"A horrid sausage! Why can't we take something nice,--cold tongue, and
chocolate-cakes with cream in them, for instance?"
"O, yes, _do_," says our German friend, with a sardonic expression. "By
all means give our Suabian peasants chocolate-cakes; but then what will
they have to _eat_?" she demands, grimly.
"Why, chocolate-cakes, to be sure," says Miss Innocence. With a
withering air of half-concealed contempt, the very clever German girl
endeavors to present to the mind of the little lady from New York--who
lives chiefly on sweets--the reasons why chocolate-cake and the Suabian
peasant are, so to speak, incompatible. Among other things, she remarked
that he could devour a dozen cakes and be quite unaware that he had
eaten anything; that his hard-working day must be sustained by something
solid; that the sausage was a support, a solace, a true and tried
friend; and, last and strongest argument, he _liked_ sausage better than
anything else in the world.
We felt disturbed. There was a great disappointing discrepancy
somewhere. Going out to the vineyards, even in anticipation, had a ring
of poetry in it, while sausage--is sausage the world over. Nevertheless,
to the sausage we succumbed, and a hideous one, as long as your arm and
as big, was a carefully guarded member of our party to the vineyard the
next day. Fireworks, too, we carried,--why, you will see later; and so,
_dona ferentes_, we went out to Untertuerkheim by rail, a ride of
fifteen minutes from Stuttgart.
The smile, teeth, and cheeks of our hostess were visible from afar as we
drew near the station. She beamed on us warmly, and led us in triumph
through the village, which was everywhere a busy, pretty scene; long
yellow strings of ears of corn hanging out to dry on nearly every house,
and the narrow streets full of the unwonted bustle incident to the
vintage-time.
Great vats of grape-juice; wine-presses in active operation, some of
which were sensible, improved, modern-looking things, some primitive as
can be imagined; the well-to-do people using the modern improvements,
while their humbler neighbors employed small boys, who danced a
perpetual jig in broad, low tubs placed above the large vats that
received the juice. We ascended the little ladders at the side of the
vats, to satisfy ourselves as to the kind of feet with which the grapes
were being pressed, "the bare white feet of laughing girls" being, of
course, the picture before our mind's eye. What we actually saw was, in
some cases, a special kind of wooden shoe, and in others ordinary,
well-worn leather boots! These solemn small boys in tubs, their heads
and shoulders bobbing up and down before our eyes as they energetically
stamped and jumped and crushed the yielding mass, filled us with such
utter amazement at the time that we forgot to laugh, but they are now an
irresistibly comical remembrance. Their intense gravity was remarkable.
It would seem as if the ordinary small boy, who can legitimately jump
upon _anything_ until all the life is crushed out of it, ought to be
happy. Perhaps these were, with a happiness too deep for smiles. And
perhaps--which is more likely--it was hard work, and they realized it
meant business for their papas, and they must spring and jump with zeal,
and there was no play in the matter. One child of ten or so had such a
dignified, important air, as he stood at the side of his tub, into which
his father was pouring grapes! He looked like an artist conscious of
power waiting for his time, knowing that immense results would depend
upon his antics. Let me mention with pride that our milkwoman's _Mann_
owns the largest press in the place, and her stalwart, pinky brother
works it. So pink a mortal never was seen. He exhibited the mechanism of
the press with tolerable clearness, though seriously incommoded by
blushes. We thought he would vanish in a flame before our eyes. But,
observing he grew pinker each time we addressed him, we wickedly
prolonged the interview as long as possible.
Then up the hill we went, through narrow, steep paths, with vineyards on
every side of us, in which men, women, and children were working busily.
We met constantly long files of young men and maidens, carrying great
baskets of grapes down to the village, all of whom gave us a cheery
Gruess Gott.
We found the whole family in the vineyard working away busily, filling
the huge, long, narrow baskets, which the men carry on their backs by a
strap over the shoulders. They welcomed us cordially, and bade us eat as
many grapes as we could, which we all with one accord, with great
earnestness and simplicity, _did_. If you have never eaten grapes in a
vineyard, perhaps you don't know how fastidious and dainty you become,
how you take one grape here, one there, select the finest from a
cluster, then toss the remainder into the basket. Deliciously cool and
fresh, with a wonderful bloom on them, were they, and, together with the
crisp autumn air, the busy bare-headed peasants working in all the
vineyards as far as we could see, Untertuerkheim lying under the hill,
and the little bridge across the narrow Neckar, they filled us with an
innocent sort of intoxication. The brilliant Malagas with a touch of
flame on them in the sunlight, white ones beyond, and rich black-purple
clusters, lured us on. If the amount consumed by the foreign invaders
during the first half-hour could be computed, it would seem a fabulous
quantity to mention. We would indeed prefer to let it remain in
uncertainty, one of those interesting unsolved historical problems about
which great minds differ. But it was not in the least matter-of-fact
eating; on the contrary, a most refined and elevated feasting upon
fruits fit for the gods.
And then we worked, with an energy that won for us the goodman's
wondering admiration, until every grape was gathered. Never before had
the vines been cleared so fast, said our grateful host. From above and
below and everywhere around came the sound of pistols and fireworks,
each demonstration indicating that some one had gathered all his grapes.
Now was the fitting moment for the presentation of the sausage, which
was gracefully transferred from the nook where it was blushing unseen to
the hands of our host, and was graciously, even tenderly, received.
After which we devoted ourselves to pyrotechnic pursuits, and, this
being a novel experience, we all burned our fingers, and nearly
destroyed our friend the pinky man by directing, unwittingly, a fiery
serpent quite in his face.
Then down, down over the hill through the thread-like paths between the
vineyards, through the village in the twilight, where every one is still
busy and the small boys still dancing away for dear life,
suggesting--like Ichabod Crane, was it not?--"that blessed patron of the
dance, St. Vitus," and past the great fountain, with the statue of the
Turk grimly rising above half a dozen girls, slowly filling their
buckets (you will never know what wise remarks on the "situation" that
Turk occasioned), we sauntered along to the station, and presently the
train whisked us away from the village and the gloaming and the pretty
autumn scene, so real, so merry, so innocent, so healthy, and
picturesque. Night and the city lights succeeded the twilight in the
village. Our hearts bore pleasant memories and our hands baskets of
grapes, given us at the last moment by that excellent and most sagacious
person, our milkwoman.
We hope we were not straying from the true fold, but certainly our views
on the temperance, or rather the total-abstinence, question were quite
lax as we returned to Stuttgart that evening. The water in Germany is
often so unpleasant and impure one learns to regard it as an
undesirable, not to say noxious and immoral beverage, while the light
native wines in contrast seem as innocent as water ought to be. And what
is the strictest teetotaler to do when positively ordered by the best
physicians not to drink the water here, under penalty of serious
consequences in the shape of a variety of disorders? American
school-girls, who persist in taking water because the home habit is too
strong to be at once broken off, have an amusing way of examining their
pretty throats from time to time to see if they are beginning to
enlarge, for the _goitre_ is hinted at (whether with reason or not I do
not know) as one of the possible evil effects of continued
water-drinking in South Germany. It would seem that even the Crusaders
would here yield to the stern facts, and at least color the water with
the juice of the grapes that grow in their beauty on the hillsides
everywhere around. And certainly _we_ may be pardoned for taking an
extraordinary interest in this year's vintage; for have we not toiled
with our own hands in the vineyards on the Neckar's banks, did we not
see with our own eyes _those boots_, and is it not now the fitting time
for the spirit of '76 to make our hearts glad?