willingly, if I can only manage to bring you up honestly and well, my
boy."
As she spoke, a somewhat older woman came towards them. She was poor
enough to behold, lame of one leg, and with a large false curl hanging
down over one of her eyes, which was a blind one. The curl was
intended to cover the eye, but it only made the defect more striking.
This was a friend of the laundress. She was called among the
neighbours, "Lame Martha with the curl."
"Oh, you poor thing! How you work, standing there in the water!" cried
the visitor. "You really require something to warm you; and yet
malicious folks cry out about the few drops you take!" And in a few
minutes' time the mayor's late speech was reported to the laundress;
for Martha had heard it all, and she had been angry that a man could
speak as he had done to a woman's own child, about the few drops the
mother took: and she was the more angry, because the mayor on that
very day was giving a great feast, at which wine was drunk by the
bottle--good wine, strong wine. "A good many will take more than they
need--but that's not called drinking. _They_ are good; but _you_ are
good for nothing!" cried Martha, indignantly.
"Ah, so he spoke to you, my child?" said the washerwoman; and her lips
trembled as she spoke. "So he says you have a mother who is good for
nothing? Well, perhaps he's right, but he should not have said it to
the child. Still, I have had much misfortune from that house."
"You were in service there when the mayor's parents were alive, and
lived in that house. That is many years ago: many bushels of salt have
been eaten since then, and we may well be thirsty;" and Martha smiled.
"The mayor has a great dinner party to-day. The guests were to have
been put off, but it was too late, and the dinner was already cooked.
The footman told me about it. A letter came a little while ago, to say
that the younger brother had died in Copenhagen."
"Died!" repeated the laundress--and she became pale as death.
"Yes, certainly," said Martha. "Do you take that so much to heart?
Well, you must have known him years ago, when you were in service in
the house."
"Is he dead? He was such a good, worthy man! There are not many like
him." And the tears rolled down her cheeks. "Good heavens! everything
is whirling around me--it was too much for me. I feel quite ill." And
she leaned against the plank.
"Good heavens, you are ill indeed!" exclaimed the other woman. "Come,
come, it will pass over presently. But no, you really look seriously
ill. The best thing will be for me to lead you home."
"But my linen yonder--"
"I will take care of that. Come, give me your arm. The boy can stay
here and take care of it, and I'll come back and finish the washing;
that's only a trifle."
The laundress's limbs shook under her. "I have stood too long in the
cold water," she said faintly, "and I have eaten and drunk nothing
since this morning. The fever is in my bones. O kind Heaven, help me
to get home! My poor child!" and she burst into tears. The boy wept
too, and soon he was sitting alone by the river, beside the damp
linen. The two women could make only slow progress. The laundress
dragged her weary limbs along, and tottered through the lane and round
the corner into the street where stood the house of the mayor; and
just in front of his mansion she sank down on the pavement. Many
people assembled round her, and Lame Martha ran into the house to get
help. The mayor and his guests came to the window.
"That's the washerwoman!" he said. "She has taken a glass too much.
She is good for nothing. It's a pity for the pretty son she has. I
really like the child very well; but the mother is good for nothing."
Presently the laundress came to herself, and they led her into her
poor dwelling, and put her to bed. Kind Martha heated a mug of beer
for her, with butter and sugar, which she considered the best
medicine; and then she hastened to the river, and rinsed the
linen--badly enough, though her will was good. Strictly speaking, she
drew it ashore, wet as it was, and laid it in a basket.
Towards evening she was sitting in the poor little room with the
laundress. The mayor's cook had given her some roasted potatoes and a
fine fat piece of ham, for the sick woman, and Martha and the boy
discussed these viands while the patient enjoyed the smell, which she
pronounced very nourishing.
And presently the boy was put to bed, in the same bed in which his
mother lay; but he slept at her feet, covered with an old quilt made
up of blue and white patches.
Soon the patient felt a little better. The warm beer had strengthened
her, and the fragrance of the provisions pleased her also. "Thanks,
you kind soul," she said to Martha. "I will tell you all when the boy
is asleep. I think he has dropped off already. How gentle and good he
looks, as he lies there with his eyes closed. He does not know what
his mother has suffered, and Heaven grant he may never know it. I was
in service at the councillor's, the father of the mayor. It happened
that the youngest of the sons, the student, came home. I was young
then, a wild girl, but honest, that I may declare in the face of
Heaven. The student was merry and kind, good and brave. Every drop of
blood in him was good and honest. I have not seen a better man on this
earth. He was the son of the house, and I was only a maid, but we
formed an attachment to each other, honestly and honourably. And he
told his mother of it, for she was in his eyes as a Deity on earth;
and she was wise and gentle. He went away on a journey, but before he
started he put his gold ring on my finger; and directly he was gone
my mistress called me. With a firm yet gentle seriousness she spoke to
me, and it seemed as if Wisdom itself were speaking. She showed me
clearly, in spirit and in truth, the difference there was between him
and me.
"'Now he is charmed with your pretty appearance,' she said, 'but your
good looks will leave you. You have not been educated as he has. You
are not equals in mind, and there is the misfortune. I respect the
poor,' she continued; 'in the sight of God they may occupy a higher
place than many a rich man can fill; but here on earth we must beware
of entering a false track as we go onward, or our carriage is upset,
and we are thrown into the road. I know that a worthy man wishes to
marry you--an artisan--I mean Erich the glovemaker. He is a widower
without children, and is well to do. Think it over.'
"Every word she spoke cut into my heart like a knife, but I knew that
my mistress was right, and that knowledge weighed heavily upon me. I
kissed her hand, and wept bitter tears, and I wept still more when I
went into my room and threw myself on my bed. It was a heavy night
that I had to pass through. Heaven knows what I suffered and how I
wrestled! The next Sunday I went to the Lord's house, to pray for
strength and guidance. It seemed like a Providence, that as I stepped
out of church Erich came towards me. And now there was no longer a
doubt in my mind. We were suited to each other in rank and in means,
and he was even then a thriving man. Therefore I went up to him, took
his hand, and said, 'Are you still of the same mind towards me?' 'Yes,
ever and always,' he replied. 'Will you marry a girl who honours and
respects, but who does not love you--though that may come later?' I
asked again. 'Yes, it will come!' he answered; and upon this we joined
hands. I went home to my mistress. I wore the gold ring that the son
had given me at my heart. I could not put it on my finger in the
daytime, but only in the evening when I went to bed. I kissed the ring
again and again, till my lips almost bled, and then I gave it to my
mistress, and told her the banns were to be put up next week for me
and the glovemaker. Then my mistress put her arms round me and kissed
me. _She_ did not say that I was good for nothing; but perhaps I was
better then than I am now, though the misfortunes of life had not yet
found me out. In a few weeks we were married; and for the first year
the world went well with us: we had a journeyman and an apprentice,
and you, Martha, lived with us as our servant."
"Oh, you were a dear, good mistress," cried Martha. "Never shall I
forget how kind you and your husband were!"
"Yes, those were our good years, when you were with us. We had not
any children yet. The student I never saw again.--Yes, though, I saw
him, but he did not see me. He was here at his mother's funeral. I saw
him stand by the grave. He was pale as death, and very downcast, but
that was for his mother; afterwards, when his father died, he was away
in a foreign land, and did not come back hither. I know that he never
married; I believe he became a lawyer. He had forgotten me; and even
if he had seen me again, he would not have known me, I look so ugly.
And that is very fortunate."
And then she spoke of her days of trial, and told how misfortune had
come as it were swooping down upon them.
"We had five hundred dollars," she said; "and as there was a house in
the street to be bought for two hundred, and it would pay to pull it
down and build a new one, it was bought. The builder and carpenter
calculated the expense, and the new house was to cost ten hundred and
twenty! Erich had credit, and borrowed the money in the chief town,
but the captain who was to bring it was shipwrecked, and the money was
lost with him."
"Just at that time my dear sweet boy who is sleeping yonder was born.
My husband was struck down by a long heavy illness: for three quarters
of a year I was compelled to dress and undress him. We went back more
and more, and fell into debt. All that we had was sold, and my husband
died. I have worked, and toiled, and striven, for the sake of the
child, and scrubbed staircases, washed linen, clean and coarse alike,
but I was not to be better off, such was God's good will. But He will
take me to Himself in His own good time, and will not forsake my boy."
And she fell asleep.
Towards morning she felt much refreshed, and strong enough, as she
thought, to go back to her work. She had just stepped again into the
cold water, when a trembling and faintness seized her: she clutched at
the air with her hand, took a step forward, and fell down. Her head
rested on the bank, and her feet were still in the water: her wooden
shoes, with a wisp of straw in each, which she had worn, floated down
the stream, and thus Martha found her on coming to bring her some
coffee.
In the meantime a messenger from the mayor's house had been dispatched
to her poor lodging to tell her "to come to the mayor immediately, for
he had something to tell her." It was too late! A barber-surgeon was
brought to open a vein in her arm; but the poor woman was dead.
"She has drunk herself to death!" said the mayor.
In the letter that brought the news of his brother's death, the
contents of the will had been mentioned, and it was a legacy of six
hundred dollars to the glovemaker's widow, who had once been his
mother's maid. The money was to be paid, according to the mayor's
discretion, in larger or smaller sums, to her or to her child.
"There was some fuss between my brother and her," said the mayor.
"It's a good thing that she is dead; for now the boy will have the
whole, and I will get him into a house among respectable people. He
may turn out a reputable working man."
And Heaven gave its blessing to these words.
So the mayor sent for the boy, promised to take care of him, and added
that it was a good thing the lad's mother was dead, inasmuch as she
had been good for nothing.
They bore her to the churchyard, to the cemetery of the poor, and
Martha strewed sand upon her grave, and planted a rose tree upon it,
and the boy stood beside her.
"My dear mother!" he cried, as the tears fell fast. "Is it true what
they said: that she was good for nothing?" "No, she was good for
much!" replied the old servant, and she looked up indignantly. "I knew
it many a year ago, and more than all since last night. I tell you she
was worth much, and the Lord in heaven knows it is true, let the world
say as much as it chooses, 'She was good for nothing.'"
"THERE IS A DIFFERENCE."
It was in the month of May. The wind still blew cold, but bushes and
trees, field and meadow, all alike said the spring had come. There was
store of flowers even in the wild hedges; and there spring carried on
his affairs, and preached from a little apple tree, where one branch
hung fresh and blooming, covered with delicate pink blossoms that were
just ready to open. The apple tree branch knew well enough how
beautiful he was, for the knowledge is inherent in the leaf as well as
in the blood; and consequently the branch was not surprised when a
nobleman's carriage stopped opposite to him on the road, and the young
countess said that an apple branch was the loveliest thing one could
behold, a very emblem of spring in its most charming form. And the
branch was most carefully broken off, and she held it in her delicate
hand, and sheltered it with her silk parasol. Then they drove to the
castle, where there were lofty halls and splendid apartments. Pure
white curtains fluttered round the open windows, and beautiful flowers
stood in shining transparent vases; and in one of these, which looked
as if it had been cut out of fresh-fallen snow, the apple branch was
placed among some fresh light twigs of beech. It was charming to
behold.
But the branch became proud; and this was quite like human nature.
People of various kinds came through the room, and according to their
rank they might express their admiration. A few said nothing at all,
and others again said too much, and the apple tree branch soon got to
understand that there was a difference among plants. "Some are created
for beauty, and some for use; and there are some which one can do
without altogether," thought the apple branch; and as he stood just in
front of the open window, from whence he could see into the garden and
across the fields, he had flowers and plants enough to contemplate and
to think about, for there were rich plants and humble plants--some
very humble indeed.
"Poor despised herbs!" said the apple branch. "There is certainly a
difference! And how unhappy they must feel, if indeed that kind can
feel like myself and my equals. Certainly there is a difference, and
distinctions must be made, or we should all be equal."
And the apple branch looked down with a species of pity, especially
upon a certain kind of flower of which great numbers are found in the
fields and in ditches. No one bound them into a nosegay, they were too
common; for they might be found even among the paving-stones, shooting
up everywhere like the rankest weeds, and they had the ugly name of
"dandelion," or "dog-flower."
"Poor despised plants!" said the apple branch. "It is not your fault
that you received the ugly name you bear. But it is with plants as
with men--there must be a difference!"
"A difference?" said the sunbeam; and he kissed the blooming apple
branch, and saluted in like manner the yellow dandelions out in the
field--all the brothers of the sunbeam kissed them, the poor flowers
as well as the rich.
Now the apple branch had never thought of the boundless beneficence of
Providence in creation towards everything that lives and moves and has
its being; he had never thought how much that is beautiful and good
may be hidden, but not forgotten; but that, too, was quite like human
nature.
The sunbeam, the ray of light, knew better; and said, "You don't see
far, and you don't see clearly. What is the despised plant that you
especially pity?"
"The dandelion," replied the apple branch. "It is never received into
a nosegay; it is trodden under foot. There are too many of them; and
when they run to seed, they fly away like little pieces of wool over
the roads, and hang and cling to people's dress. They are nothing but
weeds--but it is right there should be weeds too. Oh, I'm really very
thankful that I was not created one of those flowers."
[Illustration: THE CHILDREN AND THE DANDELIONS.]
But there came across the fields a whole troop of children; the
youngest of whom was so small that it was carried by the rest, and
when it was set down in the grass among the yellow flowers it laughed
aloud with glee, kicked out with its little legs, rolled about and
plucked the yellow flowers, and kissed them in its pretty innocence.
The elder children broke off the flowers with their tall stalks, and
bent the stalks round into one another, link by link, so that a whole
chain was made; first a necklace, and then a scarf to hang over their
shoulders and tie round their waists, and then a chaplet to wear on
the head: it was quite a gala of green links and yellow flowers. The
eldest children carefully gathered the stalks on which hung the white
feathery ball, formed by the flower that had run to seed; and this
loose, airy wool-flower, which is a beautiful object, looking like the
finest snowy down, they held to their mouths, and tried to blow away
the whole head at one breath: for their grandmother had said that
whoever could do this would be sure to get new clothes before the year
was out. So on this occasion the despised flower was actually raised
to the rank of a prophet or augur.
"Do you see?" said the sunbeam. "Do you see the beauty of those
flowers? do you see their power?"
"Yes, over children," replied the apple branch.
And now an old woman came into the field, and began to dig with a
blunt shaftless knife round the root of the dandelion plant, and
pulled it up out of the ground. With some of the roots she intended to
make tea for herself; others she was going to sell for money to the
druggist.
"But beauty is a higher thing!" said the apple tree branch. "Only the
chosen few can be admitted into the realm of beauty. There is a
difference among plants, just as there is a difference among men."
And then the sunbeam spoke of the boundless love of the Creator, as
manifested in the creation, and of the just distribution of things in
time and in eternity.
"Yes, yes, that is your opinion," the apple branch persisted.
But now some people came into the room, and the beautiful young
countess appeared, the lady who had placed the apple branch in the
transparent vase in the sunlight. She carried in her hand a flower, or
something of the kind. The object, whatever it might be, was hidden by
three or four great leaves, wrapped around it like a shield, that no
draught or gust of wind should injure it; and it was carried more
carefully than the apple bough had ever been. Very gently the large
leaves were now removed, and lo, there appeared the fine feathery seed
crown of the despised dandelion! This it was that the lady had plucked
with the greatest care, and had carried home with every precaution, so
that not one of the delicate feathery darts that form its downy ball
should be blown away. She now produced it, quite uninjured, and
admired its beautiful form, its peculiar construction, and its airy
beauty, which was to be scattered by the wind.
"Look, with what singular beauty Providence has invested it," she
said. "I will paint it, together with the apple branch, whose beauty
all have admired; but this humble flower has received just as much
from Heaven in a different way; and, various as they are, both are
children of the kingdom of beauty."
And the sunbeam kissed the humble flower, and he kissed the blooming
apple branch, whose leaves appeared covered with a roseate blush.
EVERYTHING IN ITS RIGHT PLACE.
It is more than a hundred years ago.
Behind the wood, by the great lake, stood the old baronial mansion.
Round about it lay a deep moat, in which grew reeds and grass. Close
by the bridge, near the entrance-gate, rose an old willow tree that
bent over the reeds.
Up from the hollow lane sounded the clang of horns and the trampling
of horses; therefore the little girl who kept the geese hastened to
drive her charges away from the bridge, before the hunting company
should come gallopping up. They drew near with such speed that the
girl was obliged to climb up in a hurry, and perch herself on the
coping-stone of the bridge, lest she should be ridden down. She was
still half a child, and had a pretty light figure, and a gentle
expression in her face, with two clear blue eyes. The noble baron took
no note of this, but as he gallopped past the little goose-herd, he
reversed the whip he held in his hand, and in rough sport gave her
such a push in the chest with the butt-end, that she fell backwards
into the ditch.
"Everything in its place," he cried; "into the puddle with you!" And
he laughed aloud, for this was intended for wit, and the company
joined in his mirth: the whole party shouted and clamoured, and the
dogs barked their loudest.
Fortunately for herself, the poor girl in falling seized one of the
hanging branches of the willow tree, by means of which she kept
herself suspended over the muddy water, and as soon as the baron and
his company had disappeared through the castle-gate, the girl tried to
scramble up again; but the bough broke off at the top, and she would
have fallen backward among the reeds, if a strong hand from above had
not at that moment seized her. It was the hand of a pedlar, who had
seen from a short distance what had happened, and who now hurried up
to give aid.
"Everything in its right place," he said, mimicking the gracious
baron; and he drew the little maiden up to the firm ground. He would
have restored the broken branch to the place from which it had been
torn, but "everything in its place" cannot always be managed, and
therefore he stuck the piece in the ground. "Grow and prosper till you
can furnish a good flute for them up yonder," he said; for he would
have liked to play the "rogue's march" for my lord the baron, and my
lord's whole family. And then he betook himself to the castle, but not
into the ancestral hall, he was too humble for that! He went to the
servants' quarters, and the men and maids turned over his stock of
goods, and bargained with him; and from above, where the guests were
at table, came a sound of roaring and screaming that was intended for
song, and indeed they did their best. Loud laughter, mingled with the
barking and howling of dogs, sounded through the windows, for there
was feasting and carousing up yonder. Wine and strong old ale foamed
in the jugs and glasses, and the dogs sat with their masters and dined
with them. They had the pedlar summoned upstairs, but only to make fun
of him. The wine had mounted into their heads, and the sense had flown
out. They poured wine into a stocking, that the pedlar might drink
with them, but that he must drink quickly; that was considered a rare
jest, and was a cause of fresh laughter. And then whole farms, with
oxen and peasants too, were staked on a card, and won and lost.
"Everything in its right place!" said the pedlar, when he had at last
made his escape out of what he called "the Sodom and Gomorrah up
yonder." "The open high-road is my right place," he said; "I did not
feel at all happy there." And the little maiden who sat keeping the
geese nodded at him in a friendly way, as he strode along beside the
hedges.
And days and weeks went by; and it became manifest that the willow
branch which the pedlar had stuck into the ground by the castle moat
remained fresh and green, and even brought forth new twigs. The little
goose-girl saw that the branch must have taken root, and rejoiced
greatly at the circumstance; for this tree, she said, was now her
tree.
The tree certainly came forward well; but everything else belonging to
the castle went very rapidly back, what with feasting and
gambling--for these two things are like wheels, upon which no man can
stand securely.
Six years had not passed away before the noble lord passed out of the
castle-gate, a beggared man, and the mansion was bought by a rich
dealer; and this purchaser was the very man who had once been made a
jest of there, for whom wine had been poured into a stocking; but
honesty and industry are good winds to speed a vessel; and now the
dealer was possessor of the baronial estate. But from that hour no
more card-playing was permitted there. "That is bad reading," said he:
"when the Evil One saw a Bible for the first time, he wanted to put a
bad book against it, and invented card-playing."
The new proprietor took a wife; and who might that be but the
goose-girl, who had always been faithful and good, and looked as
beautiful and fine in her new clothes as if she had been born a great
lady. And how did all this come about? That is too long a story for
our busy time, but it really happened, and the most important part is
to come.