1.
THE GIRLS AT THE WELL.
On Saturday afternoon the house of the Red Tailor
was alive with singing. Doors were opened and closed with a bang, windows thrown up, chairs and tables moved here and there, and the broom rattled among the lifeless bones; but over all was heard a rich, full, female voice, travelling up and down stairs, into rooms and out of passages. Song followed hard upon song, grave and gay meeting with equal favor. At last the singer was forthcoming,--a girl of stout proportions but the utmost symmetry of form. A jacket of knitted gray yarn set off the swelling outlines to the best advantage: one corner of the apron was tucked up and left the other hanging jauntily. With the milking-pail in her hand, she went to the stable. The words of the songs were now more distinctly audible. One of them ran thus:--
"I climb'd up the cherry-tree;
For cherries I don't care.
I thought I might my true love see:
My true love wasn't there.
"It isn't long since the rain came down,
And all the trees are wet;
I had a true love all my own:
I wish I had him yet.
"But he has gone abroad, abroad,
To see what luck would do;
And I have found another love:
He's a good fellow, too."
With a water-bucket under her arm, she made her appearance again, locked the door of the house, and concealed the key under a stack of kindling-wood. The well before the town-hall was empty and locked up; the upper well, also under lock and key, was only opened by Soges every morning and evening, and water distributed to each family in proportion to the number of its inmates. This scarcity of water is a great evil, particularly in the heat of summer. On the way our heroine was stopped by Anselm the Jew's Betsy, who cried,--
"Wait, Crescence: I'll go with you."
"Hurry up, then. When is your intended coming back?" returned Crescence.
"At our Pentecost,--this day fortnight."
"When is it to be?"
"Some time after the Feast of Tabernacles. You must dance with us all day, mind. We'll have one more good time of it: we've always been good friends, haven't we?"
"Betsy, you ought to have married Seligmann and stayed here. A bird in the hand's worth two in the bush. Going all the way to Alsace! How do you know what's to become of you after you get there?"
"Why, how you talk!" replied Betsy. "With my four hundred florins, how am I to choose? And over there it counts for almost a thousand francs; and that's more like. Are you going to live in the village always? When your geometer gets an appointment, won't you have to go with him? Oh, did I tell you?--my intended went with Florian to the Schramberg market the other day from Strasbourg. Florian had I don't know how many--at least three hundred--ducats in his girdle, to buy beeves with. He carries himself like a prince, and his master trusts him with all his property. And they do say he's going to give him his daughter."
"I wish him much happiness."
"Now, you needn't make believe you didn't like Florian's little finger better than the whole geometer."
"What if I did? He's got nothing, and I've got nothing; and 'twice nothing is nothing at all,' says George the blacksmith."
The two girls had reached the well, where many of their companions were already awaiting the arrival of the officer of Government.
"Have you heard, Crescence?" cried Christian's Dolly--"Florian's come back an hour ago: you've got a full team to drive now."
"You preach to your grandmother," retorted Crescence: "such a beanpole as you may open every shutter of her windows and '11 never catch a gudgeon."
"That's it," said a girl with forward air and manners, who bore the ominous designation of "Corpse Kitty," because she fitted the shrouds. Passing her hand over her mouth, she went on:--"Give her her change, Crescence: we know it's all cash-down where you come from." She accompanied the words with a significant gesture.
"Oh, you're nervous because nobody will lend you any thing," replied the assailed one. "You're a sweet one, Dolly, to set her a-going."
"Well, what did you fly at Dolly that way for?" said Melchior's Lenore: "she didn't mean any harm by it. Can't you take a little fun?"
"Has Florian really come home?" asked Crescence, softly.
"Of course he has," cried Corpse Kitty, aloud. "Just look out, you hemp-toad: you'll find you've 'most done carrying your head as high as a sleigh-horse: Florian will take the geometer's bearings before you know what's what."
Soges now appeared as another Moses to open the well for the daughters of Jethro: he did not seem to woo any of them, however, for he was not by any means in a bland or amiable frame of mind.
"Give Crescence the cream of the water: she's got to have the geometer's standees washed to-night," cried Kitty.
"Let her talk," said Lenore: "you can't worry her more than by not listening to her. She's just like the dogs: they bark at you, and if you walk on quietly they run home again and bark at the next person that comes along the road. She's after making everybody out as bad as she is herself, if she can. But you must be on the look-out about Florian now, or you'll get into trouble."
"Yes," said another girl: "he's brought lots of money with him, and the first thing he did was to give his father a gold ducat. The money must 'a' looked scared when it got into that room. The old fellow's so poor that the mice all ran away from him."
"Florian can dress and undress himself five times over and not take all the fine clothes out of his chest," said a third.
"And he speaks French 'most all the time."
"And he has a watch, with a chain, and all the tools of his trade hung to it in silver for charms."
"And he's got a black mustache you can hardly help kissing."
A dispute interrupted this torrent of items.
"What're you pushing me so for?" said Corpse Kitty to Kilian's Annie: "I'm not a rich chap."
"Hold your jaw, you!--you've been to the House of Correction twice already, and the third time's written on your forehead now."
"I'll mark your forehead," screeched Kitty, striking at Annie with her bucket; but she parried the blow, and struck another. A fierce struggle ensued: the buckets were dropped, and the combatants "clinched" hand to hand. After looking on passively a while, the others interfered, Soges particularly dealing official blows to the right and left with great vigor and impartiality. Like two fighting-cocks torn asunder, the hostile parties looked daggers at each other as they picked up their buckets. Annie brushed her hair out of her face, crying bitterly, and complaining that nobody was safe, nor ever would be, until Corpse Kitty was in the House of Correction for life.
Crescence's turn having come at last, she carried the heavy bucket home on her head and a still heavier load in her heart. Tears were rolling down her cheeks; but she pretended that they were drops from the bucket, and always wiped the lower rim of it with her apron. There was confusion in her heart now, and she foresaw still greater troubles in the future.
Having returned home, she went through with her work, but without singing another note.
Lest our readers should be at a loss to divine what a titled personage like a geometer should be doing in the village, it is proper to remind them that the general survey of the country took place about this time. Every nook and corner of the land was mapped, labelled, and numbered; and in the course of the operation a new element was infused into the life of the people. A race of "city fellows," belonging neither to the order of parsons nor to that of schoolmasters, made their way into the village: they were generally young, smart, and fond of enjoyment; and the importance they soon acquired among the female portion of the community has already become apparent.
These gentlemen received the sounding title of "geometers." A surveyor was a plain surveyor; and as these people, for some reason or other, were to appear to the peasantry in the light of a superior rank of beings, and, as it was important to disseminate a knowledge of and taste for the classics, they received the Greek addition. Crescence's playmate had married a geometer-general (should he not have been called a hypergeometer?) and lived at Biberach: this had made Crescence acquainted with one of his colleagues, and her parents were most anxious to push matters, for a better "providence" could not have been hoped for. The Red Tailor in his mind's eye already saw his daughter as Madame Geometrix-General.