"Far up on the hill is a black, black man,
A man as black as a coal;
He open'd his mouth and he grit his teeth,
And he wanted to swallow me whole."
Then they sang on, sometimes one beginning a verse, and sometimes the
other.
"Sweetheart, see, see!
There comes the big flea:
He has a little boy on his back,
And a little girl in his ear.
"Don't you hear the bird sing?
Don't you hear it say,
In the wood, out of the wood,
Sweetheart, where dost thou stay?
"Don't you run over my meadow,
And don't you run over my corn,
Or I'll give you the awfullest waling,
As sure as you were born."
Many such little rhymes did the children sing, as if each tried to
outdo the other in the number of songs they knew. At length Ivo said,
"Now you drive your duckies home; I'm coming soon too." He was a little
ashamed of going home with Emmerence, though conscious of nothing but
the fear that his silly comrades would tease him. After she had been
gone for some time he followed with his calf.
It gave Ivo pain to see that, as soon as the calf was weaned, the
heifer, its dam, seemed to care no more about it. He did not know that
the beasts of the field cling to their young only so long as they
actually depend on and are in bodily connection with them. It is only
while young birds are unable to fly and get their own food, only while
the young quadruped sucks its dam's milk, that any thing like childlike
or parental love subsists. This connection once severed, the old ones
forget their young. Man alone has a more than bodily relationship to
his child, and in him alone, therefore, the love of offspring continues
through life.
5.
LIFE IN THE FIELDS.
Ivo's life was rich in suggestions, not only at home, among men and
beasts, but also with the silently-growing corn and in the rustling
orchard. All the world, with its glories and its noiseless joys,
entered the open portals of his youthful soul. If we could continue to
grow as we do in childhood, our lot would be replete with all the
blessings of Heaven; but a time comes when the sum of all things breaks
upon us in a mass, and then the remnants of our lives are occupied in
the dreary labor of dissecting, puzzling, and explaining.
During the summer holidays, in haying and harvest time, Ivo was almost
constantly afield with Nat. There his real life seemed to begin; and,
when he looked upward, the blue of his eyes was like a drop fallen from
the sky which sprang its broad arch so serenely over the busy haunts of
men; and it seemed as if this bit of heaven, straying upon earth,
"but long'd to flee
Back to its native mansion."
Something of this kind glimmered through Nat's thoughts one day when he
took Ivo by the chin and kissed him fervently on the eyelids. The next
moment he was ashamed of this tenderness, and teased Ivo and playfully
struck him.
When the cows were hooked up, Ivo was always at hand, and took pains to
lay the cushion firmly on the horns of the heifer: he was glad that the
wooden yoke was not made to lie immediately on the poor beast's
forehead. In the field he would stand near the cows and chase the flies
away with a bough. Nat always encouraged him in this attention to the
poor defenceless slaves.
Often Ivo and Emmerence would stand and dance on the wagon long before
the cows or the dun were hooked up: then they would ride to the field,
gather the hay into heaps, and push each other into it.
Whenever Nat went afield, Ivo stood by him in the wagon. Sometimes he
would sit up there alone, with his hands in his lap, and as his body
was jolted by the motion of the wagon his heart would leap within him.
He looked over the meads with a dreamy air. Who can tell the silent
life beating in a child's breast at such a moment?
Nor did Ivo fail to practise charity in his early youth. Emmerence,
being a child of poor parents, had to glean after the harvest. Ivo
asked his mother to make him a little sack, which he hung around his
neck and went about gleaning for Emmerence. When his mother gave him
the sack, she warned him not to let his father see it, as he would
scold; for it is not proper for a child whose parents are not poor to
go gleaning. Ivo looked wonderingly at his mother, and a deep sorrow
shone out of his eye; but it did not long remain. With a joy till then
unknown to him, he walked barefoot through the prickly stubble and
gleaned a fine bagful of barley for Emmerence. He was by when Emmerence
took a part of it to feed her duckies with, and mimicked them as they
waddled here and there, grabbing at the grains.
One day Ivo and Nat were in the field. The dun--a fine stout horse,
with hollow back, and a white mane which reached nearly down to his
breast--was drawing the harrow. As they passed the manor-house
farmer's, a whirlwind raised a pillar of dust.
"My mother says," Ivo began, "that evil spirits fight in a whirlwind,
and if you get in between them they throttle you."
"We're going to have a gust to-day," said Nat: "you'd better stay at
home."
"No, no; let me go with you," said Ivo, taking Nat's rough hand.
Nat had prophesied aright. Before they had been in the field an hour, a
terrible hailstorm was upon them. In a moment the horse was unhooked
from the harrow, Nat mounted on his back with Ivo before him, and they
galloped homeward, Ivo nestled timidly in Nat's bosom. "The evil
spirits in the whirlwind have brought this storm, haven't they?" he
asked.
"There are no evil spirits," said Nat, "only wicked men."
Strange! Ivo began to laugh aloud for fear, so that Nat became very
uncomfortable. Fright and pleasure are so nearly related that Ivo had
almost an agreeable tingle in the trembling of his soul.
Pale as death, and with his teeth chattering, Ivo came home. His mother
put him to bed, partly to conceal him from his father, who disliked to
see the delicate child that was to be a parson going into the fields.
He had not been in bed many minutes before Nat came with a phial and
gave him a few drops, which threw him into a gentle sleep; and in an
hour he awoke as sound as ever.
Never, perhaps, was Ivo happier than on one memorable day which he was
permitted to spend entirely in the field without coming home to dinner.
At early morning, long before matins, he went out with Nat and the dun,
the latter dragging the plough to Valentine's largest and farthest
field, which is far away toward Isenbrug, in the Worm Valley. It was
the opening of a beautiful day in August; a little rain had fallen
over-night, and a fresh breath of life passed over the trees and
grasses. The red clover was winking at the coming sun, which could not
be seen, though it was broad daylight: he had risen behind the hills of
Hohenzollern.
The plough grasped well: a refreshing steam arose from the brown, dewy
soil. The dun seemed to make little exertion, and Nat guided the plough
as easily as if it had been the tiller of a floating skiff. Every thing
around was bright and clear, and men and beasts might be seen here and
there, working cheerily for their daily bread.
When the matin bell rang at Horb, Ivo stopped. The horse stood still;
the plough rested in the furrow; Ivo and Nat folded their hands: the
dun seemed to be praying too,--at least he flung his head up and down
more than once. They then drew the furrow to the end, sat down on the
fallow, and eat some bread.
"If we were to find a treasure to-day," said Ivo, "like that farmer,
you know, that Emmerence's mother told of, that found a heap of ducats
right under his foot when he was ploughing, I'd buy Emmerence a new
gown and pay her father's debt on his house. What would you do?"
"Nothing," said Nat: "I don't want money."
He went to work again, and found it so easy that he began to sing,--not
of ploughing or sowing, though, nor of any thing connected with work in
the fields:--
"Oh, we are sisters three,--
Kitty and Lizzie, and she,
The youngest, she let the boy come in.
"She hid him behind the door
Till her father and mother were gone to sleep;
Then she brought him out once more.
"She carried him up the stairs,
And into her chamber she let him in,
And she threw him into the street.
"She threw him against a stone,
And his heart in his body he broke in two,
And also his shoulder-bone.
"He pick'd himself up to go home;
'Oh, mother, I fell and I broke my arm
Against such a hard, hard stone.'
"'My son, and it serves you right,
For not coming home with the other boys,
But running about at night.'
"So he went up-stairs to bed.
At the stroke of twelve he was full of fright,
At the stroke of one he was dead."
Here Nat jerked the rein, fixed his hat more firmly on his head, and
sang, perhaps in remembrance of the past:--
"You good-for-nothing boy,
Your drink is all your joy;
Dancing's what you're made for,
And your coat has never been paid for.
"If I'm a little short,
What need you care for't?
When I've emptied my glass
They'll fill it, I guess.
"If I can't pay the score
They'll mark it on the door,
So every one can read
That I'm running to seed.
"So seedy I've grown,
Not a thing is my own:
The world's here and there,
But I haven't a share."
Nat suddenly broke off, and cried, "Hee, oh!" to the horse. It was hard
to tell whether it occurred to him that Ivo was by, or whether he had
forgotten him entirely. So much is certain, however, that this sort of
songs is by no means so injurious to the children of a village as is
generally supposed. From his very cradle, Ivo had heard all sorts of
things spoken of by their most natural designations and without the
least reserve, which to those who grow up in towns are first left
unmentioned entirely, so that ignorance stimulates curiosity, and are
then discussed in ambiguous terms, which aggravate the temptation to
evil by the additional zest of the mysterious. Thus, instead of
festering in his mind, they glided through it without leaving a trace
behind them. Nat was full of reminiscences to-day; and, after a pause,
he sang again, in a muffled voice,--
"I'm forty years to-day;
My hair is turning gray:
If none of the girls will marry me,
I'll set my house on fire;
If none of the girls will marry me,
I'll drown myself in the mire."