Russ-Kath is dead. She was ninety years old. Her last wish was that
after her death strong, nailed shoes should be put on her feet; she
would be obliged to traverse the road back to earth many times, to see
how her children and grandchildren were faring. And the road was full
of sharp thorns.
Russ-Kath is the first one who will rest in our new forest
burying-ground.
Two men brought her over from Lautergraeben on a bier consisting of two
poles. The white pine-board coffin, still fragrant with resin, was
fastened upon the bier with strips of alder-boughs. Russ-Bartelmei and
his brother-in-law, Paul Holzer, accompanied by a little boy, walked
behind the bearers. They prayed aloud, at the same time looking out for
the roots of the trees which lay across their pathway. The bearers were
also obliged to walk cautiously, for the ground was already slippery
with the late autumn hoar-frost.
There is a story that years ago as some men were carrying a shepherd to
the Holdenschlag cemetery, one of the bearers stumbled on the narrow
path and the coffin rolled over the precipice, plunging into the abyss,
so that no splinter of it was ever seen again. This was exceedingly
trying for the people, they say, for the grave-digger had to be paid all
the same.
We Winkelstegers have no grave-digger. We could not maintain one, and
besides no one dies here until his last groschen is spent. So a few
wood-cutters are obliged to come and do this work. They charge nothing
for it. They are glad if they can crawl out of the grave again, well
and hearty.
During the mass for the dead the coffin stood quite alone upon the hard
ground before the church. A little bird flew hither, hopped upon the
coffin-lid and pecked and pecked and then fluttered away again.
When Ruepel saw it he was almost sure that it was the bird that flies
into the forest once in every thousand years.
After the mass we carried Russ-Kath up to the grave which had been
prepared for her. The family stood about gazing fixedly into it.
When the burial service was over, the priest spoke briefly. The words
which impressed me the most were these: "By the death of our dear ones
we gain fortitude to bear the adversities of this life, and a calm,
perhaps even a joyous, anticipation of our own death. Each hour is one
step towards our meeting again; and until that gate of reunion is opened
for us, our departed ones live on in the sacred peace of our hearts."
He is well able to expound it. Indeed, we all feel it also, but do not
know the words by which to express it. He has not forgotten his
vocation, although he has lived for years up in the Felsenthal.
But now another man appears. Ruepel comes quietly forward, and the
people make way for him: "Let us see what Ruepel knows to-day."
And as the forest singer stands upon the mound, supporting himself by
the handle of the spade, so as not to make a misstep upon the loose
earth, and as he looks down upon the coffin, he begins to speak: "Born
ninety years ago; on her own feet o'er vales and mountains she has
walked to meet those who in sorrow and in troublous ways might need her
succour; for in all her days a horse she never rode, and thus outwore a
hundred pair of shoes. And yet a hundred more in earning children's
bread she wore, and other hundreds still, alas, she rent upon the paths
of pain o'er which she went. But ne'er for dancing and like mirth,
forsooth, was used a single pair, e'en in her youth. Then, when her
whole long, weary life was o'er, she put her last shoes on her feet once
more, and went away into eternal rest. The holy angels, at the Lord's
behest, will lead her soul through purgatory straight, then on and up
unto the heavenly gate. Beneath the ground shall the poor body rest
within its wooden coffin, calm and blest. Sleep well, Kathrin, within
thy cradle new; soon by thy side shall we be sleeping, too. Till to His
heavenly hosts we hear God's call, and we may enter heaven, soul, body,
all."
"Ruepel would be the right priest for the Winkelstegers!" said the man
whom they have called the Einspanig.
Yes, if he had not grown up among them!
When we, the priest and I, had thrown a few clods of earth upon the
coffin, Russ-Bartelmei, very sad, came to us and asked what then had his
mother done, that we should fling dirt after her. We then explained to
him that it signified a last act of love, and that the earth was the
only offering which one could bestow upon the dead.
Thereupon Bartelmei began to shovel in the earth until not a trace of
the white coffin could be seen, and the people took the spade from him
to fill the grave.
After the funeral they retired to Grassteiger's inn, where they
refreshed themselves with brandy, just as the ancients offered libations
after laying their dead to rest.
God counts His people, even in Winkelsteg, and not one escapes Him.
The little grave in the burying-ground was scarcely closed when the
baptismal font in the church was opened. The first death and the first
baptism in one day--in one family.
Over the same forest path where a few hours before the coffin was
carried, two women brought a newly born babe from Lautergraeben.
The child is a granddaughter of Russ-Kath and belongs to Anna Maria.
Someone knocks at the church door, requesting baptism, and the name of
the child is to be Katharina. Her grandmother's name shall not be denied
her, although we have the choice of all the saints in heaven.
*PART THIRD*