THE LITTLE BAREFOOT.

THE CHILDREN KNOCK—Page 8.

THE

Little Barefoot.

A TALE.

BY BERTHOLD AUERBACH.

TRANSLATED BY ELIZA BUCKMINSTER LEE.

ILLUSTRATED.

BOSTON: H. B. FULLER AND COMPANY, (Successors to Walker, Fuller, & Co.,) 245 WASHINGTON STREET. 1867.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by H. B. FULLER, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Stereotyped by C. J. Peters & Son, 13 Washington Street, Boston.

Printed by John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.

CONTENTS.

THE LITTLE BAREFOOT

CHAPTER I. THE CHILDREN KNOCK.

EARLY in the morning of an autumnal day, when the morning mist lay upon the ground, two children, a boy and a girl of six and seven years old, went hand in hand through the back, or garden path, out of the village. The girl appeared the oldest, and carried slate, books, and a writing-book under her arm; the boy had the same in a gray linen satchel, which was slung over his shoulder. The girl wore a cap of white drill that reached only to the forehead, and made the full arch of her brow the more conspicuous. The boy was bareheaded. The footstep of the boy only could be heard, for he had strong shoes on his feet; but the girl was barefoot. Where the path permitted, the children went close together; but, when the hedges made it too narrow, the girl always went first.

[8]Upon the yellow leaves of the shrubbery lay a white frost, and the berries of the hawthorn, the tall stems of the wild brier, looked as though they were silvered over. The sparrows in the hedges twitter and fly in uneasy flocks close to the children, then light again not far from them, twittering and chirping, till at length they fly to a garden, where they light upon an apple-tree, so that the dry leaves rustle, and fall to the ground. A magpie flies quickly up from the path across the fields, and then rests upon the great pear-tree, where the ravens still cawed. This magpie must have told them a secret, for the ravens flew up and crossed over the tree, and an old one let himself down upon the topmost wavering branch, while the others found for themselves, upon the lower branches, good places, where they could rest and look out. They appeared to desire to know why the children, with their school-books, struck into the side street, and wandered out of the village. One of the ravens flew like a scout, or spy, and placed himself upon a stunted willow by the fish-pond.

But the children went quietly on their way by the alders near the pond, till they came out again into the street; then crossed to the other side of the street where stood a small, low house. The house is entirely closed, and the children stand at the door and knock softly. Then the girl calls courageously, “Father! Mother!” and the boy timidly repeats, “Father! Mother!” At[9] length the girl seizes the door-latch, and presses it softly up; the boards rustle and she listens, but nothing comes. Now she ventures in quicker strokes to press the latch up and down, but only the sound echoes from the deserted house. No human voice answers. The boy places his lips upon a crack in the door and calls again, “Father! Mother!” Inquiringly he looks up to his sister; and when he looks down again his breath upon the door-latch has become hoar-frost.

From the mist-covered village sound the measured strokes of the thresher; now rapid and loud, falling confusedly, and now with slow and wearied strokes; then again clear and vivid; then stifled and hollow. The children stand as though bewildered. At length they cease to call and knock, and sit down upon scattered logs of wood. These lay piled around the stem of a mountain-ash, overshadowing the side of the house, and now ornamented with its red autumn berries. The children rivet their eyes upon the door of the house; but all remains silent and closed.

“Father brought this wood from Moosbrunnenwood,” said the girl, pointing to the log upon which she was sitting; then she added, with a wise look, “it gives good warmth, and there is a great deal of rosin in it that burns like a torch, but it costs a great deal to split it.”

“If I was grown up,” said the boy, “I would take father’s great axe and the two iron wedges[10] and split it into pieces as smooth as glass, and I would make a beautiful pile of it, like that of the coal-burner Mathew, in the forest; and then when father comes home he will be glad, and he will say, ‘Who did that?’ Don’t you dare to tell him,” and he pointed his finger threateningly at his sister.

The latter appeared to have a dawning perception that it would be of no use to wait for father and mother, and she cast a melancholy glance at the boy; and then, looking at his shoes, she said, “Then you must also put on father’s boots. But come, we will skip stones in the lake, and see if I can throw farther than you; and, as we go, I will give you a riddle to guess. What wood is that which warms without burning?”

“The master’s ruler when the palms catch it,” said the boy.

“No, I don’t mean that. The wood that they split makes one warm without burning it.” When standing by the hedge she asked, “It sits upon a little stem, hath a little red coat, and its belly is full of stones. What may that be?”

The boy knit his brows and cried out, “Hush! Don’t tell me what it is. It is a hip-berry.”

The girl nodded applause, and made a face as though she told him the riddle for the first time, whereas she had often told it before to divert him from sorrow.

The sun had now scattered the fog, and the[11] little valley came out in clear shining sunlight as the children turned towards the pond and began to make the flat stones dance through the water.

In passing, the girl lifted the latch again many times, but the door did not open, and nothing appeared at the window. They soon played, full of joy and laughter, at the pond, and the girl seemed especially glad that her brother was always the most skilful, and, beating her at the sport, he became wholly gay. She, indeed, made herself less skilful than she really was, for her stones plumped, at the first throw, deep into the water, at which the boy laughed loud. In the zeal of their sport, both children forgot where they were, and why they had come there, and yet to both it was melancholy and strange.

In that house, now so silent and closed, had dwelt for some time back Josenhans, with his wife and two children, Amrie (Anna Maria) and Dami (Damian). The father was a wood-cutter in the forest, but also handy at any work; for the house which he had purchased in a neglected condition, he had repaired himself, and wholly covered in the roof. In the autumn he intended to whiten the wall of the interior. The chalk for that purpose was lying in a pit covered with brushwood. His wife was one of the best workwomen in the village. Day and night, in sorrow and in joy, she was a helper to every one; always willing, always[12] ready, for she had early taught her children, especially Amrie, to take care of themselves. Industry, contentment, and domestic competency made the house one of the happiest in the village. An insidious illness prostrated the mother, and the next evening the father also, and after a few days two coffins were borne on the same evening from the humble house. The children were taken into one of the neighbor’s houses during the illness of

their parents, and they learnt their death only on Monday, when they were dressed in their Sunday clothes, to follow in the funeral procession.

Neither Josenhans nor his wife had relations in the place, and yet loud weeping and praise of the dead were heard at the grave; and the Mayor of the village led both children by the hand, as all three followed in the procession. At the grave both children were still and quiet; they were even cheerful, although they often asked, “Where were their father and mother?” They ate at the table of the Mayor, and everybody was kind to them. When they left the table, they received little tarts wrapped in paper to take with them.

As the evening came on, the Mayor ordered a man of the name of Krappenzacher to take Dami home with him, and a woman, called Brown Mariann, to take care of Amrie; but now the children would not be separated. They wept aloud, and insisted upon being taken to their parents. Dami, at length, was coaxed by false pretences, but[13] Amrie could not be forced to leave her brother. At length the foreman of the Mayor took her in his arms and carried her, by main strength, to the house of Brown Mariann. There she found her own bed from the parents’ house; but she would not lie down upon it, and wept herself to sleep upon the floor, when they laid her all dressed as she was upon her bed. Dami was also heard weeping and screaming aloud, but soon he was still. The much defamed Brown Mariann showed this evening how considerate and tender she was for the orphan intrusted to her care. For many years she had been bereft of her children, and as she stood by the sleeping girl she said in a low voice, “Ah! happy sleep of childhood; it weeps and instantly falls asleep without the twilight of

hope, without the anxiety of dreams.” She sighed deeply.

The next morning, early, Amrie went to dress her brother and to console him for what had happened. “As soon as father comes back,” she said, “he will take you home and pay the Krappenzacher.” Then both the children went out to the parental house, knocked on the door and wept aloud.

At length Mathew, the coal-burner, who lived near, came and carried them both to school. He asked the schoolmaster to make the children understand that their parents were dead, for Amrie especially appeared incapable of believing[14] it. The teacher did all that was possible, and they became more quiet and resigned. But from the school they went again to the parents’ house, and waited there, hungry and thirsty, till some compassionate person carried them away.

The person who had a mortgage upon the Josenhans house took it, and the payment which Josenhans had already made was lost; for, according to the custom of the village, whatever had been paid was forfeited. There were many houses in the village beside the Josenhans that remained untenanted. All the possessions of their parents were sold, and a small sum obtained for the children, but not sufficient to pay their board. Thus they became parish orphans, and were of course boarded with those who would take them at the lowest price.

Amrie informed her brother one day with delight, that she had found out where the cuckoo clock of their parents was. Mathew, the coal-burner, had bought it; in the evening they went and stood near the house and waited till the clock cried cuckoo,—then they looked at each other and laughed.

The children continued every morning to go to their parents’ house, knock at the door, call and wait. Then they played at the fish-pond, as we have seen them to-day. Afterwards they listened to a call which they used not to hear at this season of the year, for the cuckoo at Mathew’s called eight times.

[15]“We must to the school,” said Amrie, and hastened with her brother through the garden paths into the village. As they passed behind the barn of Farmer Rodel, Dami said, “Our guardian has had a great deal of threshing done to-day,” and he pointed to the straw that hung as a trophy over the half door of the barn. Amrie nodded silently.

CHAPTER II. THE FAR-OFF SPIRIT.

FARMER RODEL, whose house, ornamented with red striped beams, and a pious sentence, enclosed in the form of a heart, stood not far from the Josenhans dwelling, had himself appointed by the Mayor, guardian of the orphan children. His guardianship consisted in nothing more than in preserving the unsold clothes of their father, and when he met or passed one of the children in the street he would ask, “Have you clothes enough?” and, without waiting to be answered, he would pass on. Yet the children felt a strange pride in having that great farmer called their guardian. They often stood by the great house and looked longingly at it, as though they expected something, they knew not what, and they sat often down by the ploughs and harrows at the corner of the shed and read over again and again the pious sentence on the house. The house spoke to them if all others were silent.

The Sunday before All Souls, the children played again before their parents’ deserted house.[17] They seemed, as it were, banished to this place. There came along the wife of Farmer Landfried from the Hochdorfer Road. She had a red silk umbrella under her arm and a dark hymn-book in her hand. She had come to make her last visit in the place of her birth. Yesterday, her servant in a four-horse wagon had taken all her furniture out of the village, and early this morning with her husband and three children she would move to their lately purchased estate in the far-off district of Allgäu. When at some distance she nodded to the children; but they saw nothing but the melancholy expression upon the face of the woman. As she now stood by them she said, “God bless you, children! what do you do here? to whom do you belong?”

“To the Josenhans,” answered Amrie, pointing towards the house.

“Oh! you poor children,” she cried, striking her hands together; “I should have known you, lass! exactly so did your mother look, when we went to school together. We were good comrades and friends, and your father worked with my cousin, Farmer Rodel. I know all about you—but tell me, Amrie, why have you no shoes on? You will take cold in this wet weather. Say to Mariann that Farmer Landfried’s wife, from Hochdorf, said it was not right to let you run about in this manner; no—you need say nothing. I will speak to her. But, Amrie, you must now be sensible[18] and prudent, and take care of yourself. Think of it—what if thy mother knew that in this time of the year you went about barefoot!”

The child looked earnestly at the woman as though she would say, “Does not my mother then know it?”

“Ah, that is the worst of it,” she said, answering the thought of the child, “that you can never know what good and honest people your parents were; that must elder people tell you. Think of it, Amrie, that it will make your parents happy in heaven when they hear people say, ‘There are the Josenhans children, they are a proof of all goodness. There they see plainly the blessing of good and honest parents.’”

At these last words big tears ran down the cheeks of the farmer’s wife. Painful emotions (that had, indeed, a wholly different source), at these thoughts and words, made them continue to flow. She laid her hand upon the head of the girl, who, at the sight of her tears, began to weep violently. She felt that a good soul had turned towards her, and a dawning belief that her parents were really lost became clearer to her.

The countenance of the women suddenly lighted. She raised her eyes filled with tears to heaven and said, “Thou, good God, has sent this thought to me!” Then she turned to the child and said, “Listen! I will take you with me! My Lisbeth was taken from me at your age. Speak! will you go with me to Allgäu, and always remain with me?”

[19]“Yes,” said Amrie, resolutely.

She felt herself seized from behind, and a slight blow upon her shoulder.

“You dare not,” said Dami, embracing her, and trembling from head to foot.

“Be quiet,” said Amrie, “the good lady will take you also. Is it not so?” she said, timidly. “My Dami may go with us?”

“No, child, that cannot be; I have boys enough at home.”

“Then I must remain here,” said Amrie, and took hold of her brother’s hand.

There is sometimes in the soul an emotion where fever and frost contend. It has been so with the stranger, and now she looked upon the child with a species of relief. Through strong emotion, and influenced by the purest benevolence, she would have undertaken a duty whose significance and difficulty she had not sufficiently considered; and especially as she did not know how her husband would take it. Now, as the child herself refused, there intervened a sufficient reason; all was clear again, and she turned quickly from the duty. She had satisfied her heart by proposing it, and now that the objection came not from herself, she had a kind of satisfaction in having offered, without herself taking back her word.

“As you please,” said the stranger; “I will not urge you. Who knows? perhaps it would be better that you should grow up first. It is well to[20] learn to suffer in youth; the good comes easier after we have learnt the evil. Be only honest and good, and never forget that, on account of your parents, as long as God spares my life you shall have a shelter with me. Remember, if it does not go well with you, that you are not left alone in the world. Think of the wife of Farmer Landfried, in Zusmarshofen, in Allgäu. A word more. Don’t say in the village that I would have taken you. It is the way with people—they would blame you because you did not go—but it is as well so. Wait, I will give you something to remember me by.” She sought in her pocket, then suddenly putting her hand to her neck she drew out a five stringed garnet necklace, to which there was fastened a Swedish ducat, and, throwing the ornament over the neck of the child, she kissed her. Amrie looked as one enchanted upon all these proceedings. “For thee, alas! I have nothing,” she said

to Dami, who stood with a little switch in his hand which he continued to break into small pieces; “but I will send you a pair of leather trousers of my John’s—they are not entirely new, but you can wear them when you are taller. Now God protect you, dear children! If it is possible I will come to see you again, Amrie. In the mean time send Mariann to me in the church. Remember always to be good, pray constantly for your parents, and never forget that you have a protector in heaven and also upon earth.”

[21]For convenience in walking she had turned up her outer garment; now, at the entrance of the village, she let it down and went on with quick steps without once turning back.

Amrie kept her face bent down in order to see the keepsake upon her neck, but the necklace was too short. Dami was chewing the last piece of his stick when his sister, observing tears in his eyes, said, “We shall see—you will have the most beautiful pair of trousers in the village.”

“I will not take them,” said Dami, and spit out the last piece of stick.

“And I will ask her to give you a knife. I will stay at home the whole day; perhaps she will come to us.”

“Yes! if she were there already,” said Dami, without knowing what he said. His anger, and the feeling of being rejected, had excited these suspicious reproaches.

At the first stroke of the bell they hastened back to the village. Amrie gave over, with few words, her new ornament into the hands of Mariann, who said, “Thou art fortune’s child! I will take good care of it. Now hasten to the church.”