Have you heard of the beautiful River Rhine--how at first it hides, a
little brook among the mountains and dark forests, and then steals out
into the sunshine, and leaps down the mountain-side, and hurries
away to the sea, growing larger and stronger as it runs, curling and
eddying among the rocks, and sweeping between the high hills where the
grape-vines grow and the solemn old castles stand?
How people come from far and near to see and to sail upon the
beautiful river! And the children who are so blessed as to be born
near it, and to play on its shores through all the happy young years
of their lives, although they may go far away from it in the after
years, never, never forget the dear and beautiful River Rhine.
It is only a few miles away from the Rhine--perhaps too far for you to
walk, but not too far for me--that we shall find a fine large house,
a house with pleasant gardens about it, broad gravel walks, and soft,
green grass-plats to play upon, and gay flowering trees and bushes,
while the rose-vines are climbing over the piazza, and opening
rose-buds are peeping in at the chamber windows.
Isn't this a pleasant house? I wish we could all live in as charming
a home, by as blue and lovely a river, and with as large and sweet
a garden, or, if we might have such a place for our school, how
delightful it would be!
Here lives Louise, my blue-eyed, sunny-haired little friend, and here
in the garden she plays with Fritz and sturdy little Gretchen. And
here, too, at evening the father and mother come to sit on the
piazza among the roses, and the children leave their games, to nestle
together on the steps while the dear brother Christian plays softly
and sweetly on his flute.
Louise is a motherly child, already eight years old, and always
willing and glad to take care of the younger ones; indeed, she calls
Gretchen _her_ baby, and the little one loves dearly her child-mamma.
They live in this great house, and they have plenty of toys and books,
and plenty of good food, and comfortable little beds to sleep in at
night, although, like Jeannette's, they are only neat little boxes
built against the side of the wall.
But near them, in the valley, live the poor people, in small, low
houses. They eat black bread, wear coarse clothes, and even the
children must work all day that they may have food for to-morrow.
The mother of Louise is a gentle, loving woman; she says to her
children: "Dear children, to-day we are rich, we can have all that
we want, but we will not forget the poor. You may some day be poor
yourselves, and, if you learn now what poverty is, you will be more
ready to meet it when it comes." So, day after day, the great stove
in the kitchen is covered with stew-pans and kettles, in which are
cooking dinners for the sick and the poor, and day after day, as the
dinner-hour draws near, Louise will come, and Fritz, and even little
Gretchen, saying: "Mother, may I go?" "May I go?" and the mother
answers: "Dear children, you shall all go together"; and she fills the
bowls and baskets, and sends her sunny-hearted children down into the
valley to old Hans the gardener, who has been lame with rheumatism so
many years; and to young Marie, the pale, thin girl, who was so merry
and rosy-cheeked in the vineyard a year ago; and to the old, old woman
with the brown, wrinkled face and bowed head, who sits always in the
sunshine before the door, and tries to knit; but the needles drop from
the poor trembling hands, and the stitches slip off, and she cannot
see to pick them up. She is too deaf to hear the children as they come
down the road, and she is nodding her poor old head, and feeling about
in her lap for the lost needle, when Louise, with her bright eyes,
spies it, picks it up, and before the old woman knows she has come,
a soft little hand is laid in the brown, wrinkled one, and the little
girl is shouting in her ear that she has brought some dinner from
mamma. It makes a smile shine in the old half-blind eyes. It is always
the happiest part of the day to her when the dear little lady comes
with her dinner. And it made Louise happy too, for nothing repays us
so well as what we do unselfishly for others.
These summer days are full of delight for the children. It is not all
play for them, to be sure; but then, work is often even more charming
than play, as I think some little girls know when they have been
helping their mothers,--running of errands, dusting the furniture,
and sewing little squares of patchwork that the baby may have a
cradle-quilt made entirely by her little sister.
Louise can knit, and, indeed, every child and woman in that country
knits. You would almost laugh to see how gravely the little girl takes
out her stocking, for she has really begun her first stocking, and
sits on the piazza-steps for an hour every morning at work. Then the
little garden, which she calls her own, must be weeded. The gardener
would gladly do it, but Louise has a hoe of her own, which her father
bought in the spring, and, bringing it to his little daughter, said:
"Let me see how well my little girl can take care of her own garden."
And the child has tried very hard; sometimes, it is true, she would
let the weeds grow pretty high before they were pulled up, but, on the
whole, the garden promises well, and there are buds on her moss-rose
bush. It is good to take care of a garden, for, besides the pleasure
the flowers can bring us, we learn how watchful we must be to root out
the weeds, and how much trimming and care the plants need; so we learn
how to watch over our own hearts.
She has books, too, and studies a little each day,--studies at home
with her mother, for there is no school near enough for her to go to
it, and while she and Fritz are so young, their mother teaches them,
while Christian, who is already more than twelve years old, has gone
to the school upon that beautiful hill which can be seen from Louise's
chamber window,--the school where a hundred boys and girls are
studying music. For, ever since he was a baby, Christian has loved
music; he has sung the very sweetest little songs to Louise, while she
was yet so young as to lie in her cradle, and he has whistled until
the birds among the bushes would answer him again, and now, when he
comes home from school to spend some long summer Sunday, he always
brings the flute, and plays, as I told you in the beginning of the
story.
When the summer days are over, what comes next? You do not surely
forget the autumn, when the leaves of the maples turn crimson and
yellow, and the oaks are red and brown, and you scuff your feet along
the path ankle-deep in fallen leaves!
On the banks of the Rhine the autumn is not quite like ours. You shall
see how our children of the great house will spend an autumn day.
Their father and mother have promised to go with them to the vineyards
as soon as the grapes are ripe enough for gathering, and on this sunny
September morning the time has really come.
In the great covered baskets are slices of bread and German sausage,
bottles of milk and of beer, and plenty of fresh and delicious prunes,
for the prune orchards are loaded with ripe fruit. This is their
dinner, for they will not be home until night.
Oh, what a charming day for the children! Little Gretchen is rolling
in the grass with delight, while Louise runs to bring her own little
basket, in which to gather grapes.
They must ride in the broad old family carriage, for the little ones
cannot walk so far; but, when they reach the river, they will take a
boat with white sails, and go down to where the steep steps and path
lead up on the other side, up the sunny green bank to the vineyard,
where already the peasant girls have been at work ever since sunrise.
Here the grapes are hanging in heavy, purple clusters; the sun has
warmed them through and through, and made them sweet to the very
heart. Oh, how delicious they are, and how beautiful they look, heaped
up in the tall baskets, which the girls and women are carrying on
their heads! How the children watch these peasant-girls, all dressed
in neat little jackets, and many short skirts one above another, red
and blue, white and green. On their heads are the baskets of grapes,
and they never drop nor spill them, but carry them steadily down the
steep, narrow path to the great vats, where the young men stand on
short ladders to reach the top, and pour in the purple fruit. Then
the grapes are crushed till the purple juice runs out, and that is
wine,--such wine as even the children may drink in their little silver
cups, for it is even better than milk. You may be sure that they have
some at dinner-time, when they cluster round the flat rock below the
dark stone castle, with the warm noonday sun streaming across their
mossy table, and the mother opens the basket and gives to every one a
share.
Below them is the river, with its boats and beautiful shining water;
behind them are the vine-covered walls of that old castle where two
hundred years ago lived armed knights and stately ladies; and all
about them is the rich September air, full of the sweet fragrance
of the grapes, and echoing with the songs and laughter of the
grape-gatherers. On their rocky table are purple bunches of fruit, in
their cups the new wine-juice, and in their hearts all the joy of the
merry grape season.
There are many days like this in the autumn, but the frost will come
at last, and the snow too. This is winter, but winter brings the best
pleasure of all.
When two weeks of the winter had nearly passed, the children, as you
may suppose, began to think of Christmas, and, indeed, their best
and most loving friend had been preparing for them the sweetest of
Christmas presents. Ten days before Christmas it came, however. Can
you guess what it was? Something for all of them,--something which
Christian will like just as well as little Gretchen will, and the
father and mother will perhaps be more pleased than any one else.
Do you know what it is? What do you think of a little baby brother,--a
little round, sweet, blue-eyed baby brother as a Christmas present for
them all?
When Christmas Eve came, the mother said: "The children must have
their Christmas-tree in my room, for baby is one of the presents, and
I don't think I can let him be carried out and put upon the table in
the hall, where we had it last year."
So all day long the children are kept away from their mother's room.
Their father comes home with his great coat-pockets very full of
something, but, of course, the children don't know what. He comes and
goes, up stairs and down, and, while they are all at play in the snow,
a fine young fir-tree is brought in and carried up. Louise knows it,
for she picked up a fallen branch upon the stairs, but she doesn't
tell Fritz and Gretchen.
How they all wait and long for the night to come! They sit at the
windows, watching the red sunset light upon the snow, and cannot think
of playing or eating their supper. The parlor door is open, and all
are waiting and listening. A little bell rings, and in an instant
there is a scampering up the broad stairs to the door of mother's
room; again the little bell rings, and the door is opened wide by
their father, who stands hidden behind it.
At the foot of their mother's white-curtained bed stands the little
fir-tree; tiny candles are burning all over it like little stars, and
glittering golden fruits are hanging among the dark-green branches.
On the white-covered table are laid Fritz's sword and Gretchen's big
doll, they being too heavy for the tree to hold. Under the branches
Louise finds charming things; such a little work-box as it is a
delight to see, with a lock and key, and inside, thimble and scissors,
and neat little spools of silk and thread. Then there are the fairy
stories of the old Black Forest, and that most charming of all little
books, "The White Cat," and an ivory cup and ball for Fritz. Do you
remember where the ivory comes from? And, lest Baby Hans should think
himself forgotten, there is an ivory rattle for him.
There he lies in the nurse's arms, his blue eyes wide open with
wonder, and in a minute the children, with arms full of presents, have
gathered round the old woman's arm-chair,--gathered round the best and
sweetest little Christmas present of all. And the happy mother, who
sits up among the pillows, taking her supper, while she watches her
children, forgets to eat, and leaves the gruel to grow cold, but her
heart is warm enough.
Why is not Christian here to-night? In the school of music, away on
the hill, he is singing a grand Christmas hymn, with a hundred young
voices to join him. It is very grand and sweet, full of thanks and of
love. It makes the little boy feel nearer to all his loved ones, and
in his heart he is thanking the dear Father who has given them that
best little Christmas present,--the baby.