UPON THE HOLDER COMMON.
The next morning when her uncle came, Amrie declared that she should
remain at home. There was a strange mixture of bitterness and
benevolence when her uncle said, “Indeed, thou tak’st after thy mother,
who would never have any thing to do with us. But I cannot take Dami
alone, even if he would go. For a long time he would do nothing but eat
bread. Thou couldst have earned it.”
Amrie urged, “that for the present they would remain here in their
village, and later, if her uncle remained of the same mind, she, with
her brother, could go to him.”
The resolution of Amrie was somewhat shaken by the manner in which her
uncle expressed his sympathy for the children, but she did not venture
to say so, and only answered, “Greet your children and say to them,
that it is very hard for me never to have seen my nearest relations,
and as they are going over the sea, I shall probably never see them in
my whole life.”
Their uncle only said, “Greet Dami from me; I have no time to bid him
farewell,” and he was gone.
As soon as Dami came in, and learned that he was gone, he would have
run after him, as indeed Amrie was almost inclined to do, but she
constrained herself again to remain. She spoke and acted as though some
one had ordered every word and every motion, and yet her thoughts flew
on the way that her uncle had taken. She went with her brother, hand in
hand, through the village, and nodded to every one she met. She had now
returned to them all. She was on the point of being torn away, and she
thought they must all be as glad as herself that she did not go. But,
alas! she soon remarked that they not only would have willingly parted
with her, but they were angry that she did not go. Krappenzacher opened
his eyes and said, “Yes, child, you have a proud spirit, and the whole
village is angry with you for thrusting your fortune away with your
foot. Every one says, ‘Who knows but it might have been a fortune for
thee,’ and then they calculate how soon you will come upon the Parish.
Do something, therefore, that you may not come upon the public alms.”
“Yes, ah! what shall I do?”
“Madame Rodel would have willingly taken you into service, but her
husband would not consent.”
Amrie felt, that from henceforth she must be doubly brave, that she
might meet no reproach from herself or from others, and she asked
again, “Do you then know of nothing that I can do?”
“Indeed you must be afraid of nothing but of begging. Have you not
heard that the foolish little Fridolin yesterday killed two of the
Sacristan’s geese? The goose-herd’s service is now open, and I advise
you to take it.”[A]
This soon happened, and by noon of that day Amrie was driving the geese
upon the Holder Green, as they called the pasture-ground upon the
little height by Hungerbrook. Dami helped his sister faithfully in this
work.
Brown Mariann was very much dissatisfied with this new servitude, and
asserted, not without some truth, “that the odium followed a person
their life long, who once held such an office. People never forget it.
If you attempt any thing else they say, ‘Ah, that is the goose-herd;’
and if, even out of pity, they should take you, you will receive a poor
reward, and bad treatment. They will say, ‘Ah, it is good enough for a
goose-herd.’”
“That will not be so very bad,” answered Amrie; “and you have related
many hundred histories where goose-herds have become queens.”
“That was in the olden time. But who knows, thou art of the old world;
many times it appears to me that thou art not a child. Who knows then,
thou ancient soul! perhaps some miracle will happen to thee!”
This opinion, that she was not on the lowest step of the ladder of
honor, but that there was something upon which she could step down,
made Amrie suddenly pause. For herself she could gain nothing more at
present, but she would no longer suffer Dami to herd the geese with
her. He was a man, and he should be one. It might injure him if it
could afterwards be said that he had formerly kept the geese. But with
all her zeal she could not make it clear to him. He was angry with
her. It is always so. At the point where the understanding ceases,
there begins an inward obstinacy; inward imbecility passes into outward
injustice, and sometimes into injurious action.
Amrie rejoiced, that Dami could be for so many days angry with her; she
hoped he would learn to stand up against others and assert his own will.
Dami also received an office. He was apprenticed by his guardian as
Scarecrow. He turned the rattle the whole day in the quiet garden of
Rodel’s farm to scare the sparrows from the early cherries, and from
the salad-beds. But this, which in the beginning was only play, he soon
gave up.
It was a pleasant, but also a troublesome office, that Amrie had
undertaken. It was especially often painful that she could do nothing
to attach the animals to her. Indeed, they were scarcely to be
distinguished, one from another; and was it not true what Brown Mariann
had once said to her as she came out of the Moosbrunnenwood?
“Animals that live in herds, are all, each for himself, stupid.”
“I think,” added Amrie, “that geese on this account are stupid; that
they can do too much. They can swim, and run, and fly, but they are
neither in the water, nor on the ground, nor in the air, expert, or at
home, and that makes them stupid.”
“I will stand by this,” said Mariann, “in thee is concealed an old
hermit.”
In fact there formed itself in Amrie a disposition to solitary
dreaminess, which was rarely interrupted by the occurrences of life.
But, as through all the dreaming and observation of nature she
continued industriously to knit, and to let no stitch drop; and as on
the corner by the service-tree, the deepening night shadows and the
refreshing strawberries were so near each other, that they appeared to
sprout from the same root:--thus were the distinct representations of
nature and the dreamy twilight of life near each other in the heart of
the child.
Holder Green was no solitary, secluded place, filled with fairy
tales that the curious world only would willingly seek. In the midst,
through the Holder Pasture, led a field-path, to Endringen, and not
far from it stood the different colored boundary pillars, with the
armorial bearings of the two gentlemen proprietors whose lands joined
each other. Peasants passed through with every species of agricultural
implements; men, women and girls went by with hatchets, sickles and
scythes. The bailiffs of both estates often came through, and the
reflection of their rifles glittered long before and long after they
passed. Amrie was always greeted by the several bailiffs when she
sat by the way, and was often asked whether this one or that one had
passed by, but she never betrayed any one. Perhaps this concealment was
from that inward dislike that the people, and especially the village
children, have for the bailiff, who is always represented as the armed
enemy of the peasantry, going about to seek whom he can insnare.
Old Manz, who was employed to break stones on the road, never spoke a
word to Amrie. He went sadly from one heap of stones to another, and
the sound of his pick was incessant as the tapping of the woodpecker,
or the shrill chirp of the grasshoppers in the meadows and clover-field.
Notwithstanding all these human influences, Amrie was often borne into
the kingdom of dreams. Freely soared her childish soul upwards and
cradled itself in unlimited ether. As the larks in the air sang and
rejoiced without knowing the limits of their field, so would she soar
away beyond the boundaries of the whole country. The soul of the child
knew nothing of the limits placed upon the narrow life of reality.
Whoever is accustomed to wonder, will find a miracle in every day.
“Listen,” she would say; “the cuckoo calls! This is the living echo of
the woods which calls and answers itself. The bird sits over there in
the service-tree. If you look up, he will fly away. How loud he calls,
and how unceasingly! That little bird has a stronger voice than a man!
Place thyself upon the tree and imitate him,--thou wilt not be heard as
far as this bird, who is no larger than my hand. Listen! Perhaps he is
an enchanted prince, and suddenly he may begin to speak to thee. Yes,”
she said, “only tell me thy riddle, and let me think a little, and I
will soon find the meaning of it; and then I will disenchant thee, and
we will go into thy golden castle and take Mariann and Dami with us,
and Dami shall marry the princess, thy sister, and we will then seek
Mariann’s John through the whole world, and whoever finds him shall
conquer thy kingdom. Ah! were it then all true? And why could I think
it all out if it were not true?”
While the thoughts of Amrie thus soared beyond all limits, the geese
also felt themselves at liberty to stray and enjoy the good things of
the neighboring clover or barley field. Awaking out of her dreams, she
had heavy trouble to bring the geese back; and, when these freebooters
came in regiments, they had much to tell of the promised land where
they had fed so well. To their gossiping and chattering there seemed
no end. Here and there was heard an old goose holding on, after all
the others had ceased, with a drowsy or significant word, while others
stuck their bills beneath their wings, and continued to dream of the
goodly land.
Again Amrie soared, “Look! there fly the birds. No bird in the air goes
astray; even the swallows, in their continually crossing flight, are
always safe, always free! Oh! could we only fly! How must the world
look above where the larks soar. Hurrah! always higher and higher,
farther and farther! Oh, could I fly! I would fly into the wide world
and to the Landfried, and see what she does, and ask her whether she
ever thinks of me.
‘Thinkest thou of me in distant lands?’”
Thus she sang herself suddenly away from all the noise and from all her
thoughts. Her breath, which by the thought of flight had become deeper
and quicker, as though she really hovered in the higher ether, became
again calm and measured.
But not always glowed her cheek in waking dreams; not always did the
sun shine clear in the open flowers and in the bending grain. In the
spring came those cold, wet days, in which the blossoming trees
stood like trembling foreigners, and all day long the sun scarcely
beamed upon them. A sterile frost pierced through the natural world,
interrupted only by gusts of wind that tore and scattered the blossoms
from the trees. The larks alone kept jubilee, high in the air, above
the clouds; and the finches’ little complaining note was heard from
the wild pear-tree, against which Amrie leant. Now, in white stripes,
rattled down the hail, and the geese pointed their beaks upwards, that
the tender brain might not be hurt. There above, behind Endringen,
it is already clear, and the sun will soon break through the clouds
and the hills; the woods and the fields will look like the human
countenance, which has been bathed in the tears of grief, but now
shines out with beams of joy. The geese, which through the shower had
pressed close together, and turned their bills upward, now venture to
spread themselves apart and graze, and gaggle of the passing storm to
the young, tender, downy brood, who have never before lived through
such an experience.
Immediately after Amrie had been overtaken by the hail-storm, she
endeavored to provide for the future. She took with her, out upon the
green pasture, an empty corn-sack, which she had inherited from her
father. Two axes, crossed with the name of her father, were painted
upon it. When the showers came down, she covered and folded herself
within it, and looked out from a protecting roof upon the wild
conflict in the sky. A cold shower of snow would end in melancholy,
which would sometimes overpower her. Then she would weep over the
destiny which left her so alone--deprived of father and mother--thrust
out, as it were, from her fellows. But she early gained a power that
trial and difficulty teaches one to exert, to swallow down her tears.
This makes the eyes sparkle, and to be doubly clear in the midst of all
trouble.
Amrie could conquer her melancholy, especially when she recollected
a proverb of Brown Mariann’s. “Who will not have his hands frozen in
the cold, must double his fist.” Amrie did so, both spiritually and
physically. She looked proudly into the world, and soon cheerfulness
came over her face. She rejoiced at the beautiful lightning, and held
her breath till the thunder followed after. The geese pressed close
together, and looked strangely at the lightning.
“They,” said Amrie, “experience only good. All the clothing they need
grows upon their bodies; and for that which is pulled out in the
spring, other is already provided. When the shower is over, there is
joy in the air and in the trees, and the geese rejoice in the rare
luxuries it has left, pressing upon each other, greedily consume the
snails and the young frogs that venture forth after it is over.”
Of the thousand-fold meanings that lived in Amrie’s soul, Brown
Mariann received only, at times, the intimation. Once, when she came
from the forest with her load of wood, and imprisoned in her sack
May-bugs and worms for Amrie’s geese, the latter said to her,--
“Aunt, do you know why the wind blows?”
“No! do you know?”
“Yes; I have remarked every thing that grows must move about. The
bird flies, the beetle creeps; the hare, the stag, the horse, and all
animals, must run. The fish swim, and frogs also. But there stand the
trees, the corn, and the grass; they cannot go forth, and yet they must
grow. Then comes the wind and says, ‘Only remain standing, and I will
do for you what others can do for themselves. See, how I turn, and
shake, and bend you. Be glad that I come; I do thee good, even if I
make thee weary.’”
Brown Mariann said nothing, except her usual speech:
“I maintain it; in thee is concealed the soul of an old hermit.”
Once only Mariann led the quiet observation of Amrie upon another trace.
The quail began already to be heard in the high rye-fields; near Amrie,
the field-larks sang the whole day incessantly. They wandered here and
there, and sang so tenderly, so into the deepest heart, it seemed as
though they drew their inspiration from the source of life--from the
soul itself. The tone was more beautiful than that of the skylark,
which soars high in the air. Often one of the birds came so near to
Amrie, that she said, “Why cannot I tell thee that I will not hurt
thee? Only stay!” But the bird was timid, and removed farther off. Then
Amrie considered quickly, and said, “It is well that the birds are
timid, else we could not drive away the thievish starlings.”
At noon, when Mariann came to her, she said, “Could I only know what a
bird, all through the live-long day, has to say; and, even then, he has
not sung it all out.”
Mariann answered, “Look, an animal can keep nothing back to reflect
upon and resolve it in himself. But in man something is always
speaking; it does not cease, although it is never loud. There are
thoughts that sing, weep, and speak, but quietly; we scarcely hear them
ourselves. Not so the bird--when he ceases singing, he is ready to eat
or sleep.”
As Mariann turned and went forth with her bundle of wood, Amrie looked
smiling after her. “There goes a great singing bird,” she thought. None
but the sun saw how long the child continued to smile and to think.
[Illustration: AMRIE.--PAGE 64.]
Thus, day after day, Amrie lived. Long she sat dreaming, as the wind
moved the shadows of the branches around her. Then she gazed at the
motionless banks of clouds on the horizon, or upon the flying clouds
that chased each other through the sky. As without, in the wide space,
so in the soul of the child the cloud-pictures arose and melted away,
receiving, for the moment only, existence and form. Who can tell how
the soul of the child interpreted and gave life to the cloud, within or
without?
When spring breaks over the earth, thou canst not comprehend the
thousand-fold seeds and sprouts spread over the ground--the singing and
jubilee upon the branches and in the air. A single lark seizes upon eye
and ear. It soars aloft. For a time thou canst follow it as it spreads
its wings; for a time thou canst not determine whether that dark point
is thy vanishing lark. Now it is gone from thy eye, and soon from thy
ear; for thou canst not tell if the singing thou hearest comes from thy
vanished lark. Couldst thou listen for a whole day to a single lark in
the whole wide heaven, thou wouldst hear that the morning, the mid-day,
and the evening song, are wholly different; and couldst thou trace it
from its first trembling pipe, through the whole year, thou wouldst
find what various tones mingle in its spring, its summer, and its
harvest song. Over the first stubble-field sing a new brood of larks.
When the spring breaks in a human soul,--when the whole world opens
before it and within it,--thou canst not understand the thousand voices
that make themselves heard. Thou canst not seize nor hold the thousand
buds and blossoms that perpetually unfold and extend themselves; thou
only knowest that there it sings, and that it expands.
How quietly spring appeared again in the firmly rooted plant. There,
by the meadow-hedge and the pear-tree, the sloe blossomed early, and
was only rarely ripe. What a beautiful bloom has the whortleberry, and
what a powerful perfume it has! The little pears are quite formed, and
glow with a faint red; and the poisonous night-shade already looks
dark. Soon will come those clear, sharp-cut, harvest days, when the
atmosphere is of so clear and cloudless a blue, that during the whole
day the half-moon can be seen in the sky; then we mark how it fills
itself, and how it wanes, till only a finely-cut side, like a little
cloud, stands in the horizon. In nature, and in the human soul, there
is a pause before the goal is reached.
There was soon life upon the road that led through the Holder Green.
Quickly rattling went the empty peasants’ wagons, where sat women and
children, and laughed,--shaken by laughing as well as by the rolling
of the wagons. Then they came, sheaf-laden, slowly back, creaking
homewards. Reapers, both men and women, passed very near Amrie.
She gained of the rich harvest only what her geese, who boldly followed
the laden wagons, robbed from their hanging sheaves.
There often comes into men’s souls, with all their joy over the
harvested fields and the harvest blessing, a certain timidity.
Expectation has become certainty; and where all was so moving and
transitory, it is now quiet. The season has changed. Summer has turned
to frost.
The brooks upon Holder Green, in whose flood the geese contentedly
struggled, had the best water in the place. The passer-by often paused
at the broad channel to drink, while their animals ran before. Then,
rinsing their mouths, they ran, shrieking after them. Others, returning
from the fields, watered their beasts here.
Amrie gained the favor of many through a little earthern cup which she
had begged from Mariann. Often, when the passers came to the brook,
Amrie offered her cup, saying, “You can drink better with this.” Upon
the return of the cup rested many friendly glances, sometimes a longer,
sometimes a shorter time upon her. This did her so much good, that
she was almost vexed if any one went over without drinking. She would
stand by the brook with her cup full, running over; and, if these
signs failed, she surprised her geese with an unlooked for bath. One
day there came a Berner chaise with two stately white horses. A broad,
Oberland farmer completely filled the double seat. He drew up and
asked, “Girl! hast thou nothing to drink with?”
“Indeed I have--all ready.” Trembling, Amrie brought her cup full of
water.
“Ah,” said the Oberlander, after he had taken a good draught, and with
dripping mouth half in the cup, half out, “in the whole world there is
no such water as that.”
He began again, and winked to Amrie that she should be quiet, for he
had but just begun; and it was particularly disagreeable to speak while
one was drinking. The child seemed to understand this; and, after he
had given back the cup, she said, “Yes, the water is good and healthy.
If your horses would drink, it is for them, especially, good.”
“My horses are warm, and need not drink at present. Are you of
Holderbrunnen, maiden?”
“Truly.”
“And what is your name?”
“Amrie.”
“To whom dost thou belong?”
“To no one now. Josenhans was my father.”
“What! The Josenhans that worked with Farmer Rodel?”
“Yes.”
“I knew him well. It was hard that he must die so early. Wait, child,
I will give you something.” He drew a great leather purse from his
pocket, and felt a long time within it, and said at last,
“See, take that.”
“I do not take any presents, I thank you. I take nothing.”
“Take it. Of me you can certainly take something. Is not Farmer Rodel
your guardian?”
“Yes. Well?”
“He should have known better than to make you a goose-herd. God bless
thee!”
The carriage rolled on, and Amrie held the money in her hand. “‘Of me
you can certainly take something!’ Who, then, is the man who said that,
and why did he not make himself known? Eh! This is a groschen. There is
the bird upon it. Well, it will not make him poor, nor me rich.”
The whole day long, Amrie did not offer her cup to a single passenger.
She felt a secret timidity lest she should have another present.
When she came home in the evening, Mariann told her that Farmer Rodel
had sent to say she was to go to him immediately. She hastened to his
house. Rodel said, as she entered,
“What did you say to the Esquire Landfried?”
“I know no Squire Landfried.”
“He has been to-day on the Holder Green, and has made thee a present.”
“I did not know who it was, and there is his money.”
“That is nothing to me! Tell me instantly, honestly, and truly, did I
persuade you to be goose-herd? If you do not give it up this very day,
I am no longer your guardian. I will not be slandered!”
“I shall inform everybody that it is not your fault,” said Amrie; “but
to give the service up, that I cannot. Till the summer is over I must
remain in it. I must finish what I have engaged to do.”
The farmer’s wife, who lay sick in bed, cried out to her, “Thou art
right. Remain only so, and I prophesy that you will do well. A hundred
years hence they will say of one who is fortunate in this village,
‘This is like Brosis’ Severin and the Josenhans.’ Amrie, take courage!
thy dry bread will yet fall into a honey cup!”
The sick woman was thought crack-brained; and, from fear of madness,
Amrie, without answering, hastened away.
She soon imparted to Mariann that a wonderful thing had happened to
her. The Esquire Landfried, of whose wife she thought so often, had
spoken with her, had said something of her to Rodel, and had made her a
present. She showed her the money.
Mariann cried, laughing, “Ah, that I could have guessed. That is like
the Landfried! That is noble! to give the poor child a false groschen!”
“Why, is it then false?” asked Amrie, and the tears sprang into her
eyes.
“That is a worn-out birds’ groschen, worth only half a kreutzer.”
“He would have given me the other half,” said Amrie, gravely. And now
for the first time she showed an inward opposition towards Mariann. The
latter rejoiced at every thing wicked that she heard of people. Amrie,
on the contrary, ascribed every thing to good motives. She was always
happy. She forgot all realities in the happy dreams of her solitude.
She expected nothing from others. She was therefore surprised if she
received any thing, and was always thankful for the slightest favor.
“He has given me only half a kreutzer; that is enough, and I am
satisfied.” She repeated this proudly to herself, while she ate her
solitary supper, as though she were yet speaking to Mariann, who was
not in the house, but meantime milked her goat.
In the night, she stitched the coin between two pieces of cloth, and
hung it as an amulet around her neck, and concealed it on her breast.
It seemed as though the impression of the bird upon the money waked
the bird in the heart upon which it rested. Full of inward joy, she
sang and hummed her songs all day from morning till evening; and thus
she thought always again of Farmer Landfried’s lady. She had now seen
both, and had of both a memento, and it seemed to her as though they
left her only for a short time there; and that the Berner chaise, with
the two white horses, would come again,--the farmer’s people sitting
within,--and bring her away. And they would say, “Thou art our child;”
for certainly the Landfried would relate at home how he had met her.
With penetrating glances she looked into the autumn sky,--it was so
clear, so cloudless,--and then upon the earth, where the meadows were
yet green; and the hemp, lying in rows, spread out to dry, appeared
like a fine net upon the ground, the autumn flowers looking up
between,--the ravens flying above, their black wing feathers glistening
in the bright sunshine. No wind blew; all was calm. The cows ruminated
upon the stubble-fields; cracking of whips and songs echoed from all
the meadows; and the pear-tree shivered its branches together, and
shook down its leaves; autumn was there.
When at evening Amrie went home, she looked askingly in Mariann’s face;
she thought it must tell her that the Landfried had sent to fetch her.
With a heavy heart, she drove her geese to the stubble-field that was
so far away from the road that led to the Holder Green, where she
longed to return. But the hedges were already leafless. The larks, in
their heavy downward flight, scarcely twittered a single note,--and
yet there came no message; and Amrie felt as timid, in prospect of the
winter, as she would have been before a prison. She consoled herself a
little with the reward she received, which was especially rich. Not one
of her fledglings had fallen--not one was lamed. Mariann not only sold
the feathers that Amrie had collected, at a good price, but advised
her not to follow the old custom,--which, at the time her salary
was paid, for every goose that had been herded, to give a piece of
church-consecrated cake. Mariann advised her to exchange the cake for
good, sound bread. Thus they had bread the winter through, of very old
baking indeed; but, as Mariann said, “Amrie’s teeth were as sound and
white as those of a mouse, and could nip through every thing.”
Throughout the village, nothing was now heard but the thresher’s flail,
and Amrie said, “The whole summer long, the corn in the ear heard only
the song of the lark; now, men bruise its head with the flail, and how
different is the sound!”
“An old hermit’s soul is concealed within thee,” was the final sentence
of Brown Mariann.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]