power.
Farmer Rodel's foreman now came towards Amrei, and she already felt
a thrill of expectation; but the foreman said,
“Here, Barefoot, take care of my pipe for me while I dance.”
And many young girls from her village came too; and from one she
received a jacket, and from another a cap, or a neckerchief, or a door-key.
She let them put it all upon her, and stood there with an increasing load,
as one dance went by after another. She stood smiling quietly to herself,
but nobody came. Now a waltz was played so smoothly that one could
have swum to it; and then a galop, so wild and rushing. Hurrah now
they were all hopping, and stamping, and jumping, and breathing hard with
enjoyment; and how their eyes glitter and the old women, who sit in the
corner where Amrei is standing, complain of the dust and heat—but still
they don't go home. Then . . . . suddenly Amrei starts, and her eyes
are fixed upon a handsome young man, who is walking proudly to and fro -
in the crowd. That is the rider who met her this morning, and whom she
snubbed in such a pert way. All eyes are fastened upon him as he comes
forward, his right hand at his back, and his left holding his silver-mounted
pipe; his silver watch-chain dances to and fro, and right stately is his black
velvet jacket, and his wide black velvet trousers, and his red waistcoat
But handsomer still is his round head, with the curly brown hair; his fore-
head is white as snow; but, from the eyes downwards, the face is deeply
sunburnt, and a light beard covers his cheek and his chin.
“That’s a bonny fellow !” said one of the old women.
“And what heavenly blue eyes he has " added another—“they're so
roguish and so good-humoured at once.”
“Where can he be from ? He's not from this neighbourhood,” said a
third ; and a fourth observed,
“I’ll wager that's another suitor for Amrei.”
Barefoot started. What did this mean 2 What was that she said P But
102
º On/y a Sing/e Z0ance.
she is soon made to understand the meaning ; for the first old lady re-
-- sumed :
“Then I'm sorry for him; for the Butter Countess makes fools of all
the men.”
The “Butter Countess " also was called Amrei.
“That's a bonny fºllow /*
The young stranger had gone several times through the hall, turning
his eyes from one side to the other; then suddenly he stopped not far from
Barefoot, and beckoned to her. A hot flush overspread her face, but she
stood rooted to the spot, and never stirred. No, he has certainly beckoned
to some one behind you ; he cannot mean you. He presses forward, and
Amrei makes way for him. He must be looking for some one else.
“No, it's you I want,” says the lad, taking her hand. “Will you come 2"
Amrei cannot speak;-but what need is there to speak 2 In a moment

103
Alittle Barefoot.
she has thrown everything she held into a corner—jackets, neckerchiefs,
caps, pipes, and door-keys. She stands there ready; and the lad throws
up a dollar to the musicians; and directly Crappy Zachy sees Amrei on
the arm of the strange dancer, he blows his trumpet till the walls tremble,
and to the happy Souls above no music can sound happier than this does
to Amrei. She danced she knew not how ; she felt as if carried by the
touch of the stranger, and floated on she knew not how, and there seemed
to be no one else there. Certainly, they both danced so well that all the
others stopped involuntarily, and looked at them. -
“We are alone,” said Amrei, during the dance; and then she felt the
warm breath of her partner as he answered,
“Oh that we were alone—alone in the world ! Why can one not go on
dancing thus—on and on, to the very end ?” §
“I feel,” said Amrei, “just as if we were two doves, flying through the
air.—Juhu ! away into the heavens !” And “Juhu !” cried the lad, rejoic-
ingly, and “Juhu !”—the sound rose up like a fiery rocket that flies up
towards the sky; and “Juhu !” cried Amrei, rejoicing with him; and they
danced on, happier and happier; and Amrei said,
“Tell me—is the music going on ? Are the musicians still playing 2 I
don't hear them any more.” *.
“Of course, they are still playing. Don't you hear them P”
“Yes, now I do,” said Amrei ; and they stopped, for probably her
partner felt that she was becoming almost giddy with happiness.
The stranger led Amrei to the table, and gave her wine to drink, and
did not let go her hand. He took hold of the Swedish ducat that hung
from her necklace, and said,
“He has a good place.” --
“It comes from a good hand,” answered Amrei. “I had that necklace
given me when I was a little child.”
“From a relation P”
“No, the farmer's wife is no relation of mine.”
“Dancing agrees with you, it seems.”
“Oh, it does, indeed You see, one's obliged to jump about so much
all the year through, and nobody plays for one and therefore one enjoys
it doubly now.” f
“You look as round as a ball,” said the stranger, merrily. “You must
live where the food's good.”
Amrei answered quickly,
“It’s not the food that does it, but how one enjoys it.”
The stranger nodded, and after a pause he resumed, in a tone of inquiry,
“You are the daughter of Farmer } }
“No, I'm in service,” replied Amrei, and looked him full in the face.
He wished to cast down his eyes, and his eyelids quivered, but he kept
his eyes open by force; and this struggle and victory of the bodily eye
104.
Only a Single Dance.
seemed a symbol of what was going on within him. He felt almost in-
clined to leave the girl standing there; but he strove against and conquered
the impulse, and said,
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Gave her wine to drink, and did not let go her hand.
“Come, we will have another dance."
He held her hand fast, and the pleasure and the enjoyment began again,
but, this time, more quietly and steadily. The two seemed to feel that the
sensation of being lifted to the sky was over and past; and this thought
seemed to be in Amrei's mind when she said,

105 14
Little Barefoot.
“Well, we have been very happy with one another, even if we don't see
each other again in all our lives, and though neither of us knows the other's
name.”
The youth nodded, and said,
“You are right.” **
Amrei held the end of her left plait between her lips with some embar-
rassment, and said again, after a time, -
“The enjoyment one has once had cannot be taken from one; and be you
who you may, you need not repent of having given a poor girl a pleasure
she will remember all her life.” -
“I don't repent it,” replied her partner; “but you repent of having
answered me so sharply this morning 2"
“Oh, yes; you are quite right there !” cried Amrei; and the stranger
then said, - * -
“Would you venture to go out into the field with me?”
“Yes.”
“And do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“But what will your people say to it?” *
“I have to give account of my actions to none but myself; I am an
orphan.”
Hand in hand, the two went away from the dancing-room. Barefoot
heard various whisperings and titterings behind her, and she kept her eyes
fixed on the ground. After all, she seemed to have ventured too far.
Without, in the corn-fields, where the first ears of wheat were forming,
and still lay half concealed in their green sheaths, the two stood looking at
each other in silence. For a long time they spake no word. Again it was
the man who broke silence by saying, half to himself, &
“I should like to know how it happens that one can, at the first glance,
be so—so—I know not how—so confidential with a person. How is it one.
can read what is written in a countenance 2" -
“Now we have set a poor soul free,” said Amrei; “for, you know, when
two people have the same thought in one instant, they are said to set a soul
free; and I have been thinking the very words you have just spoken.”
“Indeed 2 And do you know why?”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Why not P Look you—I have been the goose-keeper yy
At these words the lad started, as he had done before; but he pretended
something had flown into his eye, and rubbed that organ vigorously, while
Barefoot went on, undismayed:
“Look you : when one sits or lies there all alone out in the fields, one
thinks of a hundred things, and strange thoughts come to one—only mind
and notice it, and you will certainly find it so. Every fruit tree, if you look
106
ſº
Only a Single Dance.
at it as a whole, has just the look of the fruit it bears. Look at the apple
tree. Does it not look—spread out broad and, as it were, in round slices—
like the apple itself? And it’s the same with the pear tree and the cherry
tree. Only look at them in the right way. Look what a long stem the
cherry tree has-like the cherry itself. And I also think—”
“Well, what do you think P”
She stooped to break off a flower, but did not break it.
“Don’t laugh at me. As the fruit trees look like the fruits they bear, so
it is also with people; and one can tell it at once by looking at them. But
certainly, the trees have an honest face, and people can dissemble.—But
I’m talking nonsense, am I not 2" -
“No, you have not kept the geese for nothing,” said the lad; and there
was a strange mixture of feelings in the tone of his voice. “It’s good talk-
ing to you. I should like to give you a kiss, if I were not afraid of doing
what is wrong.”

107 14—2
Zittle Aaryoot
, Barefoot trembled all over. She stooped to break off a flower, but did
not break it. There was a long pause, and then the lad went on:
“We shall most likely never meet again; so it’s best as it is.”
Hand in hand the two went back into the dancing-room; and then they
danced once more together, without saying a word to each other; and when
the dance was finished, the young man led her again to the table, and said,
“Now I shall say “good bye.” But you must get cool, and then drink
once more.” -
He gave her the glass; and when she would have returned it, he said,
“You must drain it, for my sake, to the very bottom.” * -
Amrei drank, on and on ; and when at last the glass was empty in her
hand, and she looked round, the stranger was gone. She went down and
stood in front of the house; and then she saw him again, not far off, riding
away on his grey horse; but he did not turn round again. ,
The mist floated across the valley like a cloudy veil; the sun had already
set. Barefoot said to herself, almost aloud, s
“I wish it would never be to-morrow, but always to-day—always to-
day !” And then she stood lost in thought.
The night came on quickly. The moon stood already over the dark
mountains, and not far from their summits, like a thin sickle ; and near it,
towards Haldenbrunn, shone the evening star. One little Bernese waggon
after another drove away. Barefoot kept near the equipage of her em-
ployers, that was just being got ready. Then came Rose, and said to her
brother that she had promised the young men and girls of her village to
go home to-night in company with them; and it was understood, as a matter
of course, that the farmer could not drive alone with the maid. So the little
Bernese carriage rattled away home. -
Rose must have seen Barefoot, but she pretended that no one was there;
and Barefoot wandered forth once more on the road by which the stranger
had ridden away. Whither can he have gone? How many hundred villages
and hamlets are there not situated on his way, and who can tell whither he
has turned 2 Barefoot found the place again where he had first accosted her
in the morning; she repeated aloud to herself his salutation, and the answer
she had given him. She sat once more under the hazel hedge, where, in
the morning, she had slept and dreamt. A yellowhammer sat on a slender
spray, and its six notes seemed just as if it said, “Wiat dost then thou still
there 2 What dost then thou still there P’’ • -
Barefoot had lived through a whole life's history in this one day. Could
it be only a single day 2 She went back again to the dance, but not to the
room again. She then went homeward alone almost half-way to Halden-
brunn; but then suddenly she turned back—she seemed unable to tear her-
self from the place where she had been so happy; and she said to herself
it was not right she should go home alone—she would go in company with
the young men and the girls from her village. When she arrived again in
108
Only a Single Dance.
front of the tavern at Endringen, several people from her village were
already assembled. “Ah, are you here, too, Barefoot ?" was the only greet-
ing she received.
And now there was a great running to and fro; for many, who had at
first urged going home, were still dancing upstairs. And now some strange
lads came, and begged and prayed them to stay for this one more dance.
And, indeed, they got their way; and Barefoot went upstairs too, but she
only looked on. At last the cry was—“Whoever dances now, we shall
leave behind ' " And after a great deal of trouble, and much rushing to and
The lads who carried them danced to and fro.
fro, the Haldenbrunn contingent had at last been assembled in front of the
house. Some of the music escorted them through the village, and many a
sleepy father of a family looked forth ; and here and there appeared some
old female acquaintance, now married, and whose dancing days were over,
but who still came to the window to cry, “A pleasant journey home !”
The night was dark. Great splinters of pine had been provided for
torches; and the lads who carried them danced to and fro with them, and
shouted rejoicingly. But scarcely had the music gone back, and scarcely
had they left Endringen a short distance behind them, when they called out,
“The torches only dazzle us !"—and especially two soldiers on furlough,
who were among the troop in full uniform, joked about the torches in proud
consciousness of wearing sabres; so the torches were extinguished in a

109
Azttle Barefoot.
ditch. And now, this or that lad, and this or that girl, were missed ; and
their comrades called out for them, and they answered from a distance.
Rose was escorted by the son of Farmer Kuppel of Lauterbach; but he
had hardly gone away, leaving her with those of her own village, when she
said aloud,
“I’ll have nothing to say to him.”
A few of the men struck up a song, and here and there some one would
join in ; but there was no unanimity in it, for the soldiers wanted to come
out with new songs. Every now and then there arose a loud laugh; for
one of the soldiers was a grandson of Jolly Brosi, the son of Monika of the
plaster mill; and he cut all kinds of jokes, chiefly at the expense of Tailor
George, who was with them. And now they sang again, and seemed to have
hit the mark, for it sounded full and clear. *
Barefoot walked behind the rest, a good distance from those of her own
village. They let her alone, and that was the greatest kindness they could
do her. She was near the people of her own village, and yet she was alone.
She often looked round at the fields and woods: how wonderful it all looked
in the night—so strange, and yet so familiar ! The whole world seemed as
strange to her as she had become to herself. And as she went on, step by
step, as if she were pushed and impelled, without knowing that she was
moving, so did her thoughts move to and fro involuntarily in her mind :
they seemed to be whirling on, and she could not grasp or control them—
she did not know what it meant. Her cheeks glowed as if every star in the
sky had been a heat-beaming sun, and her heart burned within her. And
now, just as if she had begun it—as if she had struck up the tune herself
—her companions, marching on in front, began to sing the song that had
risen to her lips in the morning:
“There were two lovers in Allgau,
They loved each other so dear;
And the young lad went to the warfare:
When comest thou home again?’
“Ah, that I cannot, love, tell thee,
What year, or what day, or what hour !’”
And then the “Good Night” song was sung; and Amrei, in the distance,
joined in :
“A fair “good night’ to thee, love—farewell !
When all are sleeping,
Then watch I’m keeping,
So wearily.
“A fair “good night’ to thee, love—farewell
May joy be with thee,
And I must leave thee,
Till I come back.
110
Only a Single Dance.
“And when I come back, then I'll come to thee,
And then I’ll kiss thee,
That tastes so sweetly—
Love, thou art mine :
“Love, thou art mine, and I am thine !
And that doth content me,
And shall not repent thee—
Love, fare thee well !”
At last they came to the village, and one group after another fell away.
Barefoot paused under the tree by her father's house, and stood there for
a long time in dreamy thought. She would have liked to go in, and tell
Black Marianne everything, but gave up the idea. Why should she disturb
the old woman's rest at night? What good would it do P So she went
quietly home, where every one was fast asleep.
When she at last stepped into the house, everything appeared to her so
much more strange than it had seemed outside—so odd, so out of keeping
and out of place. “Why do you come home 2 What do you want here 2"
There seemed a strange questioning in every sound: when the dog barked,
when the stairs creaked, when the cows lowed in the stable, they all seemed
to be questioning her, “Who’s that coming home 2—who's that P” And
when, at length, she was in her room, she sat down quietly, and stared at
the light; and suddenly she rose up, and seized the lamp, and held it up
to the glass, and looked at her face, and felt inclined to say to herself—
“Who is that ?—And thus he has seen me; this is how I look” was her
second thought. “He must have been pleased with something about you,
or why would he have looked at you so P”
A quiet feeling of gratification arose in her, that was heightened by the
thought :
“Well, for once you have been looked upon as a person; until now, you
have only been used to serve, and to be a convenience for others. Good
night, Amrei : this has been a day indeed! But even this day must come
to an end at last.” --
Midnight was past when Barefoot carefully folded up her clothes, one
piece after another. Why, there is the music still ! Hark, how the waver-
ing waltz sounds ! She opened the window : there was no music, but the
ringing in her ears. Below there is Black Marianne's; the cock is crowing
already, the frogs are quacking, and there are approaching footsteps of men
coming along the road. They must be late comers from the wedding—how
loud their footsteps sound in the night! The young geese are cackling in
their pens; yes, geese only sleep an hour at a time, by day or by night.
The trees stand silent and motionless. How different a tree appears by
night and by day !—such a thick dark mass, like a giant in his cloak. What
a movement there is in a tree that thus stands motionless | What a world
of beings there are in the tree | Not a breath of air is stirring, and yet there
111
Alittle Barefoot.
seems to be a dropping from the trees—probably caterpillars and beetles
that are falling down. A quail sets up his pipe; it must be the tame one
that the host at the “Heath Cock” keeps locked up. That quail does not
know that it is still night. And see, the evening star, that at sunset was so
distant and deep beneath the moon, is now quite close to it, and over it;
and the more one looks at it, the more it glitters. Is it conscious of a
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song it is—so deep, so mellow ! Can it be only a single bird P And now
Amrei starts; for, as the bell tolls out one o'clock, a tile slips from the
roof, and falls rattling on the ground. Amrei trembles, as if afraid of a
ghost; she forces herself to listen a little while longer to the nightingale,
but then she shuts the window. A night-butterfly, looking like a great
caterpillar with many wings, has ventured into the little garret, and flies
about the light, attracted and repelled, looking grey and weird: Amrei
catches him at last, and flings him out into the night.
As she laid her cap, bodice, and jacket in a drawer, she involuntarily took





















112
Only a Single Dance.
up her copy-book, that she had preserved from the old school-days, and
read in it, she knew not why, all kinds of moral precepts. How stiffly and
carefully they were all written! Yes, out of these leaves she could remem-
ber that she had had a past, for it seemed that everything had vanished
from her.
“Now, quickly to bed ' " she cried to herself; but, with her characteristic
carefulness, she untied every string quietly and deliberately; and when a
string was drawn into a knot, she did not cease her efforts till, by dint of
fingers, teeth, and pins, she had disentangled it. Never in her life had she
cut a knot asunder ; and now, even in her high excitement, she did not
forget her orderly habits, and succeeded in disentangling the knots that
appeared hopeless.
At last she put out the lamp quietly and carefully, and lay down in bed;
but she could not rest, and soon jumped out again, and sat by the open
window, gazing at the dark night and the twinkling stars. That was a
strange gazing and dreaming—so vague, so silent--desiring nothing, and
yet embracing all : a moment of oblivion and of life in space—in eternity!
In the soul of this poor servant girl sitting in a garret, there had opened
the feeling of the endless life—the loftiness and the happiness that man
contains within himself; and this feeling does not ask, “Who is this in
whom I arise P”—for the eternal stars shine upon the lowliest cottage.
A current of air, that closed the window with a crash, woke Amrei up :
she knew not how she got to bed, and now it was day.
113 15
CHAPTER XI.
W H A T TAI E O L D S O AVG S 4 Y.S.
“There’s no coal, there's no fire,
That burneth so hot,
As the love, still and silent,
Whereof no one knows aught.”
...'...l.
t l,
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iſºlº
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O sang Amrei in the morn-
ing as she stood by the
hearth, while all in the
house were still asleep.
The waggoner, who had
, been feeding his horses,
º sº º º | came into the kitchen to
sº ſºlº Nº. get a coal for his pipe.
Wº ºil" iſ “What do you do up
w so early, when the spar-
rows have just begun to
twitter P” he asked Bare-
foot.
“I’m making a draught
for the cow that’s got a
calf,” answered Barefoot,
stirring up the meal and
bran, without looking
round.
“I and the foreman
=º-º-º-º- ºr lºft were looking for you at
===== −2 = *a y) the dance last evening,
i. ſſ., T , , , , T ~ - - - . - . . but you were nowhere to
be found,” said the waggoner. “To be sure, you would not dance; you
were satisfied that the strange prince made a fool of you.”
“He isn't a prince, and he didn't make a fool of me. And if he did, I'd
rather be thought a fool by him, than be thought clever by you and the
foreman.”
“But why did he not tell you who he is P”
“Because I didn't ask him,” retorted Barefoot.
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114
What the Old Song says.
The waggoner made a coarse joke, and laughed at his own wit; for there
are departments in which the most foolish can affect to be witty. Barefoot's
face flamed up in a double glow, heated by the hearth fire from without,
and the fire of anger from within : she ground her teeth together, and said,
“I’ll tell you what: you must know yourself what you are worth, and I
can't object to your having no respect for yourself. But to your having no
respect for me, I do object. And now, you go out of the kitchen: you've
no business here; and if you don't go directly, I'll show you the way out.”
“Will you call up master's family P”
“I don't need them,” said Barefoot; and she caught up a burning brand
from the hearth, from which the red sparks were flying. “Be off, or I shall
mark you !”
The waggoner slunk away with a forced laugh. Barefoot tucked up her
skirt, and, still breathing short, went off into the stable with the steaming
draught.
The cow seemed to be grateful for being remembered so early. She
lowed, and stopped several times in drinking to look at Barefoot with
great eyes.
“Yes, now you'll be questioned and teased finely,” said Barefoot to her-
self; “but what does it matter P” 4.
As she went with her meal-tub to another cow, she sang:
“Turn thee round, brindled cow,
Turn thee round again ;
And say, when I am married,
Who shall milk thee then P”
“Nonsense !” she added, as if in reproof of herself.
She now completed her work in silence, and gradually life awoke in the
house; and hardly was Rose awake, before she came running down after
Barefoot, and scolded her; for Rose had lost a fine neckerchief. She de-
clared she had given it to Barefoot to take care of, and that Barefoot, in
her eagerness, had thrown everything away, when the stranger asked her
to dance; “And who knows,” she added, “if he was not a thief, who had
stolen his horse and his clothes, and who would be brought along in chains
to-morrow P” and that it had been shameful the way in which Barefoot had
sung out at the dance; and that she ought to be careful, for Enzian's Valen-
tine had said that “when a hen crows like a cock, the lightning will strike,
and there’ll be misfortune.” For her own part, she had taken her to a
dance for the first and the last time; she had not known which way to look,
she was so ashamed that any one should be able to say, “Such a girl as that,
serves in your house; ” and if it were not that her sister-in-law took Bare-
foot's part, and could do as she chose, the goose-girl should be turned out
of the house at once. e
Barefoot endured it all in silence, for she had that day already experi-
115 15—2
Little Barefoot.
enced the two things she would have to bear, and had settled in her mind
what she would do in each case: whoever abused her, she would shake off
by silence; whoever laughed and jeered at her should be snubbed. If she
had not always a glowing brand in her hand, as in the waggoner's case, she
had glances and words at command which answered the same purpose.
Barefoot was never weary of telling Black Marianne how badly Rose
treated her; and as she could not do that in the house, she let her tongue
loose at Black Marianne's, and complained of Rose in the angriest words.
But then she would quickly recollect herself, and say,
“Ah, but it's not right; she's making me bad too, that I should take
such words in my mouth.”
But Marianne comforted her by saying,
“It’s quite right that you should speak those words. Look, if one sees
anything nasty, one must spit, or one will be ill; and when one sees, and
hears, and has to bear something bad, one must cry out about it: one's soul
must spit, or else it will be bad.” -
Barefoot could not help laughing at the singular arguments of Black
Marianne. -
Day after day went by in the old fashion; and the wedding, and the dance,
and all that had happened on the occasion, was forgotten. But Barefoot
experienced a continual longing to think about it, and could not conquer
the feeling at all.
It was well that she could confide everything to Black Marianne.
“I think I committed a sin,” she once said, mournfully, “in being so very
merry on that day.”
“Against whom did you sin P”
“I mean that God is punishing me for it.”
“Oh, child, what are you doing there 2 God loves all men like His chil-
dren. Can parents have a greater pleasure than in seeing their children
merry P. A father and a mother who see their children dancing joyously,
are doubly happy; and so you must think that God saw you when you
were dancing, and was very glad , and your parents saw you dancing too,
and were glad likewise. Let the people here say what they please. When
my John comes—ah, he can dance But I say nothing. You have one
person about you who says you're in the right, and what do you want
In Ore : -
Certainly, the words and support of Black Marianne were comforting;
but Barefoot had not told her everything, after all. It was not only the
talking of the people that she cared for, and it was not true that she was
satisfied with having once been thoroughly happy. She longed to see the
man again, who had appeared to her like a deliverer, who had so entirely
changed her, and who now knew nothing of her at all.
Yes, Barefoot was very much altered. She neglected no part of her work
—nobody could say anything against her; but a deep sadness took posses-
116
What the Old Song says,
; and
1Ca
Damie had not written a word from Amer
she forgot herself so far that she once said to Black Marianne,
f her mind. And now came another cause—a cause she could openly
S1OIl O
avow before the world
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Mittle Barefoot.
One does not feel at home for one hour—for one minute; one stands firm
on no ground; and one has always one foot in the air.”
“Oh, child, don't say that l” cried Marianne, plaintively. “What do you
know, that you should speak about waiting 2 Think of me: I am waiting
patiently, and shall wait till my dying hour, and not give it up.”
In her sympathy with the grief of another, Barefoot's sorrow dissolved
itself into tears; and she said,
“I feel my heart so heavy 1 I'm always thinking of dying now. How
many thousand pails of water have I yet to carry P and how many Sundays
are there still P One ought by rights not to take it so much to heart, for life
is so soon over; and when Rose scolds, I think, ‘Scold on, you : we shall
soon both of us die, and then there will be an end of it; ' and then a terror
comes upon me, and I am dreadfully afraid to die. When I lie still, and
try to think how it will be when I am dead—that I shall hear nothing, and
see nothing; that this eye and this ear will be dead, and that everything
around me will be there no longer, and I shall know nothing more about
it; they will mow and they will reap, and I shall not be there—oh why
is there such a thing as dying 2 But what art thou to do P Others have
been obliged to die, and they were more than thou. One must bear it
quietly.—Listen : that's the gendarme ringing !” cried Barefoot, inter-
rupting herself in her strange lamentation; and she who had just wanted
to die, and then again not to die, was now anxious to learn what it was that
the gendarme with his bell was announcing.
“Let him ring. He brings nothing for you,” said the old woman, with
a mournful smile. “Oh, what is man How every one tries to crack the
hard nut, and then has to lay it aside unopened I will tell you, Amrei,
what is the matter with you : you are mortally in love. Beglad of it; for
few people have such good luck—few have the happiness to feel a real love
within them ; but take example by me, and don't let Hope go. Do you
know who it is that is dead while his body still lives 2 He who does not
believe with every new day, and especially at every new spring, ‘Now life
is really beginning ! Now something is coming that has not been here at
all yet.' ... It is sure to go well with you yet, for you do nothing but good
deeds. What have you not done for your brother, and for me, and for old
Farmer Rodel, and for everybody But it is a good thing that you don't
know what you are doing. He who does good and prays, and is always
thinking of it, he'll pray himself right through Heaven, and will have to
keep the geese on the other side.”
“I’m free from that,” said Barefoot, laughing, “for I've done that here
already.” And the old woman went on : -
“A voice tells me that he who danced with you was my John, and no
one else. And I will tell you something : if he’s not married already, he
must have you. My John was always fond of velvet clothes; and what I
think is this: he's hovering about the frontier now till our King dies; and
118
What the Old Song says.
then he’ll come into the country; but it's wrong of him not to send any
message to me, when I am yearning so after him.”
Barefoot shuddered at Black Marianne's irrepressible hopefulness, and
at the way she always clung to it.
From that time she seldom made mention of the stranger; only when
she spoke of the hope that people would return, and mentioned Damie, she
could not refrain from thinking secretly of the stranger also. A/e was not
beyond the sea, and he might come again or write; “But,” she added to
herself, “he never asked you who you were. How many thousands of towns,
and villages, and hermitages are there not in the world . . . . Perhaps
he seeks you, and will never find you again. But, no; he can make in-
quiries in Endringen. He need only ask Dominic and Ameile, and they
will give him good information. But I don't know where he is, and I can
do nothing.”
Spring had come again; and Amrei stood by her flowers at the window,
when a bee came flying up, and began sucking at an open blossom.
“Yes, so it is,” thought Barefoot; “a girl is like a plant : she grows to
the place, and cannot go about and seek; she must wait till something
comes flying to her.”
“Were I a little bird,
And had two wings of mine,
I’d fly to thee;
But as that can't be thus,
|Here I must be.
“Though I am far from thee,
Yet I’m, in dreams, with thee,
Speaking right on ;
But when I wake again,
I am alone.
“While hours of night go by,
Doth my heart waking lie,
Thinking of thee!”
Thus sang Amrei.
It was wonderful how all songs seemed now to be adapted to Amrei;-
and how many thousands have already sung the same song from the depths
of their souls; and how many thousands are there still to come who shall
sing it *
§. who yearn, and who at length embrace a heart, ye embrace in it the
love of all who ever have been, or who ever shall be.
TX/~~
* ~<. x
z º - % ºf J
% sº
jºšR.
C H A P T E R X II.
HE IS COME.
† | ARE FOOT was standing one Sunday
Kºſſºs afternoon, according to her cus-
Sº, tom, leaning against the door-
post of the house, and looking
dreamily straight before her,
when the grandson of Coaly
Matthew came running up the
village street, beckoning to her
from afar, and crying out,
“He is come ! Barefoot, he
is come !”
Barefoot felt her knees trem-
ble, and she cried, with a shak-
ing voice,
“Where is he P Where P”
“At my grandfather's, in the
Mosswell Wood.” -
“Where 2 Who? Who sent
you ?”
“Your Damie—he's down
yonder in the wood.”
Barefoot was obliged to sit down on the stone bench in front of the house;
but only for a minute. Then she restrained herself, and stood up stiffly,
with the words:
“My brother ? My Damie P”
“Yes, Barefoot's Damie,” said the boy, bluntly; “and he promised me
a kreutzer if I’d go the errand to you and tell you; so now give me a
kreutzer.” -
“My Damie will give you three.”
“Oh, no | " said the boy, “he’s been whimpering to my grandfather
because he hadn't a kreutzer left.”
“I haven't one now,” said Barefoot, “but I’ll promise you one.”
She went back quickly into the house, and begged the second maid to
milk the cows for her that evening if she should not be back, for she had
an errand to do in a hurry Then, with a heart beating now in anger at
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120
Aſe is come.
Damie, and now in sorrow at him and his unhandiness, sometimes in vexa-
tion at his coming back again, and then in self-reproach that she should
meet her only brother in such a way, Barefoot wended her way out into
the fields, and down the valley to the Mosswell Wood.
There was no mistaking the way to Coaly Matthew's, though one had
to go aside from the footpath. The smell of the charcoal burning led one
infallibly to him. How the birds are rejoicing in the trees And a sorrow-
ing mortal is passing beneath them, and thinking how sad Damie must be,
seeing all these things again, and how badly things must have gone with
him, if he has no other resource but to come home and hang upon her and
live on her earnings.
“Other sisters have a support in their brothers,” she thought, “and I
but I'll show you this time, Damie, that you must stop where I put you,
and that you dare not stir.”
Such were Barefoot's thoughts as she went along ; and at last she got to
Coaly Matthew's. But here she saw only Coaly Matthew himself, who sat
in front of his block hut by the kiln, holding his wooden pipe with both
hands as he smoked it; for a charcoal-burner is like his charcoal-kiln in
this, that he's always smoking. wº
“Has any one been making a laughingstock of me?” Barefoot asked
herself. “Oh, that would be shameful | What have I done to people that
they should make a fool of me? But I will soon find out who did it ; and
he shall pay for it.” *
With clenched fists and a flaming face she stood before Coaly Matthew.
That worthy hardly raised his eyes to her, much less did he speak a word.
So long as the sun shone he was always mute; and only in the night, when
nobody could look into his eyes, he was fond of talking, and spoke freely.
Barefoot gazed for a minute at the black face of the charcoal-burner, and
then asked, angrily,
“Where is my Damie P”
The old man shook his head in negation. Then Barefoot asked again,
with a stamp of her foot,
“Is my Damie with you ?”
The old man unfolded his hands, and spread them right and left, with a
gesture indicative of the fact that he was not there. -
“Who was it that sent to me?” asked Barefoot, still more angrily. “Can't
you speak 2 ” -
The charcoal-burner pointed with his right thumb towards the side where
a footpath wound round the mountain.
“For Heaven's sake, do speak a word ' " cried Barefoot, fairly weeping
with anger; “only a single word. Is my Damie here, or where is he ”
At last the old man said,
“He’s there; gone to meet you along the path; ” and then, as if he had
said too much, he pressed his lips together, and went away round the kiln.
121 16
Little Barefoot,
There stood Barefoot, laughing bitterly about her foolish brother.
“He sends to me, and doesn't stay in the place where I can find him;
and if I go up that way now, how could he imagine that I should come by
the footpath 2 He's sure to have altered his mind now, and he’ll be going
another way, and won't be to be found, and we shall be wandering about
one another as in a mist.”
Barefoot sat quietly down on the stump of a tree; and it burnt within
her as in the kiln : the flame could not strike out, but the fire was obliged
to smoulder within. The birds were singing, the forest rustled; but what
is all that when there's no clear responsive sound in the heart 2 Barefoot
remembered now, as in a dream, how she had once cherished thoughts of
love. What right had she to let such thoughts rise within her ? Had she
not misery enough in herself and in her brother ? And this thought of love
was now to her like the remembrance in winter of a bright summer's day.
One can just remember that it was once so sunnily warm, but nothing of it
is left. Now she had to learn the meaning of the word “waiting.” Wait-
ing on a crag, high up, where there is hardly a hand-breadth of earth; and
he who knows what that means feels all his old misery—and more.
She went into the block hut of the charcoal-burner; and there lay a sack,
loose, and hardly half full, and on the sack was her father's name.
“Oh, how you have been dragged about !” she said, almost aloud. But
she soon got over her excitement, and wanted to see what Damie had
brought back. “At least, he must have the shirts still that I had made for
him out of Black Marianne's linen. And perhaps there's also a present
from our uncle in America in it. But if he had anything good, would he
have gone first to Coaly Matthew in the forest ? Would he not have shown
himself at once in the village P.”
Barefoot had time to think out these thoughts; for the sack had been
tied with a cord, knotted in a most complicated way, and all her patient
and practised skill was required to disentangle it at last. She emptied out
everything that was in the sack, and said, with angry eyes,
“Oh, you good-for-nothing ! There's not a decent shirt left. Now you
can have your choice whether you'll be called “Jack in Tatters,' or ‘Tattered
Jack.’”
This was not a happy frame of mind in which to greet her brother for
the first time; and Damie seemed to feel that, for he stood looking at the
entrance of the log hut, till Barefoot had put everything back into the sack.
Then he stepped up to her, and said,
“God greet you, Amrei I bring you nothing but dirty clothes; but
you are neat, and will make me—” -
“Oh, dear Damie, how you look 1" cried Barefoot, and she threw her-
self on his neck; but she quickly tore herself from him, and said,
“For Heaven's sake, what's this 2 You smell of brandy I Have you
got so far already ?”
122
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3
16—2
Little Barefoot. º
“I am in good health, and intend to be a soldier.”
“What you are, and what you will become, we'll think about in good
time; but now tell me how things have gone with you.” -
Damie kicked away a log of half-burnt wood—one of the spoilt logs, as
they were called—with his foot, and he said, g
“Look you, I'm just like that—not quite turned to coal, and yet no
longer fresh wood.”
Barefoot exhorted him to say what he had to say without complaints;
and then Damie went off into a long, long story, setting forth how he had
not been able to bear the life at his uncle's, and how hardhearted and selfish
that uncle was, and especially how the wife had grudged him every bit he
ate in the house, and how he had got work here and there, but had always
more and more experienced the hardheartedness of men : in America one
person would see another perishing in misery, and never so much as look
round at him.
Barefoot could hardly help laughing when there came again and again as
the burden of the story—“And then they turned me out into the street.”
She could not help interrupting him with—
“Yes, that's how you are, and how you used to be, already as a child.
When once you stumbled, you let yourself fall like a log of wood. One
must make the stumble into a hop, as the old proverb says. Be merry.—
Do you know what one must do, if people want to hurt one P”
“One must keep out of their way.”
“No, one must hurt them if one can ; and one hurts them most by keep--
ing up and achieving something. But you always stand there, and say to
the world, “Do what you like to me, good or bad. Kiss me or beat me—
just as you will.' That's easy enough. You let them do anything to you,
and then you pity yourself. I should like it well enough, if some one else
would place me here or there, and I had not to do it for myself. But you
must take your own part now. You've let yourself be thrust about quite
enough in the world : now you must be master for once.”
Reproof and teaching often appear like hardness and injustice in the
eyes of the unhappy; and Damie took his sister's words in this sense. It
was dreadful that she did not see that he was the most unhappy creature
on earth. She strongly urged him not to believe that ; and said that if he
did not believe it, it was not so. But it is the most difficult of all things
to inspire a man with confidence in himself: most people only gain that
confidence when they have had a success.
Damie declared he would not tell his heartless sister a word more;
and it was only after some time that she got from him a detailed account
of his travels and fortunes, and how he had at last come back to the Old
World as a stoker on board a steamboat. While she reproved him for
his self-formenting softness, she became conscious that she herself was not
free from that failing.
124
A/e is come.
-
Through her almost exclusive association with Black Marianne, she had
got into the habit of always thinking and talking so much about herself
that she had fallen into a desponding way. Now that she had to cheer her
brother up, she unconsciously exerted a similar power upon herself; for
herein consists the mysterious power of co-operation among men—that
when we help others, we always help ourselves too.
“We have four sound hands,” she said, in conclusion, “and we'll see if
we can't fight our way through the world; and to fight your way through
is a thousand times better than to beg your way through. And now,
Damie, come with me—come home.”
Damie did not want to show himself in the village at all; he was afraid
of the jeering that would be vented upon him on all sides, and wished for
the present to remain concealed; but Barefoot said,
“You go with me now, on this bright Sunday; and you must go right
through the village, and let them mock at you, let them have their say,
and let them point and laugh; and then you have done with it, and got
rid of it, and you will have swallowed the bitter draught at once, and not
drop by drop.” -
Not without long and angry resistance, and not until taciturn Matthew
had interfered and sided with Barefoot, was Damie induced to comply.
And, indeed, there was a perfect hail-storm of jeering, sometimes coarse,
sometimes satirical, about Barefoot's Damie, who had made a pleasure
excursion to America at the expense of the parish. Only Black Marianne
received him kindly; and her first question was,
“Have you heard nothing of my John P.”
Damie could give her no information. And in a double sense he had
to be scratched to-day; for that very evening Barefoot brought the barber,
who had to take off the fierce beard, and give him the smooth-shaven face
that was the fashion of the country.
The very next morning Damie was summoned to the Court-house; and
as he trembled at the summons, he knew not why, Barefoot promised to
accompany him ; and that was good, though it was not of much use.
The council declared to Damie that he was to be sent away from the
place; that he had no right to remain here, perhaps to become a burden
on the community once more.
All the members were astonished when Barefoot answered,
“Yes, you can send him away; but do you know when 2 When you can
go out into the churchyard, there where our father and our mother are lying,
and when you can say to those who are buried there, ‘Up, go away with
your child !' then you can send him away. No one can be sent away from
the place where his parents are buried; for he is more than at home there;
and if it's written a thousand times in the books there, and a thousand
times to that,” and here she pointed to the bound Government registers, “and
wherever else it may be written, it may not be done, and you cannot do it.”
125
Little Barefoot.
One of the councillors whispered to the schoolmaster,
“Barefoot has learned to talk in that way from no one else but Black
Marianne.”
And another bent down to the bailiff, and said, -
“Why do you allow the Cinderella to make such an outcry 2 Ring for
the gendarme, and tell him to shut her up in the madhouse.”
But the bailiff only smiled, and explained to Barefoot that the community
had become free from all burdens that could ever accrue to it through
Damie, by paying the greater part of the passage-money for him.
“But where is his home now P” asked Barefoot.
“Wherever they will receive him, but not here; and at present nowhere.” .
“Yes, I have no home,” said Damie, who was almost pleased at being
more and more unhappy; for now nobody could deny that no person in
the world was worse off than he.
Barefoot still strove; but she soon saw that nothing was to be done
here: the law was against her. And now she declared that she would work
her fingers to the bone rather than take anything again from the parish for
herself or her brother; and she promised to pay back all that had been
received.
“Shall I put that down on the minutes ?” asked the clerk, of those who
sat around ; and Barefoot replied,
“Yes, put it down; with you nothing counts except it's written down.”
Barefoot put her signature to the minute; but when this had been done,
it was nevertheless announced to Damie that, as a stranger, he had the
permission to stay for three days in the village; but that if within that
time he had not found some means of subsistence, he would be sent away,
and in case of necessity, would be removed in custody across the frontier.
Without another word Barefoot left the council-house with Damie, who
actually shed tears because she had compelled him to go back into the
village to no purpose : it would have been better, he declared, if he had
remained in the forest, and saved himself the jeering, and the humiliation
of knowing that he was banished as a stranger from his native place. Bare-
foot wanted to reply that it was better to know the worst, however bitter
it might be; but she restrained herself, for she felt that she had need of all
her self-command to keep up her own courage : she felt as if she had been
banished with her brother, and understood that she had to fight with a
world that could lean upon might and law, while she herself stood empty-
handed ; but she kept herself more upright than ever.
Damie's helplessness and misfortune did not press her down. For this
is the way with people : if any one has a pain of his own which entirely
occupies him, he will bear a second pain—be it ever so severe—more easily
than if he had this second pain alone to bear. And whereas Barefoot felt .
a nameless sorrow against which she could do nothing, she bore the definite
trial against which she could strive, the more willingly and freely. She
126
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A.ittle Barefoot.
allowed herself not a minute more for dreaming, and went to and fro with
her arms stiff and her fists clenched, as if she would say, “Where is there
work to do P Let it be the heaviest, I will undertake it, if I can only get
myself and my brother out of our forsaken and abandoned state.”
She now cherished the idea of going with Damie to Alsace, and working
in a factory there. It seemed terrible to her that she should have to do
this; but she would force herself to do it. If only the summer were past,
then she would go away; and then, “Farewell, home,” said she, “for we
are strangers even here where we were born.” &
The one protector the two orphans, had had in the village council was
now powerless to do anything for them. Old Farmer Rodel was lying
grievously sick; and in the night after the stormy council, he died.
Barefoot and Black Marianne were the two people who wept most at his
burial, in the churchyard. On the way home Black Marianne alleged as a
special reason for this, that old Farmer Rodel had been the last survivor
of those with whom she had danced in the days of her youth; “And now,” .
she said, “my last partner is dead l’’ -
But soon she spoke a very different elegy concerning him; for it appeared
that Farmer Rodel, who had for years been raising Barefoot's hopes con-
cerning his will, did not make mention of her at all in that document—far
less did he leave her anything. - • -
When Black Marianne went on with an endless tirade of scolding and
complaining, Barefoot said, -
“It's all coming at once: things are bad now; it's hailing down upon me .
from all sides; but the sun will soon shine again.”
The relatives of old Farmer Rodel gave Barefoot a few garments that
had belonged to the deceased : she would have liked to refuse them, but it
would not do to show more opposition just now. Damie also refused at
first to accept the clothes, but was obliged to give in. He seemed fated to
pass his life in the clothes of all kinds of dead people. &
Coaly Matthew took Damie to be with him at the kiln in the forest; and
there were not wanting talebearers to come to Damie, and tell him he had
only to begin a lawsuit, for that he could not be driven away, because he
had not yet been received at any other place; and that this was always a
tacit condition when any one gave up his right of settlement.
These people seemed to derive a certain satisfaction from the reflection
that the poor orphans had neither time nor money to begin a legal process.
Damie seemed to feel comfortable in the loneliness of the forest. It was
just what suited him, that people were not obliged to dress and undress
there; and every Sunday afternoon Barefoot had quite a fight to get him
to make himself a little clean ; then she would sit with him and Matthew.
Little was said, and Barefoot could not restrain her thoughts from wander-
ing about the world in search of him who had once made her happy for a
whole day, and had lifted her above the earth. Did he know nothing
128 -
A/e is come.
more about her ? and did he think of her no more ? Can a person forget
another with whom he has once been so happy P
It was a Sunday morning towards the end of May, and all the people
were at church. The day before it had rained. A fresh, reviving breeze
was blowing over mountain and valley, and the sun shone brightly down.
Barefoot also had wished to go to church; but she had sat like one spell-
bound under the window while the bells were ringing, and had missed the
A zwhite doze was perched efore the ledge, looking at her.
time. That was a strange thing for her, and had never happened before.
Now that it was too late, she determined to stay alone, and read her hymn-
book at home. She rummaged in her drawer, and was surprised at finding
all sorts of things that belonged to her. She sat on the ground reading a
hymn, and was humming the tune of it to herself, when something stirred
at the window. She looked up. A white dove was perched upon the ledge,
looking at her; and when the eyes of the girl and of the dove met, the bird
flew away. And Barefoot gazed after it as it soared over the field, and then
perched there. *
This incident, which was a very natural one, quite gladdened her; and
she kept nodding to the mountains in the distance, and to field and wood.
The whole day she was unusually cheerful. She could not say why, but it
seemed to her as if a joyous spirit were singing within her, and she knew
not whence it came. And often as she shook her head, as she leaned against

129 17
Little Barefoot.
the door-post, wondering at the strange excitement she felt, the feeling did
not pass away.
“It must be, it must be that some one good has been thinking of me,”
she said; “and why should it not be that such a dove is the silent messenger
who tells me that P Animals, after all, live in the world, where the thoughts
of men fly to and fro–and who knows if they don't quietly carry those
thoughts away 2”
The people who went by Barefoot, could have no idea of the strange life
that was moving within her.
- * > . . .
:-
CHAPTER XIII.
O UT OF A MO THE R'S HAEA R T.
jº HILE Barefoot was dreaming
and working and fretting, in
village and field and wood—
sometimes feeling a strange,
joyous shudder pass through
her; at others, thinking herself
deserted in the wide world—
two parents were sending their
child away—certainly, that he
might return to them the richer.
Yonder, in Allgau, in the
great farmhouse known by the
sign of the “Wild Cleaving
Axe,” sat Farmer Landfried
and his wife, with their young-
- *- - est son ; and the farmer said,
s = ~T - “Listen, John. It's more
than a year since you came back, and I don't know what's come to you.
You came home that day like a dog that's been beaten, and you said you
would rather choose a wife in the neighbourhood here; but I don't see
any signs of that. If you will do as I tell you once more, then I won't say
another word to persuade you.”
“Yes, I will,” said the young man, without looking up.
“Well, then, try it once more : one time is no time. And I tell you,
you'll make me and your mother happy, if you take a wife out of Our
country; and I should like it best, if you chose one from your mother's
native place.—I may say it to your face, mistress : there's only one good
breed of women, and they come from our place at home. And you're a
sensible lad, John, and you’ll find an honest one, and then you'll thank us
on your death-bed for sending you to our home to find a wife. If I could
get away, I would go with you; and we two together would find the right
one. But I've spoken to our George, and he'll go with you if you ask him.
Ride over, and speak to him.”
“If I’m to say what I think,” answered the young man, “if I'm to go
again, I would rather go alone. You see, it's my way. In such a matter
wº
º

-- 131 17—2
Alittle Barefoot.
I can bear no other eye, and should not like to consult any one else. If
it could be done, I should like to go invisible, and find everything out for
myself; but if two go together, one might as well have the bellman
announce it, and they all dress themselves out to receive one.”
“As you will,” said the father: “you always were a strange fellow. Do
you know what P Suppose you start at once. We want another horse to
go with our grey, so do you go and look for one; but not in the market.
And when you go about in the houses, you can see things for yourself;
and on your way home you can buy a Bernese chaise-waggon. Dominic in
Endringen, they say, has three daughters as straight as organ-pipes: choose
one of those. We should like to have a daughter out of that house.”
“Yes,” the mother observed, “Ameile is sure to have good daughters.”
“And it would be better,” continued the father, “if you went to Sieben-
hofen, and had a look at Amrei, the ‘Butter Count's ' daughter. She has
a farm of her own that one could sell; for the Siebenhof farmers are all
licking their lips at it, for they want to have more fields; but there is none
of them can hit it. But I'll say nothing more, for you have eyes of your
own. Come, and set out at once. I'll fill the money-belt for you. Two
hundred crown dollars will be enough ; but Dominic will lend you some
if you should want more. Only make yourself known. I can never under-
stand why you did not make yourself known that time at the wedding:
something must have happened then ; but I don't ask any questions.”
“Yes, because he won't tell,” said the mother, smiling.
The farmer at once set about filling the money-belt. He broke open
two great paper rouleaux; and it was manifest that he enjoyed the busi-
ness, as he passed the big coins from one hand into the other. He made
heaps of ten dollars each, and counted them two or three times, to be sure
that he made no mistake.
“Well, I am ready,” said the young man; and he got up as he spoke.
He is the strange dancer, whose acquaintance we made at the wedding
at Endringen. Soon he brought the grey horse out of the stable, saddled,
and fastened his valise on the saddle; and a fine large wolf-hound began
jumping up at him and licking his hands.
“Yes, yes, I'll take you with me,” said the lad, speaking to the dog;
and for the first time his face looked cheerful, as he called out to the farmer
in the room, - s
“Father, can I take Lux with me P”
“Yes, if you like; ” the answer sounded from within, amid the jingling
of the dollars. The dog seemed to understand the question and answer,
and ran round the yard in circles, barking joyously.
The young man went into the room; and as he buckled on the money-
bag, he said,
“You’re right, father : I feel better already, now that I'm getting myself
out of this lazy way of living; and I don't know—people ought not to be
132
Out of a Mother's Heart.
superstitious, but I was glad that the horse turned round to me and neighed
when I went into the stable just now, and that the dog wants to go too.
After all, it's a good sign; and if we
could ask animals, who knows if they
could not give us good advice P”
The mother smiled; but the father
said,
“Don’t forget to get hold of Crappy 2,2: :
Zachy, and don't go forward and bind cº-º-º:
g gº --~~~~ * > . . .
yourself till you have consulted him. º
He knows the affairs of all the people º º
for ten miles round, and is a living ºš
register of property.—And now, God tº .
be with you! and take your time. You
can stay away ten days.”
Father and son shook hands; and
- the mother said,
“I’ll see you part of the way.”
The young man now led his horse
by the bridle, and walked quietly beside
his mother till they had left the farm
behind them; and it was not till they
got to the turn in the road that the
mother said, in a hesitating way, “I should like to give you some advice.”
“Yes, yes, let me have it; I'll gladly hear it.”
And now the mother took her son's hand, and began :
“You must stand still ; I can't talk while I'm walking. Look—that she
should please you is, of course, the first thing. There's no joy without
love, and—well, I'm an old woman, and so I may say all to you, mayn't
I 2 "
“Yes, surely.”
“Well, if you don't feel glad, and feel as if it were a boon of Heaven if
you may give her a kiss, it's not the right sort of love; but—why don't
you stand still 2—but this kind of love is not enough. There may be some-
thing else concealed beneath it. Believe me” . . . . and the old
woman hesitated, and blushed rosy red. “Look you; where there's not
the right feeling of respect—where one doesn't feel rejoiced that a woman
takes a thing in hand just in one way and not in any other, and does it just
in this way and not in that—it's a bad prospect; and, above all things,
notice how she behaves to the servants.”
“I’ll take what you have to say, and change it into small coin for you,
mother; for talking is troublesome to you. What you have just said I
understand : she must not be too proud, and not too familiar.”
“That, certainly; but I can see by a girl's mouth, if that mouth has used
*
:*.











J 33
Mittle Barefoot.
bad words, and scolded and stormed, and is fond of doing it. Yes, if you
could see her weeping with vexation, or come upon her unawares when
she's angry, that would be the best way of knowing what she is ; for then
the inward self that we conceal springs out ; and often that self is armed
with eagle's claws, like a devil. Oh, child, I have had much experience, and
seen many things. I can see by the way a woman puts out a candle how
it is with her, and what kind of a temper she has. She who puts out the
light in a hurry as she goes by—whether it blows sparks and sputters or
not—that is one who prides herself upon her bustling quickness, and who
only does things by halves, and has no quietness in her mind.”
“But, mother, you're making it too hard for me; it's a lottery after all,
and will always remain one.”
“Yes, yes, you need not remember it all; but I only mean in a general
way: if it should come before you, you’ll know what I meant. And then
you must notice—see if she can speak and work too—if she has something
in her hand while she's speaking to you, and does not stop every time she
says a word, and only pretends to be working. I tell you that industry is
everything in a woman. My mother used always to say, “A girl may never
go about empty-handed, and should be ready to cross three fences to pick
up a feather.’ And still in her work she must be quiet and steady, and not
rush about and rampage as if she were just going to pull down a piece of the
world. And when she speaks and answers you, notice whether she is too
bashful or too bold. You would not believe it, but girls are quite different
when they see a man's hat from what they are among themselves; and
those who seem as if they were always saying, ‘Don’t eat me !’ are the
worst—but, no; those who have such sharp tongues, and think that when
anybody is in the room the tongues should never rest, those are worse still.”
The lad laughed, and said,
“Mother, you ought to go about in the world preaching, and hold church
services for girls only.” -
“Yes, that I could,” replied the mother, laughing too; “but I bring out
the last part first. Of course, you must notice how she behaves to her
parents and her brothers and sisters. You are a good son yourself: I
need not tell you anything about that. You know the fourth command-
ment.”
“Yes, mother, you may be easy about that, and I have an especial token
about that. Where they make such fuss about love to parents, it means
nothing: it’s best shown in deeds; and those who chatter very much about
it, are tired and weary when the time comes for deeds.”
“Why, you are wise !” said the mother; and she laid her hand on her
bosom, and looked up at her son. “May I tell you something more ?”
“Yes, I'm always glad to listen to you.”
“It seems to me that to-day is the first time I can really speak to you;
and when I die, I want to leave nothing behind me that I have forgotten.
134
Out of a Mother's Heart.
The fourth commandment—yes, I remember what my father once said to
me. Oh, he understood everything, and had read much in books; and
once I stood by, and heard how he said to the clergyman, who was often
with him : ‘I know the reason why the fourth commandment is the only
one to which a promise of reward is attached, when one would think that
Wºjº º ºs
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“Azºr, mother, you're making it too hard for me.”
was quite unnecessary, for it is the most natural thing in the world. But
it is said, “Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long”
—that does not mean that a good child shall live seventy or eighty years.
No, he who honours his father and mother lives long, but he lives in the
past. He has the life of his parents within himself—in remembrance, in
thoughts; and that cannot be taken from him ; and his days are long in
the land, whatever his age may be.’ And he who does not honour father
and mother, has come into the world, as it were, to-day, and to-morrow he
is gone." -


135
Little Barefoot.
“Mother, that is a good word : I understand it, and I will not forget it,
and my children shall learn it too. But the more you talk thus, the more
difficult will it be to me to find one ; for I think she ought to be like you.”
“Oh, child, do not be so foolish At nineteen or twenty years of age, I
was quite different, wild and self-willed ; and even now, I am not, by a long
way, as I should like to be.—But what did I still want to say to you ?—
Yes, about the wife. It is strange that the choice should be so difficult just
for you. But, from a child upwards, everything was more difficult for you.
You did not learn to walk till you were two years old ; and now you can
spring like a colt. Now, there are only a few more trifling things; but one
can often judge of great things by them. Notice how she laughs: not so
broadly and boisterously, and yet not pointing her mouth like a beak; but
heartily and frankly. I wish you knew how you laugh, and then you would
soon learn it.” º
The son could not help laughing aloud at this ; and the mother continued:
“Yes, yes, that is it. My father used to laugh in that way too : just so
—his back used to shake, and his shoulders to rise; ”—and the more the
mother insisted on this, the more did the son laugh, and, at last, she began
to laugh too; and when one left off, the laughter of the other caused a fresh
outburst. -
They sat on a bench by the wayside, and let the horse graze; and the
mother picked a wild flower, and played with it in her hand; and she said,
“Yes, there 's a great significance in that, too. See if she has flowers
that flourish ; for there's much in that—more than one thinks.”
In the distance some girls were heard singing; and the mother said,
“Also remark if, in singing, she’s fond of taking the second voice; for
with those who always want to sing first, there's a meaning in it; and, look
yonder—some school-children are coming : they tell me something too. If
you can find out if she still has her copy-book from school : that's an im-
portant thing.”
“Why, mother, you’ll be taking the whole world for a sign Whatever
can it matter whether she has her copy-book still or not ?”
“That you should ask this, shows that you are not quite wise yet. A
girl who does not care to save anything that has once had a value, has no
real heart.”
While they were speaking, the young man had been trying to disentangle
the point of his whip-lash that had become entangled. He now took a knife
from his pocket, and cut the knot in two. The mother pointed with her
finger to it, and said, -
“You may do that, but a girl may not. Notice if she is hasty to cut a
knot : there's a secret in that.”
“I can guess that,” said the son.—“But your shoe-string is untied, and
we must go now.” ---
“Yes;–and here you put something else into my mind,” said the mother.
136
Out of a Mother's Heart. -
.*
“Look: that's one of the best signs. Notice how she treads down her
* if inwards or outwards; and if she goes slipshod, and tears her shoes
ast.” •
“For that I'd have to go to the shoemaker,” said the son, smiling.—“Oh,
mother, all these things you speak of will never be found together.”
“Yes, yes, I talk too much, and you need not remember all; it's only to
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While they were speaking, the young man had been trying to disentangle the point of his whip-ſach.
remind you if it should come before you. I only mean this: what a woman
has or inherits is not the chief thing, but what she uses.—But now, you
know, I have let you go your own way quietly ; so, now, open your heart
to me, and tell me what it was that made you come back from the wedding
at Endringen-like a man bewitched, and why you have not since been the
same lad you were before ? Tell me, and perhaps I can help you.”
“Oh, mother, you cannot do that; but I will tell you. I saw some one
there who would have been the right one, but she was the wrong one.”
“For Heaven's sake 1 — you have not fallen in love with a married
woman P”

137 18
Azttle Barefoot.
“No, but still she was the wrong one. Why should I make many words
about it 2 She was a servant-maid.”
The son drew a deep breath, and both he and his mother were silent for
Some time. At last the mother laid her hand on his shoulder, and said,
“Oh, you are good l and I thank God that He has let you become so.
You have done well to put that out of your mind. Your father would
never have consented to it; and you know what a father's blessing means.”
“No, mother, I will not make myself out better than I am. I myself
was annoyed that she was only a servant; it would not do, and therefore
I went away. But it was even harder than I expected to get her out of
my head; but now it's over—it must be over: I have given my word to
myself for it not to make any inquiries after her—not to ask anybody
where she is, and who she is; and, God willing, I'll bring you home a right
farmer's daughter.”
“Surely you acted honestly by the girl, and did not put foolish notions
into her head P”
“Mother, there's my hand; I have nothing to reproach myself with.
“I believe you,” said the mother; and she pressed his hand repeatedly.
“And now, good luck and blessing go with you !” -
The son mounted his horse, and his mother looked after him: suddenly
she called out, *
“Stop—I must tell you something else: I have forgotten the best of all.”
The son turned round his horse; and when he got back to his mother, he
said smiling,
“But, mother—that 's the last, eh?”
“Yes, and the best trial of all. Ask the girl about the poor people in
the place; and then listen and hear what the poor people say about her.
That must be a bad farmer's daughter who has not taken some poor person
by the hand, to do good to : remember that. And now God keep you, and
ride forward bravely.” -
And as he rode away, the mother spoke a prayer to speed him on his
way, and then went back to the farm.
“I Ought to have told him to inquire about Josenhans's children, and ask
what has become of them,” said the mother to herself. She felt strangely
moved—and who knows the secret ways through which the soul wanders,
or what currents flow above our wonted way, or deep beneath it 2
The melody of a long-forgotten song or dance tune will suddenly awake
within your memory: you cannot sing it aloud-–you cannot bring the notes
together ; but it moves within you quite distinctly, and you can fancy you
hear it. What is it that has suddenly awakened these forgotten sounds
within you ?
What made the mother think of these children, who seemed long ago to
have faded from her remembrance P Was her pious mood of to-day like a
remembrance of other long-forgotten emotions 2 and did it awaken the
138 *
Out of a Mother's Heart.
circumstances that had accompanied those emotions? Who can understand
the impalpable and invisible elements that wander and wave to and fro from
man to man, from memory to memory 2
When the mother came back to the farm, to the father, the latter said,
satirically,
“No doubt you’ve given him many directions how to fish out the best
one; but I've made arrangements for it too; for I've written to Crappy
Zachy : he's sure to lead him into the best houses. He must bring home
one who has plenty of good coin.”
“Plenty of coin don't make out goodness,” replied the mother.
“I know as much as that l” cried the farmer, with a sneer. “But why
shouldn't there be one who is good, and has plenty of good coin too 2"
The mother sat silent. But after awhile she said,
“You’ve referred him to Crappy Zachy. It was at Crappy Zachy's that
Josenhans's boy was boarded out.”
Thus, by pronouncing the name aloud, she showed how her former re-
membrances were dawning upon her; and now she became conscious what
those remembrances were; and her mind often reverted to them during
the events that were to occur soon, and which we are about to chronicle.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” said the farmer. “What's
the child to you ? Why don't you say that I did the thing wisely P"
“Yes, yes, it was wisely done,” the wife acquiesced. But the tardy praise
did not satisfy the old man; and he went out grumbling.
A certain discontented fear that things might go wrong with his boy after
all, and that perhaps he had been in too great a hurry, made the farmer
gruff for the present to everybody about him.

139 18—2
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“AVo, not a red farthing less than a round hundred.”
CHAPTER XIV.
TATA: R J D E R O N THE G A E V AF O R.S.A.
O N the evening of the same day on which John had ridden away from
Zusmarshofen, Crappy Zachy came to Farmer Rodel's house, and
sat with the proprietor for a long time in the back room, reading a letter to
him in a low voice.
“You must give me a hundred crown dollars, if the thing is carried
through ; and I want that put down in writing,” said Crappy Zachy.
“I should think fifty would be enough ; and that's a pretty bit of money.”
“No, not a red farthing less than a round hundred ; and, in saying that,
I'm making you a present of a hundred ; but I'm willing to do it for you
and your sister, and am glad to do a kindness to a fellow-townsman. Why,
in Endringen or in Liebenhofen they'd gladly give me double the money.
Your Rose is a regular farmer's daughter: nobody can deny that; but she's
not anything extraordinary, and one might ask, what's the price of a dozen
such P”
“Be quiet! I won't have that.”

- 140
The Rider on the Grey Horse.
sº-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º- = = *
“Yes, yes, I'll be quiet, and not disturb you in your writing. Now,
write at once.”
Farmer Rodel was obliged to do as Crappy Zachy wished ; and when
he had done writing, he said, *
“What do you think 2 Shall I tell my Rose anything about it 2 ”
“Certainly, you must do so; but don't let her show that she knows it,
nor tell any one in the place : it won't bear gossiping about ; – and all
people have their enemies—you and your sister like the rest; you may
believe me.—Tell Rose to wear her everyday clothes and milk the cows
when he comes. I shall let him come alone to your house. You've read
that Farmer Landfried writes he's a will of his own, and would run away
directly, if he suspected there was anything prepared for him.—But you
must send at once this evening to Lauterbach, and have your brother-in-
law's grey horse brought over ; then I'll get some go-between to send the
suitor over to you in quest of the horse. Don't you let him notice that you
know anything, either.”
Crappy Zachy went away, and Farmer Rodel called his sister and his
wife into the little back room, and imparted to them, after exacting a pro-
mise of secrecy, that a suitor for Rose was coming next day—a man like a
prince, who had a first-rate farm—in fact, John the son of Farmer Land-
fried of Zusmarshofen. He now gave the further directions, as Crappy
Zachy had recommended them, and enjoined the strictest secrecy.
After supper, nevertheless, Rose could not refrain from asking Barefoot,
if, in case of her marrying, Barefoot would go with her as maid ; for she
would give her double her present wages, and then Barefoot would not be
obliged to go across the Rhine into a manufactory. Barefoot gave an
evasive answer; for she was not inclined to go with Rose, and knew that
the latter had selfish intentions in the proposal. First, she wanted to dis-
play her triumph in the fact that she was going to get a husband, and,
indeed, a first-rate one ; and then she wanted Barefoot to keep household
matters in order, about which she had hardly troubled herself at all until
then. Now, Barefoot would have been glad to do this for a mistress who
was kind to her, but not for Rose; and if she was to go from her present
mistress, she would not go to service again, but would rather work for
herself, even if it were in a manufactory with her brother.
Barefoot was just going to bed, when her mistress called her, and
entrusted the secret to her, with the additional remark,
“You have always had patience with Rose; but now have double
patience, so long as the suitor is here, that there may be no disturbance in
the house.”
“Yes; but I consider it’s wrong that she wants now, for this once, to
milk the cows: that's deceiving the worthy man, for she can't milk at all.”
“You and I cannot alter the world,” said the mistress; “I think it's hard
enough for you to bear your own lot; let others do what they will.”
141
Mittle Barefoot.
Barefoot lay down, mournfully reflecting how people cheat each other
without the least scruple. She did not know who the suitor was who was
to be cheated; but she was heartily sorry for the poor young man; and she
was doubly bewildered when she thought,
“Who knows 2 perhaps Rose will be just as much deceived in him, as
he in her.”
In the morning, when Barefoot looked out of the window quite early, she
suddenly started back, as if a bullet had gone by her forehead. e
“Heavens ! What is this 2 " She rubbed her eyes hastily, and opened
them wide, and asked herself if she were in a dream. “Why, that is the
grey horseman of the wedding at Endringen —he's riding into the village
—he's coming to fetch you !—no, he knows nothing of you; but he shall
know !—but, no what are you saying P’’
He comes nearer and nearer, but he does not look up; a full-blown
double pink falls from Barefoot's hand down upon him from the window-
sill, but it falls on the valise behind him; he does not see it, and it lies
there in the road, and Barefoot hurries down, and possesses herself of the
treacherous token once more. And now the truth dawns upon her like a
terrible day. This is the suitor for Rose—this is he of whom she spoke last
evening. She had not mentioned his name; but it can be no other—no
other. And is this man to be deceived P
In the barn, kneeling on the grass from which she was going to feed the
cows, Barefoot prayed fervently to Heaven to preserve the stranger from
ever marrying Rose. That he should ever be her own—that was a thought
she dared not entertain, and could not bear to banish.
So soon as she had finished milking, she hurried across to Black Mari-
anne: she wanted to ask her what she should do; but Black Marianne was
lying grievously ill—she had become very deaf, and could hardly under-
stand connected words; and Barefoot did not dare to call out the secret
that she had half confided to her, and that the old woman had half guessed,
so loudly that Marianne could understand it—people in the street might
hear it. So she came back, not knowing what to do.
Barefoot had to go into the field, and to stay there the whole day plant-
ing root-slips. . . At every step she hesitated, and thought of going home
and telling the stranger everything; but the feeling of dependence, as well
as a special consideration, kept her to the duty that had been set her to do.
“If he is so foolish and inconsiderate,” she thought, “that he runs into
this matter without a thought, then there’s no helping him, and he deservés
no help; and "-she was fain to console herself at last—“promised is not
married.” But all day long she was restless and unhappy.
In the evening, when she had returned from the fields and was milking
the cows, and Rose sat with a full bucket beside a cow that had been milked,
and sang with a loud voice, she heard the stranger talking with the farmer
in the neighbouring stable. They were bargaining about a grey horse.—
142
The Rider on the Grey Horse.
But how came a grey horse in the stable 2 Until then they had had
IlOI)62.
Now the stranger asked,
“Who’s that singing yonder P”
“That's my sister,” answered the farmer; and at the word, Barefoot fell
in, and sang the second voice, powerfully and defiantly, as if she would
compel him to ask also who that was over yonder; but the singing had
ſºft
* {{#####
Rose took up the supper.
the disadvantage that it prevented one from hearing if he had really asked.
And as Rose went with her full pail across the yard, where the grey horse
had just been led out to be looked at, the farmer said, *
“There, that's my sister.—Rose, leave your work, and get something
ready for supper. We have a relation for a guest; I’ll bring him up pre-
sently.”
“And the little one yonder it was who sang the second voice P” said the
stranger. “Is that a sister of yours, too P”
“No-she's in a certain way an adopted child. My father was her
guardian.”
The farmer knew very well that a charity of this kind conduced to the
credit of a house; and therefore he had avoided saying plainly that Bare-
foot was the maid.

143
Zittle Barefoot.
} Barefoot felt heartily glad that the stranger now knew something about
Yer.
“If he is wise,” she thought, very sensibly, “he will be sure to ask me
about Rose. Then the opportunity would be given, and he would, at least,
be saved from a misfortune.”
Rose took up the supper, and the stranger was quite surprised to find
that such good entertainment could be made ready so quickly : he did not
know that all had been prepared beforehand; and Rose apologized, asking
him to make shift with their plain fare, though he was doubtless accustomed
to better things at home. She reckoned, not without acuteness, that the
mention of a well-deserved fame would be gratifying to any one. .
Barefoot was told to remain in the kitchen to-day, and to give all the
dishes into Rose's hands; and she entreated over and over again—
“For goodness sake tell me, who is it? What's his name P”
Rose gave her no answer; but the mistress at last solved the mystery
by saying, -
“You can tell it now. It's John, the son of Farmer Landfried of Zus-
marshofen.—Amrei, you've a keepsake from his mother, haven't you ?”
“Yes, yes,” replied Barefoot; and she was obliged to sit down by the
hearth, for her knees shook under her. How wonderful was all this l—So
it was the son of her first benefactress “Now he must be helped out of
it——and if the whole village should stone me, I won't bear it,” she said to
herself. *
The stranger went away, and his hosts accompanied him to the door;
but on the staircase he turned round, and said, -
“My pipe's gone out; and I like best to light it for myself with a coal.”
He evidently wanted to see how things looked in the kitchen. Rose
pushed in before him, and handed him a coal with the tongs, standing just
in front of Barefoot, who sat on the hearth by the chimney.
Late at night, when the whole house was asleep, Barefoot went out, and
ran about in the village. She sought some one to whom she could speak,
that he might warn John ; but she knew nobody.
“Stop—yonder the sexton lives. He's an enemy of Farmer Rodel, and
will know how to speak as if his words were buttered; but,” she thought,
“I must go to no enemy of my master's—and, in fact, I must go to nobody
here. I've enemies enough already, since the sitting of the council about
Damie. . . . . Yes, Damie can do it. Why not P A man can speak
better of such a matter, for no one would think he was dissembling; and
John—yes, that's his name—will not forget it; and then Damie will have
a friend. And what a friend | Such a man such a family He cannot
fail to prosper then.—But no, Damie may not show himself in the village,
Good Heaven, he has been banished —But Coaly Matthew—he might do
it; or, perhaps, after all, Damie . . . .”
Thus her thoughts wandered to and fro like a Will-o'-the-wisp, and she
144 *
The Rider on the Grey Horse.
herself wandered among the lanes, without knowing where she was going;
and it seemed such a puzzle to her to-day, as it always does when one
knows nothing of the world, and goes along lost in conjectures. She started
at every noise—even the croaking of the frogs in the pond had a ghastly
sound; and the chirrup of the crickets in the field seemed to mock her;
and the trees stood up so black against the nightly sky. There had been
a storm that day out Endringen way. The sky was covered with flying
clouds, and only now and then a star gleamed out.
Barefoot hurried through the fields into the forest: she wanted to go to
Damie—at any rate, she must speak her mind to some person or other
about this. How dark it is in the wood | What bird is that, twittering in
the night? It sounds almost like a blackbird, flying home in the evening:
the cry sounds like “I come ! come ! come ! come !—coming ! coming !”
And then the nightingale is singing—singing as the nightingale only sings,
without stopping to take breath : a song that wells up from within—rip-
pling, flowing gently on, like a forest stream that is fed from the inward
parts of the earth.
The roots of the trees were not more entangled and entwined along the
forest paths than were the thoughts of Barefoot.
“No, that plan won't do : go home again,” she said at last to herself,
and turned back; but for a long time she still wandered about in the fields.
She no longer believed in the superstition about the Will-o'-the-wisp ; but,
to-night, it really seemed as if one were leading her to and fro; and for
the first time she felt chilled by wandering about so long barefoot in the
dewy grass; and her cheeks burned—and thus, in a glowing heat, she at
last came back into her room.
145 19
C H A P T E R X. V.
BA WISH E D A W D R E L E A S E D.
had once received from Dame Landfried
was lying on her bed; and she had to con-
sider for some time, before she could re-
member that she herself had taken it out
last night, and looked at it a long while.
When she wanted to stand up, all her
limbs seemed numbed; and, clasping her
hands with difficulty, she moaned out,
“For Heaven's sake, let me not be ill
* now ! I have no time for it : I can't be ill
now !” as if in anger at her bodily weakness;
and, determined to overcome it by force, she got
up; but how she started back when she looked
at herself in her little glass | Her whole face
was swollen. “That's the punishment,” she
said, “because you ran about so last night, and wanted to call
strangers, and even bad people, to help you !”
She beat her injured face as if to chastise herself, and then
tied it up closely, and went to her work. -
When the mistress saw her, she wanted her to go back to
bed ; but Rose scolded, and declared that this was a bit of
spite on Barefoot's part, being ill just now : she had done it
to play a trick, knowing that she was wanted.
Barefoot made no reply; and when she was in the cow-
shed putting clover into the mangers, a clear voice was heard,
Saying,
“Good morning ! At work so early 2”
It was his voice. -
“Only a little,” replied Barefoot; and she ground her teeth
with vexation at the teasing demon who had disfigured her, so that it was
impossible he should recognize her. -
Should she make herself known now 2–It was better to wait and see.
While she was milking, John asked all kinds of questions. First he in-
quired about the quantity of milk the cows yielded; whether any was sold,



146 -
Banished and Æeleased.
and how; who made the butter, and if anybody in the house kept an account
of it. -
Barefoot trembled. It was now in her power to put her rival out of the
way by declaring what kind of person she was ;-but how strangely in-
volved and entangled are the springs of action She was ashamed at the
idea of speaking evil of her master's family, though, in truth, she would
only have spoken of Rose, for the others were good; but she knew that it
is a reproach to a servant to betray the faults of the inner management of
the house. She therefore secured herself from this by saying at once,
“It does not become a servant to judge his master;-and they are all
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While she was milking, John asked all kinds of questions.
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good-hearted,” she added, urged by her strong sense of justice; for, in truth,
Rose was good-hearted too, in spite of her hot temper and her domineering
Spirit.
And now a good idea occurred to her. If she were at once to tell the
truth about Rose, he would go away directly, and then he would certainly
escape from Rose—but then he would be gone; therefore she added, with
great good sense,
“You seem to me to be a prudent man, and your parents have a name
for prudence too. Now, you know that one cannot get to know even a
horse properly in one day; so I think you ought to stay here a little
while ; and afterwards we two will get to know one another better, and
one word will bring on another; and if I can be of service to you, I will
not fail. I don't know, however, why you question me like this . . . .”



147 19—2
Little Barefoot.
“You are a deep one—but I like you,” said John. . . ... < * *
Barefoot started so that the cow winced, and she almost overturned the
milking-pail. * --
“And you shall have a good present, too,” added John ; and he let a
dollar, that he already had in his hand, slip back into his pocket.
“I’ll tell you something more,” Barefoot resumed, as she moved on to
another cow. “The sexton is an enemy of my master's: I want you to know,
that, if he tries to get hold of you.” • d
“Yes, yes; I see it's worth while talking to you.-But I see you have
a swollen face. It's no use tying your head up, if you go about barefoot
like that.”
“I am accustomed to it,” replied Barefoot. “But I will follow your
advice. Thank you.”
Footsteps were heard approaching.
“We will talk together again,” said the young man; and then he went
away.
“I thank you, swollen cheek,” said Barefoot to herself, stroking her in-
jured face : “you have done me a good turn. Through you, I can talk to
him as if I were not here. I can speak behind a mask, like a clown on
Shrove Tuesday. Hurrah —that's merry l’
It was wonderful how this inward cheerfulness almost counteracted her
bodily fever; only she felt tired—indescribably tired ; and she was half
pleased and half sorry when she saw the foreman greasing the wheels of
the Bernese chaise-waggon, and heard that her master was going to dine
out afield immediately with the stranger. She hurried into the kitchen ;
and there she overheard the farmer, in the parlour, saying to John,
“If you would like to ride, John, that would suit famously.—Then, Rose,
you could drive with me in the Bernese chaise; and you, John, would ride
alongside of us.” r
“But your wife is going too,” observed John, after a pause.
“I have a child to nurse, and cannot go away,” said the farmer's wife.
“And I don't like to be driving about the country on a working day,” .
said Rose. -
“Oh, nonsense ! When a cousin comes, you may take a holiday,” urged
the farmer ; for he wanted Rose to arrive with him at once at Farmer
Furche's, that the latter might have no hopes for his own daughter. He
was also aware that a little excursion of this kind brings people together
more than a week's visit in the house. -
John was silent; and the farmer, in his urgency, nudged him, and said,
in a half-whisper,
“Do you speak to her. Perhaps she will attend to you sooner, and go
with us.” --
“I think,” said John, aloud, “that your sister's quite right not to like.
driving about the country in the middle of the week. I’ll harness my grey
- 148
Banished and Released.
horse with yours, and then we can see how they pull together; and we
shall be back by supper-time, if not before.”
Barefoot, who heard all this, bit her lips, and could hardly help laughing
at John's speech.
“Yes,” she thought to herself, “you have not got him by the halter yet,
much less by the bridle. He won't be driven about the country like a
betrothed man who can't go back.”
She was obliged to take the handkerchief from her face, she felt so warm
with joy. -
It was an unquiet day in the house. Rose told them half angrily what
strange questions John had asked her; and Barefoot rejoiced inwardly :
for all that he wanted to know--and she well knew why he wanted to know
it—could have been satisfactorily answered by her. -
“But what does it all profit P” she thought : “he does not know you ;
and even if he did know you, you are a poor orphan, and in service, and no-
thing can ever come of it. He does not know you, and will not ask after
you.”
In the evening, when the two men came back, Barefoot had already been
able to take off the handkerchief round her forehead ; but the one she had
bound round her temples and under her chin, she was obliged still to wear,
drawn close around her face.
John seemed to have neither tongue nor eyes for her. But his dog was
with her in the kitchen ; and she fed the creature, and stroked it, and spoke
tC) 11:.
“Yes, if you could tell him everything, you would be sure to tell him the
whole truth.”
The dog laid his head on Barefoot's lap, and looked up at her with in-
telligent eyes; and then he seemed to shake his head, as if to say, “It’s
hard ; but, unfortunately, I cannot speak.”
Now Barefootwent into the sleeping-room, and once more hushed the chil-
dren, who had long been asleep, with all kinds of songs; but most of all
she sang the waltz which she had once danced with John. John listened
as if bewildered, and seemed absent when he spoke. Rose went into the
room, and told Barefoot to be quiet. $
Late at night, when Barefoot had just carried water for Black Marianne,
and was going to her parents' house with the full pail on her head, John
met her as he was going to the tavern. With a suppressed voice she bade
him “Good evening.” -
“Oh, it's you !” said John. “Where are you still going with that water 2"
“To Black Marianne.”
“Who is that P”
“A poor woman, who is sick in bed.”
“Why, Rose told me there were no poor people here.”
“Good Heavens ! there are more than enough. But Rose, no doubt,
I fº
Zittle Barefoot.
said that, because she thought it a disgrace to the village. She's good-
natured, you may believe me : she's fond of giving things away.” *
“You are a good advocate;—but don't stand still with your heavy pail.
May I go with you ?”
“Why not P”
“You are right; you are going a good errand, and need not fear any-
thing; and you need not be afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of anybody; and of you, least of all. I saw to-day, that
you are kind.”
“How did you see that P”
“In your giving me advice how I should cure my swollen face. Your
advice has taken effect; and, you see, I have shoes on now.” -
“That's a good thing that you are obedient,” said John, with an approv-
ing glance; and the dog seemed to notice his approval of Barefoot, for he
jumped up at her, and licked her disengaged hand.
“Come here, Lux l’ cried John.
“No, let him alone,” said Barefoot; “we are good friends already; and
he has been in the kitchen with me to-day. All dogs are fond of me and
of my brother.”
“So you have a brother ?”
“Yes; and I wanted to ask you very urgently, and to tell you that you
will do a charitable thing if you can take him as a servant on your farm.
He will be sure to serve you faithfully all his life.”
“Where is your brother ?”
“Down yonder in the forest. For the present, he’s a charcoal-burner.”
“Why, we’ve few trees, and no kiln at all. I could more easily find work
for a field-labourer.”
“He’ll be able to do that work too.—But here is the house.” -
“I’ll wait till you come back,” said John ; and Barefoot went in to put
down the water, and arrange the fire, and make Marianne comfortable in
her bed.
When she came back, John was still standing there, and the dog jumped
up at her; and she stood long with John by the paternal tree, which whis-
pered so quietly, and bowed its branches; and they talked of all kinds of
things, and John praised her cleverness and her quick mind, and at last
said, -
“If you should ever want to change your place, you would be the very
person for my mother.”
“That's the greatest praise that anybody in the world could give me!”
Barefoot declared ; “and I have still a keepsake from her.”
And now she told the circumstances that had happened when she was a
child ; and both laughed when Barefoot declared how Damie could not
forget that Dame Landfried owed him a pair of leather breeches.
“He shall have them,” John declared. -
150
Aanished and Released.
They went back together as far as the village, and John gave her his
hand when he bade her “Good night.” *
Barefoot wanted to tell him that he had shaken hands with her once
before; but, as if frightened at the thought, she fled away from him, and
into the house. She did not even return his “good night.” John went
away, puzzled and thoughtful, to his lodging at the “Heath Cock.”
Next morning Barefoot found the swelling in her face had vanished as
if by magic; and never had she carolled more gaily through house and
yard, stable and barn, than she did to-day ; and yet to-day it was to be
decided, for to-day John must declare himself. Farmer Rodel did not want
to have his sister talked about by any one, if it should turn out to be nothing
after all.
Nearly the whole day John sat in the room with Rose, who was working
at a man's shirt; and towards evening came the parents-in-law of Farmer
Rodel, and other relations. It must be decided one way or the other.
The roast meat was sputtering in the kitchen, and the pinewood crackled
and snapped, and Barefoot's cheeks glowed—heated by the fire on the
hearth and by the fire that burned within her. Crappy Zachy went to and
fro, and up and down, with looks of great importance, and made himself
very much at home in the whole house, and smoked Farmer Rodel's pipe.
“Then it's settled, after all,” said Barefoot, mournfully, to herself.
Night had come; and many lights were burning in the house, and Rose,
in her festive array, went to and fro between the room and the kitchen,
though she did not know how to give any help. An old woman, who had
once upon a time been in service as a cook in town, had been taken on to
help in the kitchen. Everything was ready.
And now the young farmer's wife said to Barefoot,
“Go up, and put on your Sunday dress.”
“Why?"
“You must wait at table to-day, and you’ll get a better present.”
“I would rather stay in the kitchen.”
“No, do as I have told you; and make haste.”
Amrei went into her room, and sat down dead tired upon her box, to get
her breath for a moment.—If she could only go to sleep now, and never
wake any more l—But duty called; and hardly had she taken the first piece
of her Sunday apparel in her hand, when joy awoke within her; and the
evening sun, that sent a red beam into the little attic, shone upon a pair of
cheeks that glowed brightly.
“Put on your Sunday dress l’—
She had but one Sunday dress, and that was the one she had worn that
day at the wedding feast at Endringen, and every flutter and rustle of the
dress reminded her of happiness, and of the waltz she had danced that day.
But as the night followed the sunset, and she fastened the dress in the dark,
so she banished all joy away, and only said to herself that she was thus
151
Mittle Barefoot.
-- * *-* * * *** - - -
adorning herself to do honour to John ; and to show how much she valued
whatever came from his family, she at last put on the necklace.
Thus Amrei came down from her room, adorned as she had been on that
day for the dance at Endringen.
“What’s this 2 What do you dress yourself up in that way for P’’ cried
Rose, angrily: she was already uneasy at the visitor's long absence. “Why
do you put all your possessions on 2–Is that a fit necklace for a servant,
with a coin hanging to it? You take that off directly l’’
“No, I shall not do that; for his mother gave it me when I was a little
child, and I had it on when we danced together at Endringen.”
Something was heard to fall on the staircase; but nobody heeded it, for
Rose screamed out,
“What! you good-for-nothing horrible witch! You would have perished
in rags if you had not been taken up !—and now you want to take my
betrothed from me!”
“Don’t call him so, till he is,” replied Amrei, with a strange mixture of
feelings in her voice; and the old cook cried out from the kitchen,
“Barefoot is right ! One must not call a child by its name till it is chris-
tened : that’s dangerous to life l’’
Barefoot laughed; and Rose cried out,
“Why do you laugh P”
“Am I to cry P’’ said Barefoot. “I may have reason; but I don't like
to } }
“Wait! I'll show you what you’ve got to do l’ shrieked Rose.—“Take
that l” and she dragged Barefoot down on the ground, and struck her in
the face.
“I’ll take my things off!—Let me go ’’ screamed Barefoot.
But Rose let go before she had said it; for, as if he had risen out of the
earth, John stood before her
He was pale as death : his lips quivered : he could not speak a word ;
but only laid his hand in protection on Barefoot, who was still kneeling on
the ground.
Barefoot was the first to speak; and she cried out,
“Believe me, John, I have never seen her like that, not in my whole life
and it’s my fault .”
“Yes, it’s thy fault; and now come ! With me shalt thou go, and mine
shalt thou be | Wilt thou ?– I have found thee, and I sought thee not
And now thou shalt remain with me, my wife. It is God's will !”
If any one had seen Barefoot's eyes now !
But no human eye has ever fully scanned the lightning of heaven; and
if you wait for it ever so firmly, you will still be dazzled; and there are
lightnings in the human eye which are never fully seen, as there are work-
ings in the human heart that are never fully understood : they soar away
Over the world, and cannot be held fast.
152
Aanished and A’eleased.
A momentary lightning of joy, such as may brighten the eye to which
heaven is opened, flashed from the countenance of Amrei; and now she
covered her face with both her hands, and the tears burst forth from between
her fingers. John stood with his hand upon her.
All the relations had come round, and gazed in astonishment at what was
passing here.
“What's all this with Barefoot 2 What's all this P” blustered Farmer
Rodel.
“So, your name s Barefoot ?” cried John. He laughed a loud excited
laugh, and said again, “Come, now, will you have me 2 Say so at once,
for here are witnesses, and they must confirm it. Say ‘Yes’ and nothing
but death shall part us.”
“Yes, and nothing but death shall part us!” cried Barefoot, and she
threw herself on his neck.
“Very good : then take her out of this house directly l’ roared Farmer
Rodel, foaming with rage.
“Yes, you need not tell me to do that; and I thank you for your good
reception, cousin. When you come to us some day, we'll cry quits,” re-
plied John. He put both hands to his head, and said, “Good Heavens!—
Mother, mother, how glad you will be l’’
“Go up, Barefoot, and take your box away at once; for nothing belong-
ing to you shall stay in my house !” commanded Farmer Rodel.
“Very well,” replied John ; “and that can be done with less noise.—
Come, I'll go with you, Barefoot. Tell me what's your real name P”
“Amrei.”
“I was once to have married an Amrei ; she is the ‘Butter Countess,’
and you are my better countess, my Salt Countess. Hurrah —Now, come:
I should like to see your room, where you have lived so long. Now you’ll
have a great house.”
The dog kept walking round Farmer Rodel with the hairs on his back
standing up like bristles: he saw that Farmer Rodel would have been glad
to choke John ; and only when John and Barefoot were at the top of the
stairs did the dog come running after them.
John let the chest stand, because he could not take it on his horse; and
they packed Barefoot's possessions in the sack she had inherited from her
father; and Barefoot told him confusedly what experiences that sack had
had ; and the whole world seemed to be crowded into a single minute, and
was a thousand years' wonder. Barefoot looked on in amazement, when
John joyfully welcomed the copy-book of her school-days, and cried,
“I shall take that to my mother : she foreboded that. There are still
miracles in the world.”
Barefoot asked no questions about it. Was not everything a miracle
that had happened to her ? And, as if she knew that Rose would presently
tear up the flowers and throw them into the street, she passed her hand
153 20
Alittle Barefoot.
once more over all the plants. They filled her hand with night-dew. And
now she went down with John ; and just as she was going to leave the
house, somebody quietly pressed her hand in the dark: it was the mistress
who was thus taking leave of her. 4
At the threshold Barefoot cried, with her hand upon the door-post
against which she had so often leaned, dreaming:
“May God reward this house for all good, and forgive it all evil l’ But
they had only gone a few paces, when she called out,
“Good Heavens, I have forgotten all my shoes they are upstairs on
the shelf; ” and scarcely had she spoken the words, when the shoes, as if
they had been running after their owner, came flying out of the window
and down into the street. .
“Run to the devil in them l’ cried a voice from the garret window. The
voice sounded deep, and yet it was Rose who spoke.
Barefoot collected the shoes, and carried them to the inn with John, who
had the sack on his back.
The moon shone brightly, and in the village all was already hushed.
Barefoot would not stay in the inn
“And I should like to go away this very night,” said John.
“I will stay at Marianne's,” said Barefoot. “That's my parents' house;
and you shall leave me your dog. You'll stay with me, Lux, won't you ?
I'm afraid they will do me some harm to-night if I stay here.”
“I’ll watch in front of the house,” said John. “But it would be better
we went at once. What do you want to do here still P”
“Before anything else I must go to Marianne. She has filled a mother's
place to me, and I have not seen her all day to-day, and have not been
able to do anything for her; and besides that, she's ill. Alas! it's hard
that I shall have to leave her. But what am I to do 2 Come, go with me
to her.”
Hand in hand they went through the sleeping moonlit village. Not far
from her parents' house Barefoot stood still, and said,
“Do you see 2 At this spot your mother kissed me, and gave me the
necklace.”
“Indeed Then there’s another for you—and another l’
The lovers were supremely happy: the tree rustled, and the nightingale's
song sounded from the neighbouring wood.
“There, that's enough,” said Barefoot—“there, this one more l—And
now you must go in to Black Marianne. Good Heavens ! how glad she
will be l’’
They went together into the house; and when Barefoot opened the room
door, a moonbeam fell upon the angel on the stove—just as a Sunbeam
had fallen, on that day long since ; and it seemed to Smile and dance more
merrily;-and Barefoot cried with a loud voice,
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Alittle Barfoot.
“Mariannel Marianne ! Wake up, Mariannel Happiness and blessing
are here ! Wake up !”
The old woman sat up: the moonbeam fell upon her face and neck: she
opened her eyes wide, and said, -
“What is it P what is it 2 Who calls P”
“Rejoice —Here, I bring you my John "
“My John l’ cried the old woman, in a strident voice. “Good God, my
John How long—how long—I have thee, I have thee!—I thank thee,
O God, a thousand and a thousand times —Oh, my child, my child ! I
See thee with a thousand eyes, and a thousandfold . . . . No, there—
there: thy hand ' . . . . Come here. There, in the chest, is the outfit
Take the cloth . . . My son, my son —Yes, yes, she is thine !
. . John, my son, my son " " .
She laughed convulsively, and fell back in the bed.
Amrei and John had knelt down beside it; and when they stood up and
bent over the old woman, she had ceased to breathe.
“Oh, Heavens ! she is dead Joy has killed her l’exclaimed Barefoot.
“And she took you for her son. She died happy.—Oh, why is it thus in
the world, why is it thus 2" - -
She sank down again by the bed, and wept and sobbed bitterly.
At last John raised her up, and Barefoot closed the eyes of the dead one.
For a long time she stood with John by the bed; then she said,
“Come, I will wake up the people who will watch by the corpse. God
has been very gracious. She would have had no one to care for her when
I was gone; and God has given her the greatest joy in the last moment of
her life. How long—oh, how long !—she waited for that joy!”
“Yes; but you cannot stay here now,” said John : “So you must go with
me this very day.” assº
Barefoot woke up the gravedigger's wife, and sent her to Black Mari-
anne; and she was so wonderfully composed, that she remembered to tell
the woman that the flowers which stood on her window-ledge at the farm
were to be planted on Black Marianne's grave; and especially that they
were not to forget to put Black Marianne's hymn-book and her son's under
her head, as she had always wished.
When she had, at last, arranged everything, she stood up erect, and
stretched out her arms, and said,
So, now everything is finished; but forgive me, you good man, that I
was obliged to bring you to the house of sorrow; and forgive me, too, if I
am not now as I should wish to be. I see now that all is well, and that
God has ordered it for the best; but I still shake from fear in every limb,
and it is a hard thing to die. You cannot think how I have almost puzzled
my brains out of my head about it. But now all is well, and I will be cheer-
ful, for I am the happiest bride in the world !”
156
Aanished and A’eleased.
sºme
“Yes, you are right.—Come, we will go. Will you ride with me on my
horse 2" asked John.
“Yes.—Is that the grey that you had at the wedding in Endringen P”
“Certainly.”
“And, oh that Farmer Rodel ! If he didn't send, the night before you
came, to Lauterbach, and had a grey horse brought from there, so that you
should go into his house.—Holloa grey horse, go home again ' " she
concluded, almost merrily ; and so their thoughts and feelings came back
into ordinary life; and from it they learned to appreciate their happiness
aſ 162W.

C H A P T E R XV I.
S I L V E R S 7" E. P.
ºf H, it's not a dream, is it? We are both of us awake, and
to-morrow it will be day, and then another day, and so
on for a thousand times l’’
Thus said Barefoot, addressing Lux, who had stayed
with her while John was saddling the grey in the stable.
Now he came out, packed the sack, and said,
“I shall sit upon that, and you shall sit in the saddle
before me.” -
“Rather let me sit on the sack.”
“As you please.”
He swung himself into the saddle, and said,
“So, now do you step on my foot;-tread firmly upon it, and give me
both your hands.”
And she swung herself up lightly, and he lifted her up, and kissed her;
and then said, - *
“Now I can do what I like with you. You are in my power.”
“I’m not afraid,” answered Barefoot;-“and you're in my power, too.”
Silently they rode together out of the village. In the last house a light
was still burning; for there the gravedigger's wife was watching by the
corpse of Black Marianne; and John let Barefoot weep to her heart's
COntent. * -
Not till they were riding over the Holderwasen did Barefoot speak.--
Then she said, - *
“Here I once kept the geese; and here I gave your father a drink from
the well yonder.—God keep you, wild pear tree and you, ye fields and
woods !—It seems to me as if I had dreamt all this; and you must forgive
me, dear John. I would fain rejoice, but I cannot, and I may not, when I
remember that a dead one lies yonder : it seems a sin to rejoice, and a sin
not to rejoice.—Do you know what, John ” I’ll fancy it’s a year ago
already, and I rejoice;—but, no, it will be beautiful a year hence, and it's .
beautiful to-day also : I shall rejoice to-day—now directly. Now we are
riding towards Paradise. Oh, what dreams I have had yonder on the
Holderwasen, that the cuckoo was perhaps an enchanted prince; and now
I'm sitting on horseback, and I'm become the Salt Countess I’m glad

158
Silverstep.
that you called me ‘Salt Countess.’
I know that they're jeering about it
now in Haldenbrunn; but, for all that, I'm glad you called me ‘Salt Coun-
tess.”—Do you know the story about 'As dear as Salt’ ”
===
Silently they rode together out of ſhe village.
“No ; what is it P”
“There was once a King, and he asked his daughter, ‘How dearly do
you love me ' ' And then she said, ‘I love you as dear—as dear as the

159
Azttle Barefoot.
salt.' The King thought that a foolish reply, and he was angry at it.
Before long, the King gave a great feast, and the daughter contrived that
all the dishes should come to table unsalted. Of course, the King did not
like it; and he said to his daughter, ‘Why is everything cooked so badly
to-day ? Why, the dishes have no taste at all !’ And then she said, “Do
you see now P Because the salt is wanting. And was not I right, now,
when I said, I love you as I love the salt 2'. The King said she was right;
and so people say to the present day, “As dear as the salt.” Black Mari-
anne told me that story. Alas, she can tell no more stories now ! Yonder
there lies a dead woman ; and here the nightingale is singing so happily
—But now, away ! I will be thy Salt Countess, John. You shall find it so.
Yes, I am thoroughly happy; and Marianne said that God is glad when
men are happy, as parents rejoice when their children dance and sing: we
have danced together already.—And now, come: now we will sing. Turn
off here to the left into the forest: we will ride to my brother. They have
the kiln now down yonder by the road-side.—Sing, nightingale! We will
sing with you !
- “‘Nightingale, I hear thee sing !
My heart within me's like to spring:
Quickly come, and tell me true,
What is this that I should do P’”
And the two sang all kinds of songs—sad songs and merry songs—with-
out leaving off; and Barefoot could sing the second voice as well as the
first. But most of all they sang the tune of the country dance they had
danced three times together at the wedding in Endringen; and as often
as they left off, first the one, and then the other, told how they had thought
of the partner far away; and John said, -
“It was difficult for me to get the country dance out of my head, for you
were always dancing about in it. I did not want to have a maid-servant
for my wife; for, I must tell you, I am proud.”
“That's right; so am I.’”
And now John told how he had struggled with himself, but how it was
all well now, for all was over. He told how he had been sent, for the first
and second time, to his mother's native place, to bring home a wife from
thence; how Barefoot had at once got into his heart yonder in Endringen,
and that he had felt this, and therefore had not made himself known because
she was a servant. o
Barefoot, on the other hand, told of Rose's behaviour in Endringen, and
how it had, for the first time, wounded her when Rose said, “That's our
maid.” And after all kinds of animated questions and answers, John ended
by saying,
“I could go wild when I think that it might have turned out otherwise.
—How could it be that I should go home with any one but you ? How
could that possibly happen 2"
160
Silverstep.
In her quiet reflective way, Barefoot said,
“Don’t consider too much how it might have been different, thus, and
thus, and otherwise. As it is, so it is right, and must be right, whether it's
for joy or sorrow ; and God has willed it thus, and now it is for us to do
right, further on.”
“Yes,” said John ; “when I shut my eyes, and hear you talk so, I fancy
I hear my mother. That's just what she would have said; and your voice,
too, is almost like hers.”
“She must be dreaming of us now,” said Barefoot : “I think so, quite
certainly and surely,”—and in her way, filled as she was, in spite of her
self-reliant composure, with all the love of the wonderful of which her youth
had been full, she now said, “What's your horse's name P”
“He’s called as he looks—grey—”
“No, we'll give him a name of his own;–and do you know what it shall
be 2–'Silverstep !’”
And, to the tune of the country dance they had once danced together,
John kept singing the one word—“Silverstep ! Silverstep !” and Barefoot
sang with him;-and it was just now, when they sang no words that ex-
pressed anything, that their cheerfulness became real, full, unlimited happi-
ness: they could put all kinds of rejoicing into their singing, and let it sound
forth. And then they added all kinds of “ſodels,”—for there is a chiming
of bells in the soul that has no definite sound, and yet contains everything
in itself;-and the hearts of the lovers waved and swayed up and down,
and to and fro, in sounds of gladness. And then they sang verses of popular
Songs; and Amrei began:
“My love hold I now,
As the tree holds its bough,
As the apple its core :
I could not love him more.”
And John replied,
“I never—no, never—my true love would leave,
Though the Black One himself had her fast by the sleeve;
With a chain, and a band, and a rope, though came he ;
Yet nothing should e'er buy my true love from me !”
And Amrei Sang again:
“How often I'd tell
That my love dances well;
To and fro danceth he,
As best pleases me.”
And John replied,
“And we’ll be a little merry,
And we’ll be a little gay;
For the evil is departed,
And no more we will stray.”
161 2 1
Zittle Barefoot.
And now, in long-drawn tones, they sang together a song of deeper
meaning :
“Sorrowful night, and then joyful day !
That my comfort shall be alway;
For a little nutbrown maid is mine,
And the maiden has two nutbrown eyne—
And on my heart they shine.
“And mine she will be :
She's for none else but me;—
Through joy, through sorrow, together we’ll go,
And nought but death shall sever us two ”
Brightly the songs sounded through the forest, where the moonlight
played among the tree-tops, and clung to the branches and trunks of trees,
and where two happy people were singing in emulation of the nightingale.
And yonder, by the kiln, Damie was still sitting in the quiet night with
the charcoal-burner; and Matthew, who was fond of talking at night, was
telling all sorts of wonderful stories of the past,-when the forests of the
country had been so dense that a squirrel could run along the trees, from
the Neckar to the Lake of Constance, without ever touching the ground;
and just now he was telling the story of the Grey Rider, an adaptation of the
tale of the old heathen god who is supposed to spread glory and splendour,
and to diffuse happiness wherever he goes.
There are stories and legends which act upon the soul, as gazing into a
flickering fire acts upon the eye—a fire that springs up in tongues of flame,
and twists and winds, and shows different colours—expiring here, breaking
out afresh yonder, and suddenly rising everywhere in a wave of flame;
and if you turn away from the flame, the night is darker than ever.
Thus Damie was listening—thus he was sometimes looking round; and
Coaly Matthew went on in a monotonous voice, telling his story.
Suddenly he stopped ; for yonder a grey horse was seen coming down
the road, and on the horse there was some one, singing so beautifully. It's
the wonder-world coming down | And the horse came nearer and nearer,
and upon it there seemed to sit a wondrous rider, so broad, and with two
heads; and it came nearer, and sometimes a man's and sometimes a woman's
voice was heard crying, “Damie Damiel" The two were ready to sink
into the earth with fright—they could not move And now the horse was
close to them, and now some one dismounted; and Barefoot cried, “Damie,
it is I l’—and told him all that had happened.
Damie had not a word to say, and only kept stroking first the horse and
then the dog, and nodding, when John promised to take him and make an
upland herdsman of him ; he should have thirty cows on the upland, and
learn to make butter and cheese.
“You’ll turn from black to white,” said Barefoot : “one might make a
riddle out of that.”
162
Silverstep.
At last Damie found his tongue, and said,
“And a pair of leather breeches too !”
All laughed; and he declared that Dame Landfried still owed him a
garment of that description.
“I’ll give you my pipe, meanwhile,” said John.—“There, that shall be
the brother-in-law's pipe.” And he handed his pipe to Damie.
“Yes, but then you have none,” said Amrei, half in remonstrance.
“I don't want one now.”
Damie jumped up ecstatically, and rushed into the block hut with his
silver-mounted, pipe. But one would not have thought he could think of
so merry a joke as the one he now played off. He came out again in a short
time; and he had put on Coaly Matthew's hat and long coat; and in each
hand he held a long torch. With a solemn step he came up, and in a grave
tone addressed the betrothed pair thus:
“What is this 2–Here, John, I have two torches, and I will light you
home with them.—How come you to be carrying my sister off in this free-
and-easy fashion ? I am her brother, and am of age ; and you must ask
her of me in marriage; and till I have said ‘Yes,’ all the rest goes for
nothing.”
Amrei laughed merrily, and John proposed formally to Damie for his
sister's hand.
Damie wanted to carry the jest still further; for he felt pleased to act
a part in which he had obtained a success. But Amrei knew that he was
not to be depended upon: he might come out with all kinds of foolishness,
and turn the jest into something very different. She had already noticed
how Damie had several times put his hand, that opened and shut involun-
tarily, towards John's watch-chain, always drawing it back before it touched
the chain; so she said, decidedly, as one reproves a noisy child,
º That's enough You've done the thing well; and now leave it as it
is.

163 21–2
Little Barefoot.
Damie took off his disguise, and said to John,
“It’s all right ! You've a steel-mounted wife, and I a silver-mounted
pipel” When nobody laughed, he added, “Eh, brother-in-law—you would
not have thought that you have such a wise brother-in-law P You see, it's
not she alone who has it; for we both came out of one nest—eh, brother-
*
in-law P”
He seemed to be revelling in the pleasure of being able to say “brother-
in-law.” - •
At last they mounted again, for the bridal pair wanted to go to the town;
and when they had gone a little way into the forest, Damie called after
them,
“Brother-in-law Don't forget my leather breeches l’ -
A merry laugh answered him, and the betrothed ones rode away and
away through the moonlit night. -
r
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CHAPTER XVII.
O V E R H / L L A V D VA L E.
HERE is no such thing as living on in one and the same way. Day
and night succeed each other; peaceful stillness alternates with wild
rushing and foaming; and the seasons succeed each other in due course.
Thus it is in the life of Nature, and thus also in the heart of man ; and
well for the human heart that does not wander out of its way amid all this
movement and change.
Daylight had come when the two lovers reached the town ; and already
long before, when the first person met them, they had alighted. They felt
that they must have a strange appearance, and this first person they met
had been to them a herald, reminding them of the fact that they must suit
themselves to the order of humanity and its institutions. So John led the
horse with one hand, and held Amrei with the other : they went on in
silence, and as often as they looked at one another, their faces shone like

165
Little Barefoot.
those of children newly waked from sleep. But as often as they looked
down, they became thoughtful and anxious about the things that were to
be.
As if she had already been talking to John on the subject, and in com-
plete confidence that he must have thought the same as herself, Amrei now
said,
“Certainly, it would have been more sensible if we had done the thing
in a quieter way. You should have gone home first, and I should have
stayed somewhere meanwhile—if we could do no better, at Coaly Matthew's
in the forest; and you would have come with your mother to fetch me, or
you could have written to me, and I would have come to you with my
Damie.—But do you know what I think 2"
“I don't know quite all.”
“I think that regret is the most stupid feeling one can allow to rise. Do
what you will, you cannot make yesterday into to-day. What we did, in
the midst of our rejoicing, that was right, and must remain right. One can't
cavil at that, now that one’s a little more quiet. What we have to think of
now is, how we shall do everything right in the future; and you are such
a right-minded man, you will know what's right—you can talk it all over
with me: only tell me everything honestly. You can tell me what you like
—you won't hurt me by that; but if you keep anything back from me, you
will hurt me.—But you don't rue it, do you ?”
“Can you answer a riddle 2" asked John.
“Yes, I used to be able to do that well as a child.”
“Then tell me what is this—it's a plain short word: Take away the first
letter, and you’re ready to tear your head off. Put it back again, and all 's
firm and sure.”
“That's easy,” said Barefoot—“easy for a child. It's Ruth and Truth.”
And as the larks began to sing over their heads, they began to sing the
old popular “Riddle Song;" and John began:
“O maiden, I'll give some riddles to thee,
And if thou dost guess them, I'll marry thee:
What thing is whiter than snow's bright sheen,
And yet it’s greener than grass that’s green—
And yet it’s blacker than coal, I ween P-
If my little wife thou’dst be,
Then must thou guess this thing for me.”
Amrei:
“The cherry blossom's whiter than snow's bright sheen,
And the cherry, when it comes, is than grass more green;
And yet, when it's ripened, than coal more black.
I'm thy wife, and I’ve brought thee the answer back 1"
John :
“What King has not a throne?—now, say:
Who is the Jack that serves without pay ?”
166
Over Aill and Vale.
3.
:
Amrei:
“The King of Spades has no throne, I say,
And the bootjack's the Jack that serves without pay.”
John:
“What fire has no heat?—I wish to know :
What knife has no point?—tell me that also.”
Amrei:
“A painted fire has no heat, I know ;
And a broken knife has no point to show.”
Suddenly John Snapped his fingers, and said, . Now, listen "–and he
Sang :
“Who hath no head, though a neck hath he P
What tastes good, though no butter nor salt there be?”
Amrei answered quickly:
“The bottle hath no head, yet a neck hath he
Sugared things are good, though no butter nor salt there be.”
“You’ve only half guessed it,” said John, laughing : “you remained
sticking in the kitchen.—I meant it so:
“The bottle hath no head, yet a neck hath he
Without butter or salt, yet good is a kiss from thee!”
And now they sang the last verse of the much-varied “Riddle Song : ”
“What is the heart that never beats?
What is the day that no night succeeds P
The heart on the buckle never beats;
And the last day no night succeeds.
“O maiden, there's no riddle thou canst not guess:
If thou think'st as I think, then I'll marry thee.
I am not like a buckle—my heart beats alway;
And sweet is the eve of the wedding day !”
At the first inn by the gate they put up; and Amrei said, when she and
John were in the room together, and the latter had ordered some good
coffee,
“How capitally the world is arranged These people have provided a
house, and tables, and benches, and chairs, and a kitchen, in which the fire
is burning; and they have coffee, and milk, and sugar, and fine crockery,
and it is all prepared as if we had ordered it; and when we go farther we
find more people and houses, with all we want in them. It’s like the fairy
tale of ‘Table, be covered l’”
“But you want the ‘Cudgel come forth' too,” said John; and he put his
hand in his pocket and brought out a handful of money; “you’ll get nothing
without that l”
“Yes, certainly,” said Amrei, “whoever has those wheels can roll through
167
Little Barefoot.
the world. Tell me, John, did ever coffee taste to you in your whole life
like this 2 And the fresh white bread | Only you have ordered too much.
We cannot manage all this. The bread I shall take with me, but it’s a
pity for the good coffee : how many a poor person would be refreshed by
it, and we must let it be wasted; and yet you have to pay for it all the
same.”
“That’s no matter : one can't take things so accurately in the world.”
“Yes, yes, you're right; you see, I’ve been accoustomed to do with little.
You must not take it amiss if I say a thing of that kind—it's done without
consideration.” -
“It’s all very well for you to say that, because you know you're clever.”
Amrei soon got up. Her face glowed; and when she stood before the
glass, she said, º
“Good Heavens ! can this be I ? I don’t know myself at all.”
“But I know you,” said John : “your names are Amrei, and Barefoot,
and Salt Countess; but that is not enough--you are to have another:
Landfried is not a bad name.”
“Gracious Heavens ! can it be 2 I fancy, now, the thing is impossible.”
“Yes, there are some hard planks to pierce still; but I am not afraid of
that. Now lie down to sleep for a short time, and, meanwhile, I’ll look
out for a Bernese chaise waggon: you can't ride on horseback with me by
daylight; and, moreover, we want one.” &
“I cannot sleep; I have a letter to write still to Haldenbrunn. I went
off in a hurry; and yet I have had a good deal of kindness from there; and
I’ve other things to settle besides.”
“Yes, do that till I come back.”
John went away, and Amrei looked after him with strange thoughts.
“There he goes,” she thought, “and yet he belongs to thee! How
proudly he walks Is it possible that it is true, and he is thine P” He does
not look round; but the dog does that he has with him; and Amrei beckons,
and lures the creature; and sure enough it came running back to her. She
went out of the house to meet him, and when he jumped up at her, she
said, “Yes, yes, that's right of you to stay with me, that I need not be
quite alone; but now come in : I must write.”
She wrote a long letter to the Town Bailiff in Haldenbrunn, thanked
the whole community for benefits received, and promised that she would
one day adopt a child out of the place, if she could do it; and once more
begged that Black Marianne's hymn-book might be placed under the good
old woman's head. When she sealed the letter, she pressed her lips tight
together, and said,
“Sol now I have done my duty to those who still live at Haldenbrunn.”
But she quickly tore the letter open again; for she considered it her
duty to show John what she had written. But a long time passed, and he
did not come back; and Amrei blushed when the chatty hostess said,
168
Over Hill and Vale.
*
“I suppose your husband has some business at the council-house ’’’
It seemed to strike her with a strange shock that John was called “her
husband’ for the first time.
She could not answer, and the hostess looked at her in wonder. Amrei
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“A suppose your husband has some business aſ the count z/-/ouse ’”
knew no other way of escaping from her strange glances than by going out
in front of the house; and there she sat on some piled-up planks, with the
dog, waiting for John. She stroked the dog, and looked with deep happi-
ness into his faithful eyes. No animal can answer and endure the steadfast
look of the human eye : the dog alone seems an exception in this respect;
but even his eye soon falters, and he likes to blink at the gazer from a
distance.
How puzzling, and yet how plain, does the world sometimes appear !

169 22
Little Barefoot.
Amrei, still followed by the dog, went into the stable, and looked on
while the horse was feeding, and said, *
“Yes, dear Silverstep, enjoy it, and carry us safe home; and God grant
we may all speed well l’
It was a long time before John came back; and when she caught sight
of him at last, she said,
“When you've something to do again on the journey, you'll take me
with you, won't you ?”
“Oh,” he answered, “so you were afraid, were you ? You thought I'd
gone off!—How would it be now, if I were to leave you here, and just ride
away ?”
Amrei started; and then she said, severely,
“I can’t say you're very witty. To make a joke about such a thing as
that is miserably stupid. I am sorry for you that you’ve said this; for
you’ve done something that’s bad for you if you know it, and bad if you
don't know it. You want to ride away, and think that I’m to cry to amuse
you ? Do you think, perhaps, because you have a horse and money, that
you can do as you choose 2–No, your horse carried us both away, and I
went with you.--What would you think of it if I made the joke, and said,
‘How would it be if I left you alone?’—I pity you for making such a jest.”
“Yes, yes: I’ll say you’re right;-but now leave off.” r
“No ; I talk of a thing so long as there’s anything about it in me when
I am the offended person; and it’s for me to leave off about the thing
when I choose. And you have offended yourself, too, in this matter : I
mean your real self—the person you ought to be, and are. If any one else
says what’s not right, I can jump over it; but on you there must not be
a spot;-and, believe me, to make fun of such a thing as that, is as if one
took the crucifix yonder to play with as a doll.”
“Oho! it's not so bad as that; but it seems to me you can’t understand
a jest.” g
“I can understand very well, as you shall see, but not such a jest as that.
And now there’s enough about it: now I have finished, and think nothing
more of it.” -
This little incident showed both of them early that, with all their loving
abandonment, they must be careful with each other; and Amrei felt that
she had been too angry; and John was conscious that it did not become
him to make a jest of Amrei’s solitary position, and of her complete trust
in him. They did not say this to each other, but each of them knew that
the other felt it.
The little cloud that had thus come up soon melted before the sun that
broke brightly through it; and Amrei rejoiced like a child when a pretty
green Bernese chaise-waggon came, with a round padded seat in it. Before
the horse had been put to, she took her seat, and clapped her hands with joy.
“Now you have only got to make me fly l’” said she to John, who was
170
Ozer //7// and Wa/e.
putting the horse to. “I have ridden with you, and now I’m driving with
you ; and now I’ve nothing to do but to fly!” &
And in the bright morning they rode away on the fine paved road.
The grey seemed to find drawing the little chaise easy work and Lux
ran before them, barking for joy.
“Only think, John,” said Amrei, when they had gone some distance—
“only think—the hostess took me for your wife already l’’
“And so you are, already; and therefore I don't care what any of them
may say to it.—Look here, you sky and you larks, and trees, and fields,
and mountains—look here: this is my little wife And when she scolds,
she’s just as dear as when she says anything good to me !—Oh, my mother
is a wise woman: oh, she knew the right thing ! She told me to notice how
a girl was when she cried for anger, for then the hidden creature comes out.
—That was a dear, sharp, beautiful, angry creature that looked out of you
to-day, when you were scolding yonder. Now I know the whole company
that’s hidden in you, and I like them.—Oh, thou great wide world ! I
thank thee that thou art there ! World, I ask thee, ‘Hast thou, so long as
thou hast stood, seen such a dear wife 2'--Hurrah hurrah ”
And when any one passed by on the road they were travelling, John
would take hold of Amrei, and cry, “Look! look that 's my little wife I’’
till Amrei begged him piteously not to do so. But he said,
“I don't know what to do with myself for joy. I should like to call it
out to the whole world, that all might rejoice with me; and I don't know
how the people yonder can be driving out afield, and splitting wood, and
all that, and not know how happy I am l’
Amrei saw a poor woman walking by the road-side. Then she undid a
pair of the shoes she valued so much, and threw them to the wayfarer, who
looked in amazement after the lovers as they drove past, and thanked
them. A pleasant sensation it was to Amrei thus to give away, for the first
time in her life, a thing of value that she might have used herself. At first,
when she had so impulsively given them away, and then came to think of
it, the question came foremost in her mind, and recurred over and over
again, how much the shoes had really been worth. The idea of possession
would not readily leave her mind, for it was too deeply grafted in her; and
she never thought how much she had in reality given to Black Marianne.
The giving of these shoes seemed to her the first charitable deed of her
life; and the feeling of it certainly rejoiced her more than the recipient :
she kept smiling quietly to herself; she seemed to have a secret present in
her soul, that made her heart dance with joy; and when John asked, “What's
the matter with you ? You keep smiling to yourself like a child in its sleep,”
—she answered,
“Good Heavens ! this is all like a dream to me. I can give things away
now. I seem to go in my thoughts with the woman, and to know how
pleased she is.” -
171 22—2
Little Barefoot.
“That’s a good thing that you’re fond of giving.” -
“Oh, what credit is there in giving when one’s joyful ? It's like a full
glass running over. I am so full of joy, I should like to give away every-
thing; and, like you, I should wish to call out to everybody. I feel as if
I could give them all food and drink. I could fancy myself sitting at a
wedding feast quite alone with you; and I’m so glad I can eat nothing. I
have enough.”
“Yes, yes; that’s all well,” said John. “But don't give any more of our
fine shoes away. When I look in them, I think of all the good years that
are in them : you can run about in them many a good year before they’re
worn out.”
“What makes you think of that 2 How many hundred times have I not
thought the same thing, when I looked at the shoes 2 But now tell me
about your house, or else I shall be always chattering about myself. Come,
tell me something.”
John was glad to do this; and while he was talking, and Amrei listened
with wide-opened eyes, a happy form seemed in her mind to be dancing
alongside them—that of the poor woman by the wayside in her newly-
presented shoes.
When John had described the people in his home, he especially praised
the cattle, and said,
“They're all so well fed, and so sound and round, that there's not a
drop of water that wouldn't roll off any of them.”
“I can't get it into my mind,” said Amrei, “that I am to be so rich all at
once. When I think that I'm to have so many fields, and cows, and meal,
and butter, and fruit, and chests, and boxes full of things, I seem as if I
had been asleep all my life, and had only just woke up !—No, no, it is not
so. It seems a terrible thing to me to be responsible for so much all at once.
Your mother will help me, won't she P. She's active and busy still. I don't
know how one manages to keep from giving everything to the poor.—But
that won't do, for it's not mine. It's only given to me, after all.”
“‘Almsgiving makes no one poor,'—that's one of my mother's sayings,”
answered John. --
It is impossible to describe with what joy the lovers drove onward.
Every word made them happy. When Amrei asked, “Are there swallows
in your house P” and John answered in the affirmative, adding that they
had a stork's nest too, Amrei was quite rejoiced, and imitated the chatter-
ing of the stork, and showed merrily how the bird stood on one leg and
looked down into his house.
Was it by tacit consent, or was it through the power the present time
exerted on them, that they spoke not a word of how the real reception and
the arrival at the paternal house was to be arranged, till towards evening
they came to the neighbourhood in which Zusmarshofen lay 2 Only then,
when a few people met John who knew him, and saluted him with glances
172
Over A/7// and Vale.
of wonder at his companion, he declared to Amrei that he had thought of
two ways in which the matter might best be arranged. Either he would
take Amrei to his sister, who lived a little way off—one could see the steeple
of her village peering from behind a hill—and then he would go home alone
and explain everything; or he would take Amrei home at once—that is to
say, she should get down half a mile before they came there, and go alone
into the house in the character of a maid.
Amrei showed all her cleverness in explaining what should guide them
in this matter, and what could come of it. If she stopped at the sister's,
she would have first to gain over a person to her side who would not be
the one with whom the decision lay; and there might be all kinds of com-
plications whose end could not be foreseen ; and it would, moreover, always
be an unpleasant reflection, and there would be all sorts of remarks made,
that she had not dared to go into the house at once. The second plan
seemed to her the better one. But it went against her very soul to come
into the house with a lie. His mother had certainly promised her, years
ago, to take her into her service; but she did not want to go into service
now ; but it seemed like a theft if she tried to worm herself into favour with
the old people, and under such a mask she would be sure to do everything
clumsily. She would not be able to be straightforward, and if she had to
place a chair for the father, she would be sure to overturn it; for she would
always be thinking, “You are doing this to deceive him ; ” and even sup-
posing all this could be done, how could she afterwards appear before the
servants, when they came to hear that their mistress had been obliged to
smuggle herself into the house as a maid 2–and she would not be able to
speak a single word with John all the time.
She closed all this explanation with the words,
“I have only told you all this because you wanted to hear my opinion
too, and if you talk anything over with me, I must speak out freely what
is in my mind; but I tell you at the same time—what you wish, and what
you tell me to do, I will do it; and if you say it should be so, so it shall be
for me. I’ll obey you without contradiction ; and whatever you lay upon
me to do, that will I do as well as I can.”
“Yes, yes, you are right,” said John; and he reflected deeply. “They are
both crooked ways : the first is the less crooked ; and now we are so near
home we must make up our minds quickly. Do you see the naked patch
yonder in the forest on the hill with the little hut 2 And do you see the
cows, that seem as small as beetles 2 That's our upland pasture: there's
where I intend to put your Damie.”
Amrei cried out in amazement,
“Good Heavens, to think where men will venture —But that must be
a good grass meadow yonder.”
“So it is : but when father gives up the farm to me, I shall introduce
more stall-feeding—it's the better way; but old people are fond of keeping
173
Little Barefoot.
to old fashions.—But why are we chattering again P and now we are so
near. If we had only thought about this sooner My head seems on fire.”
“Only keep yourself quiet; we must think it over quietly. I’ve an
inkling of the way how it’s to be done; but it doesn't seem quite plain
yet.”
“Ah! what do you think P.” r. *
“No ; do you consider: perhaps you’ll hit upon the way yourself. It's
for you to arrange it; and we're both of us in such confusion now, that it
will be a relief to us if we both hit upon a way at once.”
“Yes, I’ve got a thought already. In the next village but one there's
a clergyman: I know him well, and he’ll give us the best advice.— But
stop ! here’s a better way ! I'll stay yonder in the valley at the miller's,
and you shall go up to the farm to my parents, and tell them just eyerything
right out. You'll get my mother on your side directly; and you're clever,
and you’ll manage my father so that you can wind him round your finger.
Yes, that's the best way. Then we shan’t have to wait, and we shall have
asked no stranger for help. Do you think that will do; . And isn't it
putting too much upon you ?” -
“That was exactly my thought too. So now there’s no more considering,
no more at all: that way stands fast as if it was written ; and that way it
shall be done; and “quick to work makes the master.” That's the right
way.—Oh, you don’t know what a dear, good, capital, honest fellow you
are l’’
“No, it’s you ! But that’s all the same now, for we two together will
be but one honest person, and so we will remain.-Look here—give me
your hand. That yonder is our first field. God greet thee, wifee, now thou
art at home !--And, hurrah —there's our stork flying up !—Stork cry
‘Welcome !' That's your new mistress: I’ll tell you more afterwards.--
Now, Amrei, don't be too long up yonder, but send me down some one
into the mill at once. If the waggoner's at home, you'd best send him :
he can run like a hare.—There, do you see the house yonder, with the
stork's nest and the two barns by the hill, to the left of the wood 2 There's
a linden by the house—do you see it P”
“Yes.”
“That's our house.—Now, come : get you down—you can't miss your
way now.” * -
John got down and helped Amrei out of the chaise; and the girl held
the necklace, that she had put into her pocket, like a rosary in her clasped
hands, and prayed silently. John also took off his hat, and his lips moved.
The two spoke not a word more; and now Amrei went forward alone.
John stood for a long time leaning against the grey, looking after her.—
Now she turned about, and sent the dog back, for it had followed her; but
it would not go, but ran aside into the field, and then followed her again.
And not until John whistled to it did the creature come back to him.
174
* Over A/7// and Vale.
John drove to the mill, and stopped there. He heard that his father had
been there an hour ago to wait for him, but had gone away again. John
was glad that his father was strong on his legs again, and that Amrei could
now find both his parents at home. The people in the mill could not make
out why John lingered with them, and yet would hardly listen to a word
they said. He kept going into the house, and out again; and then he
looked out on the road towards the farm, and then he came back. For
John was greatly disquieted: he counted the steps Amrei had to go. Now
she would be in the fields: now she would have to go to this, now to that
hedge: now she would be speaking to his parents;–and, after all, he could
not make out how it would be.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
7. Aſ E FI R,S 7" H E A R T H - A M R E.
tº ºr
D
Yºiſ MREI meanwhile went on, wrapped in a reverie.
iſ iſ She looked inquiringly up at the trees. “They
º stand so quietly in their places,” she thought;
“and they will stand thus, and look down upon
thee for years, for tens of years—thy whole life
and, meanwhile, what may not happen to
sm. ºš But Amrei was old enough not to grope about
# = sº for support in the world d h It
:- Wººs s- sº- pp.O e world around ner. W3.S 3.
#sº long time since she had spoken to the tree by her
* - father's house. She wished to detach her thoughts
from everything that surrounded her, and yet she gazed again at the fields
that were to be her own, and wanted to picture to herself what would
happen—her entrance and her reception, what she would say, and what they
would answer; and her thoughts wandered to and fro. Everything wavered
about before her like a confusion of possibilities, and at last she said, almost
aloud, as the “Silverstep waltz” came into her head,
“What's the use of considering beforehand 2 When the music plays, I
dance a hop or a waltz. I don't know how I put my feet: they do it by
themselves. I can't think, and I won't think, how, within an hour's time,
I may be coming back this way; how my soul may be taken out of my
body; and yet I shall have to do it, one step after another. Enough let
come now what will.—I’m there, after all !”
And in her manner there was the effect of the self-reliance she had learnt
in her childhood. It was not for nothing that she had been accustomed
to guess riddles, and that from day to day she had struggled with life's
difficulties. The whole power of the character she had acquired was firmly
and securely implanted in her. Without further question, as a man goes
forward to meet a necessity, quiet and self-possessed, she went on her way
boldly and of good courage.
She had not gone far when she saw a countryman sitting by the wayside
with a red thorn-stick between his legs; and on this stick he was resting
his two hands and his chin.
“God greet you,” said Amrei. “Are you enjoying your rest ?”
“Yes. Where are you going 2"






176
*
7%a /º/-s/ //earſ/h-A’z7-c.
“ Up yonder to the farm. Are you going there too? You can lcan on
me.” gº
“Yes, that's it,” said the old man, with a grin. “ Thirty years ago I
would have cared more about it, if such a pretty girl had said that to me.
Then I should have jumped like a colt | "
“But to those who can jump like colts one doesn't say such things," said
Amrei, laughing.
‘‘ God greeſ yout,” said Amref. “Are you enjoying your res/.” "
“You’re rich,” said the old man, who seemed to like a gossip. He took
a pinch out of his horn snuff-box, with an amused air.
“How can you tell that I am rich P”
“Your teeth are worth ten thousand guilders. There 's many a one
would give ten thousand guilders to have them in his mouth.”
“I’ve no time for jesting.—Now, God keep you !”
“Wait a little : I’ll go with you ; only you must not go too fast.”

177 23
Little Barefoot.
Amrei carefully helped the old man to rise, and he observed, “You’re
strong.” In his teasing way, he had made himself heavier and more help-
less than he was. As they walked along, he asked,
“To whom are you going at the farm P”
“To the farmer and his wife.”
“What do you want with them ’’’
“That I shall tell to themselves.”
“If you want anything of them, you’d better turn back at once. The
mistress would give you something, but she has not any power, and the
farmer, he's tough: he's got a beam in his head, and a stiff thumb into the
bargain.” g
“I don't want anything given me; I bring them something,” said Amrei.
On their way they met an older man going to the field with his scythe,
and the old man walking with Amrei called to him, and asked, with a queer
blink of his eyes, *.
“Do you know if miserly Farmer Landfried is at home 2"
“I think so, but I don't know,” answered the man with the scythe ; and
he turned away into the field.
There was a twitching in his face; and now, as he walked along, his
shoulders were shaking up and down : he was evidently laughing. Amrei
looked at her companion's face, and saw the roguery in it; and suddenly
she recognized, in the withered features, the face of that man to whom she
had given a draught of water, in old times, on the Holderwasen; and,
snapping her fingers softly, she said to herself, -
“Stop—I shall have you !”—and she added, aloud, “It’s wrong of you
to speak in that way of the farmer to a stranger like me, whom you don't
know, and who might be a relation of his ; and I’m sure it's not true what
you say. They do say, certainly, that the farmer's hard; but when it
comes to the point, I dare say he has an honest heart, but doesn't care to
make a great outcry when he does a good thing; and the man who has
such good children as his are said to be, must be a good man himself;
and perhaps he likes to make himself out bad before the world, because
he doesn't care what others think of him ; and I don't think the worse of
him for that.”
“You’ve not left your tongue behind you.--Where do you come from ?”
“Not from this neighbourhood—from the Black Forest.”
“What's the name of the place P”
“Haldenbrunn.”
“Oh —and have you come from there on foot ?”
“No ; somebody let me ride with him. He's the son of the farmer
yonder—a good, honest man.” -
“Ah ! at his age I should have let you ride with me, too.”
They had now come to the farm ; and the old man went with Amrei
into the room, and cried,
178
7%.e. Fºrs; //earth-Fºre.
-*-*-
“Mother, where are you ?” • . tº
The wife came out of the room, and Amrei's hands shook, and she would
gladly have fallen upon her neck; but she could not—she dared not; and
the farmer said, with a burst of laughter, 2 *
“Only think, dame !—here's a girlie from Haldenbrunn, and she has,
something to say to Farmer Landfried and his wife; but she won't tell m
anything about it. Now, do you say what my name is.”
“Why, that's the farmer,” said the woman; and she welcomed the old
man home by taking his hat from his head, and hanging it up on a peg
over the stove.
“Do you see now P” said the old man, triumphantly, to Amrei. “Now
say what you like.”
“Sit down,” said the mother, and pointed to a chair.
Amrei drew a deep breath, and began :
“You must believe me when I say that no child could have thought
more about you than I have done, long ago—long before these last days.
—Do you remember Josenhans, by the pond, where the high-road goes to
Endringen P” r
“Surely—surely l’” said the two old people.
“And I am Josenhans's daughter!”
“Well, I seemed to know you,” said the old woman.—“God greet you !”
She held out her hand to Amrei, and went on : “You’ve grown to be a
strong comely girl. Now tell me what has brought you so far as this 2"
“She rode part of the way with our John,” the farmer interposed. “He’ll
be here directly.”
The mother gave a start. She had an inkling of something to come, and
reminded her husband that when John went away, she had thought of the
Josenhans's children.
“And I’ve a remembrance from both of you,” said Amrei –and she
brought out her necklace, and a piece of money wrapped in paper. “You
gave me that the last time you were in our village.”
“See there !—and you lied to me, and told me you had lost it !” cried
the farmer, reproachfully, to his wife. - e T
“And here,” continued Amrei, holding out to him the groschen in its
paper cover—“here's the piece of money you gave me when I kept the
geese on the Holderwasen, and gave you a drink out of the well.”
“Yes, yes, that's all right; but what does it all mean 2 What you've
had given you, you can keep,” said the farmer.
Amrei stood up, and said,
“I have one thing to ask you. Let me speak quite freely for a few
minutes—may I ?”
“Yes; why not 2" -
“Look: your John wanted to take me with him, and bring me to you
as a maid; and at any other time I would have been glad to serve in your
- 179 23–2
*-
Little Barefoot.
house, rather than anywhere else; but now it would have been dishonest;
and to people to whom I want to be honest all my life long I won't come
for the first time with a lie in my mouth. Now, everything must be as
open as the day. In a word, John and I love one another from the bottom
of our hearts, and he wants to have me for his wife.”
“Oho!” cried the farmer, and got up quickly. One could easily see
that his former helplessness had only been feigned, “Oho!” he called out .
again, as if one of his horses were running away. -
But his wife put out her hand, and held him fast, and said,
“Let her finish what she has to say.”
And Amrei went on : - * *
“Believe me, I've sense enough to know that one cannot take a girl, out
of pity, for a daughter-in-law : you can give 'me something—you can give
me much ; but to take me for your daughter-in-law out of pity is what you
cannot do, and I don't wish you to do it. I haven't a groschen of money
—oh, yes, the groschen you gave me on the Holderwasen I have still, for
nobody would take it for a groschen,” she continued, turning to the farmer,
who could not repress a smile.—“I have nothing of my own—nay, more
than that—I have a brother, who is strong and healthy, but for whom I
have to provide still ; and I have kept the geese, and have been the most
insignificant in the village, and that's all true; but no one can say the least
harm of me—and that's all true too; and in those things that are really
given to people by God, I say to every princess, ‘I don't put myself one
hair's breadth behind you, if you have seven golden crowns on your head.'
I would rather that anybody else said this for me, for I'm not fond of talk-
ing; but I’ve been obliged, all my life, to take my own part; and I do it
for the last time to-day, when it's to be decided for life or death—that is
to say—don't misunderstand me—if you won't have me, I shall go quietly
away; I shall do myself no harm ; I sha'n't jump into the water, or hang
myself. I shall look out for another service, and thank God that such a
good man once wanted to have me for his wife; and I'll consider that it
was not God's will it should be so.” . . . . . Amrei's voice trembled,
and her form seemed to dilate; and then her voice grew stronger as she
summoned all her firmness, and said, solemnly, “But prove yourselves—ask
yourselves in your deepest conscience—whether what you do is God's will.
—I have nothing further to say.”
Amrei sat down. All three were silent for a time ; and then the old
man said,
“Why, you can preach like a clergyman l’
But the mother dried her eyes with her apron, and said,
“Why not P Clergymen have not more than one brain and one heart 1"
“Yes, that's you !” cried the old man, with a sneer, “There's some-
thing of the parson in you, too. If any one comes to you with a few
speeches like that, you're cooked directly.”
| 8()
tútº
º . º: .
lººk- 'llº
*... ºf
‘. .\'ow, ciºr//ling must b, as often as //c d'ar.
“And you talk as if you would not be cooked' or softened till you die,”
retorted the wife.
“Oh, indeed I" said the old man, bitterly. “Now, look you, you Saint
from the lowlands: you're bringing fine peace into our house. You've
managed already to make that one yonder turn against me; you've caught

} Sl
Little Barefoot.
her already. Well, I suppose you can wait till death has carried me off"
and then you can do what you choose.”
“No l’exclaimed Amrei : “I won't have that. Just as little as I wish
that John should take me for his wife without your blessing, just so little do
I wish that this sin should be in our hearts, that we should both be waiting
for your death. I scarcely knew my parents, I cannot remember them :
I only love them as one loves God, without having ever seen Him. But
I also know what it is to die. Last night I closed Black Marianne's eyes;
I did what she asked me, all my life long; and yet, now that she's dead,
I have sometimes thought : How often you were impatient and bitter
towards her, and how many a service you might have done her; and now
she's lying there, and it's all over; you can do nothing more for her, and
you can't beg her pardon for anything. I know what it is to die; and I
will not have . . .”
“But I will l’ cried the old man; and he clenched his fist and set his
teeth. “But I will 1" he shouted again. “You stay here, and you belong
to us ! And now, whoever likes may come, and they may say whatever
they like. You, and no one but you, shall have my John.”
The mother ran to the old man, and embraced him; and he, who was
not accustomed to it, called out involuntarily, º
“What are you about P”
“Giving you a kiss. You deserve it; for you're better than you make
yourself out.”
The old man, who all this time had had a pinch of snuff between his
fingers, would not waste it; so he took it quickly, and then said,
“Well, I don't mind,”—and then he added, “But now I shall give you
warning, for I've a much younger one, and it tastes much better from her.
Come here, you disguised parson 1"
“I’ll come; but call me by my name.”
“Well, what is your name P”
“You need not know that, for you can give me a name yourself: you
know what name I mean.”
“You’re a clever one. Well, if you like, come here, daughter-in-law.
Will that name suit you ?”
And, in reply, Amrei flung herself upon him. -
“And am I not to be asked at all P” complained the mother, with a
radiant face.
The old man had become quite saucy in his satisfaction. He took Amrei
by the hand, and asked, in satirical imitation of a clergyman's tone,
“Now, I demand of you, honourable Cordula Catherine, called Dame
Landfried, will you take this . . . .” and he whispered to the girl aside,
“What is your Christian name P”
“Amrei.”
Then the farmer continued, in the same tone,
I82
The First Hearth-Fire.
“Will you take this Amrei Josenhans, of Haldenbrunn, to be your
daughter-in-law, and never let her have a word to say, as you do to your
husband, feed her badly, abuse her, oppress her, and what they call bully
her generally P” -
The old fellow seemed beside himself: some strange revulsion had taken
place in him; and while Amrei hung round the mother's neck, and would
not let her go, the old man struck his red thorn-stick on the table, and cried,
noisily, - - -
“Where's that good-for-nothing boy, John P. Here’s a fellow who sends
his bride for us to take care of, and goes wandering about the world ! Who
ever heard of such a thing P”
Now Amrei tore herself away, and said that the waggoner or some one
else must be sent at once to the mill, for that John was waiting there.
The father declared that he ought to be left in suspense in the mill for
at least three hours more: that should be his punishment for having hidden
in such a cowardly way behind the petticoat; and when he came home, he
should wear a woman's cap: in fact, he wouldn't have him in the house at
all; for when John came, he, the father, would have nothing of the bride;
and he felt angry already when he thought of the foolish way they'd go
on together.
Meanwhile the mother managed to slip away, and send the quick-footed
waggoner to the mill. -
And now the mother thought that Amrei ought to have some refresh-
ment. She wanted to prepare an omelette in haste, but Amrei begged to
be allowed to light the first fire in the house that was to prepare something
for herself, and asked that she might cook something for her parents, too.
They let her have her way, and the two old people went with her into
the kitchen; and she knew how to manage it all so cleverly, seeing at a
glance where everything was, and hardly requiring to ask a single question,
and did all she attempted so firmly and quietly, that the old farmer kept
nodding to his wife, and said at last,
“She’s learnt to do the housekeeping like singing at sight: she can read
it all off from the leaf, like the new schoolmaster.”
By the fire that flashed merrily up, stood those three when John came in.
And the fire did not flash more cheerily on the hearth than inward happiness
flashed in the eyes of all three. The hearth and its fire became a holy
altar, round which stood people whose hearts were full of praise, though
they only laughed and joked with one another.
CHAPTER XIX.
A/ / /O D AE AW 7 Aº Aº A S U R AE S.
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W M R
E I was soon so much at
home in the house, that
on the second day she
lived in it as if she had
been brought up there
from childhood; and the
old man trotted to and
fro after her, and looked
on, while she took every-
thing in hand so cleverly,
and accomplished it so
quietly and steadily, with-
out hurry and without
delay.
There are people who,
when they go to bring the
least thing, a jug or plate,
disturb the thoughts of all
those who sit around, and
seem, so to speak, to drag
the thoughts of all pre-
sent about with them.
Amrei, on the contrary,
knew how to manage and
accomplish everything in
such a way that one felt the peacefulness of her work, and was the more
grateful, accordingly, for all she did.
How often had the farmer scolded about the fact, that when salt was
wanted, some one had always to get up from the table !
Amrei now laid
the table, and took care to put the salt-cellar on, directly the cloth was
spread.
smile,
When the farmer praised Amrei for this, his wife said with a

184
A/?dalem 77-easures.
“You talk as if you had not lived at all until now, and as if you had
been obliged to eat everything without salt or seasoning.”
And then John told them that Amrei was also called the Salt Countess;
and then he gave them the story of the King and his daughter.
They were a happy company—in the parlour, in the farmyard, and in
the field; and the farmer often said that he had not had such an appetite
for years as he had now ; and he used to get Amrei to prepare something
for him, three or four times a day, at quite irregular hours; and she had to
sit by him while he ate.
The wife took Amrei, with a feeling of great satisfaction, into the dairy
and the store-rooms; and then she opened a great gaily-painted wardrobe,
full of fine bleached linen, and said,
“That's your outfit: there's everything here but shoes. I'm especially
glad that you saved the shoes you got with your wages, for I've a super-
stition about that.”
When Amrei questioned her about the ways of the house, she nodded
approvingly, though she did not express this approval in words; but it
appeared sufficiently in the confidential tone in which she discussed ordinary
matters: the very heartiness of satisfaction lay therein. And when she
began to depute certain matters in the household management to Barefoot,
she said,
“Child, I will tell you something: if there's anything in the house that
doesn't please you, in our way of doing it until now, you needn't be afraid
of altering it, just as it suits you. I'm not one of those who think that it
must always be just as they have arranged it, and that no alteration must
be made. You've free licence to do as you like, and I shall be glad to
see a fresh hand at work. Only, if you’ll listen to me—I advise you for
your own sake—do it gradually.”
It was a pleasant thing to see old experience and young strength joining
hands physically and mentally. Amrei declared, from the bottom of her
heart, that she found everything capitally ordered, and that she should only
be too glad, if one day when she became old, the household affairs were in
as good order as they were in now.
“You think far forward,” said the old dame. “But that's good—for
whoever thinks of the future thinks of the past too, and you will not forget
me when I am gone.”
Messengers had been sent out to announce the family event to the sons
and sons-in-law of the house, and to invite them to Zusmarshofen for the
next Sunday; and after that had been done, the old man trotted about
with Amrei more than ever. He seemed to have something on his mind
which he found it difficult to say.
There's a saying about hidden treasures, that tells how a black monster
squats over them, and that on the eve of saints' days a blue flame appears
on the surface, beneath which rich treasures lie concealed; and a child that
185 24
Zittle Barefoot.
has been born on Sunday can see the flame; and if he remains calm and
unmoved, he can lift the treasure. It would not have been believed that
such a treasure was hidden in old Farmer Landfried, and that, squatting
upon it, cowered black obstinacy and contempt of human kind; but Amrei
saw the little blue flame hovering above it, and knew how to govern herself
in such a way that she released the treasure. -
No one could tell how she produced such an effect upon him that he
manifestly endeavoured to appear particularly good and well-meaning in
her eyes—that he even gave himself so much trouble about a poor girl,
was in itself a wonder. This alone was clear to Amrei -–that he would
not suffer his wife to appear alone as the just and amiable one, while he
would be the angry snarler, of whom people must be afraid; and the very
fact that Amrei, before she knew him, had told him that he did not think
it worth while to appear good before men—this fact opened his heart. He
had so much to say now, every time he encountered her, that it seemed
he had kept all his thoughts in a savings-box which he now opened; and
there were in this hoard very singular old coins that had passed out of
circulation—great medals that don't pass current at all, and were only
coined on great occasions—and some quite fresh, and of sterling silver,
without alloy. He could not bring out his thoughts so well as his wife had
done that day when she spoke to John ; his language was stiff in all its
joints; but still he managed to hit the point, and almost gave himself the
appearance as if he must take Amrei's part against his wife; and it was
not quite unjust when he said,
“Look you, the dame is like the ‘good hour' itself; but a good hour is
not a good day, a good week, or a good year. In fact, she's a woman ;
and with them it's always April weather; and a woman is only half a per-
son; and I maintain that, and nobody shall talk me out of it.”
“You give us a fine character,” said Amrei.
“Yes, it's true,” said the farmer. “I’m speaking to you –but, as I was
saying, the dame is a good soul—only she's too good. And then she gets
put out directly when one doesn't do what she wants, because she means so
well, and she thinks one doesn't know how good she is if one doesn't go
with her. She can't understand that one doesn't do it because what she
wants is sometimes inconvenient, however good her intention may be. And
remember this especially: don't do anything after her just as she does it; but
do it your own way—the right way: she likes that much better. It doesn't
please her if it appears that people But you’ll notice what’s best to do;
and if anything should happen, for Heaven's sake don't put your husband
into a cleft stick | There's nothing worse than when the husband stands
between his wife and her mother-in-law, and the mother says, “I’m of no
account with my daughter-in-law; and my children are becoming unfaith-
ful to me;’ and the daughter-in-law, she says, “Now I see what kind of a
man you are. You let your wife be trampled upon.' I advise you, if any-
186
Aſia'alem 77-easures.
thing of the kind should happen to you that you can't manage it by your-
self, you tell me about it quietly, and I’ll help you; but don't bother your
husband: he's been a bit spoilt by his mother, but he'll grow tougher now.
Only you drive on slowly, and always remember I belong to your family,
and I'm your natural protector; for it is so : I'm distantly related to you
on your mother's side.”
And now he tried to disentangle a strangely intricate pedigree; but he
could not find the right clue, and entangled it more and more like a skein
of worsted; and at last he always concluded by saying,
“You may believe me, on my word, that we are related;—for we are
related, but I can't quite reckon it up.”
And now the time had really come before his end, when he did not give
away only the bad groschen out of his possessions; it did him good at last
to give up what was really valuable and important.
One evening he called Amrei to him, behind the house, and said to her,
“Look, my girl, you're good and sensible; but you can't quite know yet
what a man is. My John has a good heart, but it might annoy him one
day that you had nothing at all of your own. So, come here, and take this
—but don't tell a mortal soul who gave it you. Say you had hidden it on
purpose.—There, take it !”—and he handed her a stocking stuffed full of
crown dollars, and added, “That was not to have been found till after I
was dead; but it’s better so : he 'll have it now, and think it comes from
you. Your whole story is out of the common way; and now that shall be
added to it, that you had a hidden treasure. But don't forget that there are
thirty-two feather dollars in it, and they’re worth a groschen more apiece
than common dollars. Take good care of it : put it in the cupboard where
the linen is, and always keep the key by you. And on Sunday, when the .
family is assembled, do you pour it out upon the table.”
“I don't like to do that. I think John ought to do it, if it's necessary
at all.” -
“It is necessary; but if you like, John may do it——but, hist hide it
quietly. There, put it in your apron, for I hear John coming: I think he's
jealous.” -
And the two parted in haste. "
That very same evening the mother took Amrei with her to the store-
room, and produced from a drawer a tolerably heavy bag. The string that
tied it was knotted together in a wonderful manner; and she said to Amrie,
“There—untie that l”
Amrei tried, but it was a difficult matter.
“Wait; I'll take a pair of scissors, and we'll cut it open.”
“No,” said Amrei, “I don't like to do that. Have a little patience,
mother-in-law, and you'll see that I shall get it undone."
The mother smiled while Amrei, with much pains but with a skilful hand,
got the knot untwisted at last; and then the old woman said,
187 24–2
Little Barefoot.
“Good—that's brave; and now look what's inside it.”
Amrei found it full of silver and gold pieces; and the mother went on
to say: iº
“Look you, child, you have wrought a miracle upon the farmer. I can't
understand it yet how he came to allow it; but you have not quite con-
verted him yet. My husband is always talking about it, saying what a
pity it is that you have nothing of your own : he can't get over it, and
keeps thinking that you have a pretty property in secret, and have only
deceived us to make trial of us, whether we are content to take you just as
you are. I can't talk him out of that; so I have hit upon a thought. God
will not impute it to us as a sin. Look this is what I have saved in the
six and thirty years my husband and I have kept house together. I've
done it without deception, and there's some of it that I inherited from my
mother. And now, do you take it, and say it's your property. That will
make the farmer quite happy, especially as he's been clever enough to
suppose it beforehand. Why do you look at me in such a confused way 2
Believe me when I tell you that you may do it—there's no wrong in it, for
I have considered it over and over again. Now go and hide it, and don't
say a word against it—not a single word. And don't thank me or any-
thing ; for it comes to the same thing whether my child gets it now or later,
and it will please my husband while he's yet alive. And now, quick | tie
it up again.”
Next morning, quite early, Amrei told John all that his parents had
said, and what they had given her; and John cried, rejoicing,
“Lord in heaven forgive me ! I could have believed such a thing of
my mother, but of my father I should never have dreamt it. Why, you
must be a witch. And, look you, we will keep to that. We will not tell
either of them anything about the other; for the finest thing is, that each
wants to deceive the other, and each will be really deceived—for they must
both think that you really had the extra money hidden by you. Hurrah
that will be a merry jest for the betrothal.”
But, amid all the joy in the house, there were all kinds of anxieties too.
CHAPTER XX.
J. AV 7" Aſ E A A // / / P C A R C / E.
OW, it is not morality that rules
the world, but a hardened form
& . tº-rºº Nº. of it, called “custom.” As the
* \º world is constituted now, it would rather
º $º-º-º- º forgive an offence against morality than
ºffº = W an offence against custom. Well is it
ſº º for those countries and those nations in
& . . . . Nº º
º Zºº
Zº
º
㺠* * E\\\ which morality and custom are still one.
§ º Every strife that is waged—in great
things as in small—in the general as in
the individual—is connected with the
effort to reconcile the contradiction be-
tween these two ; and to melt the hard-
º, ſº . ened form of custom back into the true
& Jºº, M-- y ore of morality, and stamp the coin anew
-- " - & 9 according to its value.
) --- ~ ... Even here, in this little story about
people who live apart from the great tumult of the world, the reflection of
this truth is seen. -
The mother, who was secretly the most rejoiced at the happy fulfilment
of her wish, was yet full of peculiar anxiety respecting the opinion of the
world.
“You did a thoughtless thing, after all,” she said, complainingly, to Amrei,
“to come into the house in the way you did, and that we cannot fetch you
to the wedding. It's not good, and is not the custom. If I could only
send you away for a little time, or John too, so that all would go more
according to rule.”—And to John she said, plaintively, “I seem to hear
the talk there’ll be if you marry in such a hurry. They’ll say, ‘Twice
asked, and the third time finished: that's what worthless people do.’”
But she let herself be pacified by both of them, and smiled when John
said, +
“You’ve studied everything as well as a clergyman, mother. Now, tell
me, why should honest people not do anything, because dishonest ones
use it as a cloak 2 Can any one say anything bad of me 2"

* 189
Little Barefoot.
“No, you've been a good lad all your life.”
“Well. Then let them believe in me a little now, and believe that a
thing may be good that does not look so at first sight. I’ve a right to ask
that of them. And the way I and my Amrei came together was out of
the usual order, and has gone its own separate way from the beginning.
And it’s not been a bad way. Why, it’s like a miracle, if we think of it at
all rightly; and what's that to us if people won't believe in miracles now
a-days, but want to find all sorts of badness in it 2 One must have courage,
and not care for the world in everything. The clergyman at Hirlingen
said once, ‘If to-day a prophet were to arise, he would have to pass the
Government examination first, and show if what he wants is in the regular
order.' Now, mother, when one knows for oneself that something is right,
then it's best to go forward on the straight road, and push aside, right and
left, whatever stands in one's way. Let them stare and wonder for awhile:
they'll think better of it in time.”
The mother seemed to feel that a miracle might be accepted if it came
in the form of a sudden happy event, but that even what is unusual must
gradually conform to the laws of usage and of strong established custom.
The wedding might appear as a miracle; but the marriage, which involves
a continuance, would not. She therefore said,
“With all these people, whom you now look at proudly and indifferently,
because you know you are doing right—with all these people you’ll have
to live and to associate; and you’ll expect that they are not to look at
you askance, but to give you due respect; and if people are to do that,
you must give and allow them what they are accustomed to require. You
cannot force them to make an exception in your case, and you can't run
after each one separately, and say to him, “If you knew how it all came
about, you would say I was completely in the right.’”
But John rejoined,
“You will see that no one can have anything against my Amrei, when
he has known her just for a single hour.”
And he had a good method, not only to pacify his mother, but to rejoice
her inward soul. He reported to her how everything she had laid upon
him as a test and an injunction, had exactly found its answer in Amrei, as
if it had been intended for her; and she could not help laughing when he
concluded,
“You must have had the last in your head upon which the shoes are
made up above; and they fit her, who is to run about in them, as if they
had been made for her.”
The mother let herself be pacified; and on the Saturday morning before
the family council, Damie made his appearance; but he was dispatched
back to Haldenbrunn at once, to procure all the necessary papers from the
clerk and the council-house.
The first Sunday was a heavy day at Farmer Landfried's. The old
190 -
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Little Barefoot.
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people had accepted Amrei; but how would it be with the family P It's
not easy to get taken up into a heavy family like that, unless the way is
paved with horses and waggons, and all sorts of furniture and money, and
a number of relations.
There was a great driving that Sunday, from the uplands and the low-
lands, to Farmer Landfried's. There came driving up the brothers-in-law
and the sisters-in-law with their relations. “John has got a wife; and he
has brought her home at once, without parents, or clergyman, or authorities
having a word to say in the matter. That must be a beauty that he found
behind a hedge.” That's what all of them said. -
The horses in the chaises suffered for what had happened at Farmer
Landfried's. They received many a cut, and when they kicked they got
it all the worse; and whoever was driving, lashed them till his arm was
tired; and then there was many a wrangle with the wives, who sat beside
the drivers, and protested and whimpered at such a reckless, wicked way of
driving. -
A little fortress of carriages stood in Farmer Landfried's courtyard; and
within, in the room, the whole large family was assembled. There they
sat together, in high thigh-boots or in hobnailed laced boots, and three-
cornered hats—some worn with the point, others with the broad end for-
ward. The women whispered among themselves, and then made signs to
their husbands, or told them quietly to let them alone, and they would
drive out the strange bird ; and a bitter jeering laugh arose when it was
rumoured here and there that Amrei had been the goosekeeper.
At last Amrei came ; but she could not offer her hand to anybody. She
carried a great bottle full of red wine under her arm ; and so many glasses,
besides two plates of cakes, that it seemed as if she had seven hands. Every
finger-joint appeared to be a hand; and she put down everything so quietly
and noiselessly on the table, on which her mother-in-law had spread a white
cloth, that all looked at her in wonder. She silently filled all the glasses
without any signs of trepidation ; and then said, -
“My parents have given me authority to bid you heartily welcome!—
Now drink l’’ *
“We’re not used to it of a morning,” said a heavy man, with an un-
commonly large nose; and he spread himself out in his chair. This was
George, John's eldest brother. - - ~
“We only drink goose-wise,” said one of the women ; and a scarcely-
. suppressed laugh went round the room.
Amrei felt the stab, but kept her temper; and John's sister was the first
who took the glass, and drank to her. She first clinked her glass against
John's with a “God prosper it !” She only half responded to Amrei, who
held out her glass too. Now, the other women considered it impolite, or
even sinful—for, at the first draught, the so-called “John's-draught,” it's
considered sinful to hold back—not to respond; and the men also let them-
192
. In the Family Circle.
selves be persuaded ; and for a time nothing was heard but the clinking
and putting down of glasses.
“Father is right,” old Dame Landfried at last said to her daughter.
“Amrei looks as if she were your sister; but she's still more like Eliza-
beth who died.”
“Yes; none of you will go shorter. If Elizabeth had lived, the property
would have been smaller by one share,” observed the father; and the
mother added,
“But now she has been given to us again.”
The old man had hit the point on which all of them were sore, although
they tried to persuade themselves that they were prepossessed against
Amrei because she had come among them without any relations of her
own. And while Amrei was speaking to John's sister, the old farmer said,
in a low voice, to his eldest son,
“One wouldn't imagine, to look at her, what's she brought. Only think
—she had a bag stuffed full of crown dollars l—but you must not say any-
thing to anybody about it.”
This injunction was so well obeyed, that within a few minutes all in the
room knew about the bag of dollars, with the exception of John's sister,
who afterwards took great credit to herself for having been so friendly to
Amrei, although she thought that Amrei had not a farthing of her own.
Sure enough, John had gone out; and now he came back again, with a
large bag, on which was written the name “Josenhans of Haldenbrunn;”
and he poured out the rich contents, which rolled rattling and chinking
over the table; and all were astonished ; but the father and mother won-
dered most of all.
So Amrei had really had a hidden treasure | For there was much more
here than either parent had given her. Amrei did not dare to look up, and
every one praised her for her unexampled humility. Now she succeeded
in gaining them all on her side; and when the numerous family took their
leave in the evening, each one said to her, in secret,
“Look you: it was not I who was against you because you had nothing.
It was such and such an one, who always was bringing it up against you. I
say now, as I said and thought before, even if you had had nothing except
the clothes you wear, you are cut out for our family; and I could not have
wished to see a better wife for John, or a better daughter-in-law for the old
people.” -
It was easy to say so now ; for they all thought Amrei had brought a
considerable fortune in ready money with her.
In Allgau they used to talk for years of the wonderful way in which
young Farmer Landfried had brought home his wife; and they told how
finely he and his wife danced together at their wedding, and especially
193 25
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“/9a/e, your elſest boy fakes aſſer 1'ouſ.”
praised a waltz that they called “Silverstep"—the music for which they
had from the lowlands.
And Damie 2–He's one of the most noted shepherds in Allgau, and

19 |
. In the Family Circle.
has a lofty name, for he is called “Vulture Damie" in the country; for
Damie has captured two dangerous vultures' nests, because twice he has
had young lambs stolen by those birds of prey. If it, were the custom to
dub men knights now-a-days, he would be called “Damian of Vultures-
craig;” but the male stem of the Josenhanses of Vulturescraig will die with
him, for he remains a bachelor; but he's a good uncle—better than the
one in America. When the cattle are brought home after the summer, he
has many stories to tell his sister's children, in the winter's nights, about
life in America, about Coaly Matthew in the Mosswell Wood, and of the
shepherds' adventures in the mountains of Allgau. He especially knows
many stories about a cow he calls his “herd-cow,” who wears a deep call-
bell. And Damie once said to his sister,
“Dame,”—for that’s what he always calls her—“Dame, your eldest boy
takes after you, and uses just such words as you used to use. What do you
think 2–says the boy to me, to-day, “Uncle, your herd-cow is your heart-
cow, isn't she P’—Yes, he’s just on your pattern.” -
Farmer John wanted to have his first little daughter christened “Bare-
foot; ” but it is no longer allowed to create names out of incidents in life.
The name was not accepted in the church register; and John had the child
named “Barbara; ” but, on his own authority, he has changed that name
into “Barefoot.”
"THE END,

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