WORK AND BENEFACTION.
The bailiff, Lenz's nearest neighbor, though not a very near one, had
sent in food, as was the custom in that part of the country when a
death occurred, in the supposition that the mourners might not have
thought of preparing any. Moreover, during a funeral, and for three
hours after, no fire was allowed to be kindled on the hearth.
The bailiff's daughter brought the food into the room herself.
"Thanks to you and your parents, Katharine. Take away the food; when I
am hungry, I will eat; I cannot now," said Lenz.
"But you must try," said Franzl; "that is the custom; you must put
something to your lips. Sit down, Katharine; you should always sit down
when you visit a mourner, not keep standing. Young people nowadays
don't know what the custom is. And you must say something, Katharine;
you should talk to a mourner, not be dumb. Say something."
The sturdy, round-cheeked girl flushed crimson. "I can't," she
stammered out, bursting into a passion of tears, and covering her face
with her apron, as she became conscious that Lenz's eyes were fixed
upon her.
"Don't cry," he said, soothingly. "Thank God every day that you still
have your parents. There, I have tasted the soup."
"You must take something else," urged Franzl. He obeyed with an effort,
and then rose from the table. The girl rose too. "Forgive me, Lenz,"
she said. "I ought to have comforted you, but I--I--"
"I know; thank you, Katharine. I can't talk much yet myself."
"Good by. Father says you must come and see us; he has a lame foot, and
cannot come to you."
"I will see: I will come if I can."
When she was gone, Lenz walked up and down the room with outstretched
hands, as seeking to grasp some form, but he found no one. His eye fell
upon the tools, and was chiefly attracted by a file that hung on the
wall by itself. A sudden idea seized him as he raised his hand to take
it.
This file was his choicest heirloom. His father had used it constantly
for forty-seven years, till his thumb had worn a groove in its
maple-wood handle. "Who would believe," the old man was fond of saying,
"that many years' work of a man's hand would wear a wooden handle like
that?" The mother always exhibited this wonderful file to strangers as
a curiosity.
The doctor down in the valley had a collection of old clocks and tools,
and had often asked for this file to hang up in his cabinet; but the
father never would give it. Since his death, the mother and son
naturally set a great value on the heirloom. After the father's
funeral, when mother and son were sitting quietly together at home, she
said, "Now, Lenz, we have wept enough; we must bear our burden in
silence. Take your father's file, and work. 'Work and pray while yet it
is day,' runs the proverb. Be glad you have an honest trade, and do not
need to brood over what is past. A thousand times has your father said,
'What a help it is to get up in the morning and find your work waiting.
When I file, I file all the useless chips out of my brain; and when I
hammer, I knock all heavy thoughts on the head, and away they go.'
"Those were my mother's words then, and they ring in my ears to-day.
Would I could always be as sure of her counsel!"
Lenz set himself industriously to work. Without stood Franzl and
Katharine. "I am glad you were the first to bring the food," said the
old woman; "it is a good sign. Whoever brings the first morsel at such
a time-- But I have said nothing: no one shall say I had a hand in it.
Only come back this evening, and be the one to bid him good night. If
you bid him good night three times, something is sure to come of it.
Hark! what is that? Saints in heaven, he is working now, on such a day
as this! What a man! I have known him ever since he was a baby, but
there is no telling what queer thing he will do. Yet he is so good!
Don't tell he was working, will you? it might make people talk. Come
yourself for the dishes this evening, and be composed, so that you can
talk properly. You can generally use your tongue well enough."
Franzl was interrupted by Lenz's voice, calling from the door, "If any
visitors come, Franzl, I can see none but Pilgrim. Are you still there,
Katharine?"
"I am going this minute," said she, and ran down the hill.
Lenz returned to his seat, and worked without intermission, while
Franzl as busily racked her brain to make out this extraordinary man,
who, a moment before, was crying himself sick, and now sat quietly at
work. It could not be from want of feeling, nor from avarice, but what
could it mean?
"My old head is not wise enough," said Franzl. Her first impulse was to
go to her mistress and ask what she could make of it; but she checked
herself, and covered her face with her hands as she remembered the
mother was dead. To Franzl's consternation, visitors began now to
arrive,--various members of the Liederkranz, besides some of the older
townspeople. In great embarrassment she turned them away, talking all
the time as loud as if they were deaf. She would gladly have stopped
their ears, if she could, to keep them from hearing Lenz at work. "If
Pilgrim would only come," she thought. "Pilgrim can do anything with
him; he would not mind taking the tools out of his hand." But no
Pilgrim came. At last a happy thought struck her. There was no need of
her staying at home. She would go a little way down the hill, beyond
the sound of hammer and saw, and prevent visitors from coming up.
Lenz meanwhile was recovering composure and firmness over his work.
When he left off, towards evening, he descended the hill, and, taking
the path behind the houses, proceeded in the direction of his friend
Pilgrim's. Halfway down he turned about as suddenly as if some one had
called him; but all was still. Only the blackbird's ceaseless
twittering was heard in the bushes, and the yellowhammer's monotonous
whistle from the fresh pine-tops. There are no larks down in the valley
and meadows, but on the upland fields you hear them chattering in the
wide stretches of corn. The mists were rising from the meadows, too
light to be seen just about him, but plainly visible in the distance
behind and before.
Lenz walked rapidly up the valley, till the sun set behind the
Spannreute and turned the lowland mist into flaming clouds. "It is the
first time it has set upon her grave," he murmured. He stood still a
moment, took off his hat at the sound of the evening bells, and went on
more slowly. At a turn in the valley, just below a solitary little
house, from which a thick bush screened him, he paused again. Upon a
bench before the house sat a man whom we have seen before, the
clockmaker Fallen. He was dancing a child on his knee, while beside him
his sister, whose husband was abroad, sat nursing her baby, and kissing
its little hands.
"Good evening, Faller!" cried Lenz in his old, clear tenor voice.
"It is you,--is it?" called back Faller's bass. "We were just talking
of you. Lisbeth thought you would forget us in your sorrow; but I said,
on the contrary, you would not fail to remember our need."
"It is about that I am come. Henzel's house is to be sold to-morrow, as
you know; and if you want to buy it, I will be your security. It will
be pleasant to have you for neighbor."
"That would be fine, glorious! So you stay where you are?"
"Why not?"
"I was told you were going abroad for a year or two."
"Who told you?"
"Your uncle, I think, said so. I am not quite sure."
"Did he? maybe so. If I do go, you must move into my house."
"Better stay at home. It is too late to go abroad."
"And marry soon," added the young mother.
"Yes, that will tie you down, and put an end to your roving. But, Lenz,
whatever you do must prosper. Your mother in heaven will bless you for
remembering me in your time of grief. Not a moment goes by that I do
not think of her. You come honestly by your goodness, for she was
always thoughtful of others. God bless you!"
"He has already. The walk here and our plan together have lightened my
heart. Have you anything to eat, Lisbeth? I feel hungry for the first
time to-day."
"I will beat you up a couple of eggs."
"Thanks."
Lenz ate with an appetite that delighted his hosts.
Faller's mother, much against her son's will, asked Lenz for some of
his mother's clothes, which he readily promised. Faller insisted on
walking part way home with him; but hardly had they gone twenty steps
before he gave a shrill whistle, and called back to his sister, who
inquired what was wanted, that he should not be at home till morning.
"Where do you spend the night?" asked Lenz.
"With you."
The two friends walked on in silence. The moon shone bright, and the
owls hooted in the forest, while from the village came the sound of
music and merry voices.
"It were not well that all should mourn for one," said Lenz. "Thank God
that each of us can bear his own sorrow and his own joy."
"There spoke your mother," returned Faller.
"Stop!" cried Lenz; "don't you want to let your betrothed know you can
buy the cottage?"
"That I do. Come with me, and let me show you the happiest household in
all the world."
"No, no; you run up alone. I am not fit for joy, and am wofully tired
besides. I'll wait for you here. Run quick, and be quick back again."
Faller ran up the hill, while Lenz sat down on a pile of stones by the
roadside. As the refreshing dew was shed upon tree and shrub and every
blade of grass, so a pure influence as of dew from heaven sank into the
heart of the lonely mourner; a light flashed from the little house on
the mountain-side, which had been dark before, and light and joy shone
in hearts that had long desponded.
Faller came back breathless to tell of the great rejoicing there had
been. The old father had opened the window, and shouted down the
valley: "A thousand blessings on you, kindest of friends," and the dear
girl had laughed and wept by turns.
The friends walked on again, each silently busied with his own
thoughts. Faller's step was firm, and his whole bearing so steady and
erect that Lenz involuntarily straightened himself up as he kept pace
with him. When the path began to ascend again, he cast another glance
back at the churchyard, and sighed.
"My father lies there too," said Faller, "and was not spared as long as
yours." They went on up the mountain, Lenz taking the lead. What does
he see white moving above him? Who is it? Can it be-- His mother is not
dead! She cannot keep away from him, she has come back!
The mourner gazed with an inward fear.
"Good evening, Lenz," cried Katharine's voice.
"What are you doing there?"
"I have been with Franzl. She sent for our maid to keep her company,
for she is old and timid. I should not be afraid if your mother herself
came back. Good night, Lenz! good night! good night!"
She said good night three times, as Franzl had bidden her. There must
be some charm in the words. Who knows what may come of them?