Seed-time and Harvest: A Novel

by Fritz Reuter

CHAPTER II.

About eight miles from the place where Habermann had left his wife in her quiet grave, lay in Mecklenburg a farm of less than medium size, which was tenanted by his brother-in-law, Jochen Nüssler. The farm-buildings had never been very substantial, and were now much in need of repair, and moreover things were very disorderly; here a little refuse heap, and there another, and the wagon and farm implements stood here and there, and mingled together, like the people at a fair, and the cart said to the wagon, "Brother, how came you here?" and the rake laid hold of the harrow and said, "Come, dear, we will have a dance." But the music was lacking, for it was all still in the farm-yard, quite still. This lovely weather, all were in the meadow, haying, and even from the little open windows of the long, low, straw-roofed farm-house came no sound, for it was afternoon; the cook had finished her baking, and the housemaid her cleaning, and both had gone together to the meadow; and even the farmer's wife, who usually had something to say for herself, was nowhere visible, for she also had gone from the farm-yard with a rake in her hand; the hay must all be gathered into great stacks before night-fall.

But there was yet life in the house, though of a little, quiet kind. In the room at the right of the porch, in the living-room, where the blue-painted corner-cupboard stood,--the schenk, they called it, and the sofa covered with black glazed linen, which was freshly polished up with boot-blacking every Saturday and the oaken chest of drawers with gilt ornaments, sat two little maidens of three years, with round flaxen heads, and round rosy cheeks, playing in a heap of sand, making cheeses with mother's thimble, and filling the damp sand into two little shilling pots, which they turned upside down, laughing and rejoicing if the lump stood firm.

These were Lining and Mining Nüssler, and they looked, for all the world, like a pair of little twin apples, growing on one stem; and they were so indeed, for they were twins, and one who did not know that Lining was not Mining, and Mining was not Lining, would be puzzled from morning to night, for their names were not written in their faces, and if their mother had not marked them with a colored band on the arm, there would have been grave doubts in the matter, and their father, Jochen Nüssler, was even yet in some uncertainty; Lining was properly Mining, and Mining Lining, they had been as it were shaken up together at the outset of their little lives. At present, there was no occasion for such perplexity, for the mother had tied a blue ribbon in Lining's little flaxen curls, and a red one in Mining's; and if one kept that in mind, and observed them carefully, one would see plainly that Jochen Nüssler was wrong, for Lining was half an hour older than Mining, and, slight as the difference was, the seniority made itself quite evident, for Lining took the lead in everything; but she comforted her little sister also, when she was in trouble.

Besides this little, unmistakable pair of twins, there was yet another pair of twins in the room; but an old, experienced, circumspect couple, who looked down from the chest of drawers on the children, and shook their heads hither and thither, in the light breeze which came in at the open window; these were grandfather's peruke, and grandmother's state-cap, which were paraded on a pair of cap-stocks, and which to-morrow,--Sunday,--would play their part.

"Look, Lining," said Mining, "there is grandfather's puk." She could not get the "r" quite right yet.

"You always say 'puk;' you must say 'p-u-k,'" said Lining, for she also was not quite up to the "r;" but being the eldest she must needs direct her little sister in the right way.

With that the little pair of twins got up and stood before the chest of drawers, and looked at the old pair of twins on the cap-stocks, and Mining, who was still very thoughtless, reached after the peruke stock, and took down grandfather's peruke, turned it over on her head as seemed well to her, and, placing herself before the glass, performed just as grandfather did on Sundays. Now was the time for Lining to exercise her authority, but Lining began to laugh, and catching the joke took down grandmother's cap from the other stock, and imitated grandmother's Sunday performances, and then Mining laughed, and then both laughed, and then took hold of hands and danced "Kringelkranz, Rosendanz," and let go, and laughed again and joined hands again and danced.

But Mining was quite too thoughtless, she had the little pot still in her hand, and as they were in the midst of their fun--crash! she let it fall on the floor, and there was an end of the pot, and an end of the sport also. Now began Mining to cry and lament over her pot, and Lining cried with her, like a little echo; but when that had lasted a while, Lining began to console:--

"See here, Mining, the wheelwright can mend it."

"Yes," said Mining, crying more quietly, "the wheelwright can mend it;" and upon that the two little mourners started out of the door, quite forgetting that they had grandfather's and grandmother's sacred Sunday gear upon their heads.

One may wonder that Lining should go to the wheelwright with such an affair, but anybody who has known a regular wheelwright in that region, will understand that such a man can do everything. If a sheep is sick, they say, "Call the wheelwright!" If a window-pane is broken, the wheelwright must nail on a board to keep out wind and weather; has an old chair dislocated its leg, he is the doctor; if one wishes a plaster spread for a sick cow, he is the apothecary; in short, he can mend everything, and so Lining showed herself a little maiden of good sense in going with her pot to the wheelwright.

As the little girls went through the yard, in at the gate came a little man, with a red face and a right stately red nose, which he carried in the air; on his head he had a three-cornered cap, with a tassel in front of no particular color; he wore a grey linen coat with long skirts, and his short legs, which turned outward as if they had been screwed into his long body the wrong way, were stuck into short blue-striped trowsers, and long boots with yellow tops. He was not exactly stout, but certainly not lean, and one might see that he was beginning to grow a little pot-bellied.

The little girls must meet him on their way, and as they came near enough for the Herr Inspector--for the man with the little legs held such a post--to perceive their approach, he stood still, and raised his yellow bushy eyebrows so high that they went quite up under the visor of his cap, as if these eyebrows, being the finest of his features, must first of all, under such dangerous circumstances, be placed in security. "God bless us!" cried he, "Where are you going? What sort of doings are these? What! you have the entire Sunday finery of the two old people upon your heads!" The two little girls quite patiently allowed themselves to be despoiled of their finery, and showed the broken pieces of the pot, saying that the wheelwright would mend it. "What!" said the Herr Inspector Bräsig, for that was his name, "Who in the world would have believed in such stupidity? Lining, you are the oldest, I thought you had more sense; and Mining, don't cry any more, you are my little god-child, I will give you a new pot at the next fair. But now, along with you! into the house!"

As he entered the living-room, and found no one there, he said to himself, "To be sure! All are gone after the hay. Yes, I ought to be looking after my hay; but the little madcaps have left these things in such a state, that they would be in sad disgrace if the two old grannies should see them as they are now; I must try to repair damages a little." With that he drew out a little pocket-comb,--which he kept by him because he was growing bald, and must needs comb forward his back hair,--and began to labour at the peruke. That did very well; but now came the cap. "How the mischief, Lining, have you contrived to do it? To make it look decently again is not a possible thing! No, I must try to recollect how the old lady looks of a Sunday afternoon. In front she has a comely bunch of silken curls, and the front part of the old toggery hangs over about three inches, so the thing must be set forward more. On top she has nothing in particular, her bald head always shines through; but behind she always has a puff, which she staffs out with a bunch of tow; that the little girl has quite disarranged; that must be pulled out better;" and with that he stuck his fist in the cap, and widened out the puff.

But in the back part of the puff there was a drawing-string, and as he was doing his work thoroughly the cord broke, and the whole puff flew out. "Now there, stupid!" cried he, and his eyebrows went up again. "How? This isn't fastened worth a snap! With yarn! And one can't tie knots in it. God bless my soul! What do I know about millinery? But hold on! We will fix you yet." And with that he pulled from his pocket a handful of strings--every good inspector must have such on hand--and began to disentangle them. "Pack thread is too coarse; but this here, this will do well enough." and he began to put a nice stiff cord through the hem. But the job was a slow one, and before he was half through, somebody knocked at the door. He threw his handiwork down on the nearest chair, as if ashamed of it, and cried, "Come in!"

The door opened, and Habermann, with his little daughter on his arm, stepped in. Inspector Bräsig started up. "May you--keep the nose on your face," he was going to say, but when anything serious happened to him he had an unfortunate habit of falling into Platt-Deutsch,--"Karl Habermann, where do you come from?"

"Good day, Bräsig," said Habermann, and put the child down.

"Karl Habermann," cried Bräsig again, "where do you come from?"

"From a place, Bräsig, where I have now nothing more to look for," said his friend. "Is my sister not at home?"

"They are all in the hay; but how shall I understand you?"

"That it is all over with me; day before yesterday all my goods were sold at auction; and yesterday morning"--here he turned to the window--"yesterday morning I buried my wife."

"What? what? Oh, dear Lord!" cried the kind-hearted inspector. "Your wife? your dear, good wife?"--and the tears ran over his red face--"Friend, old friend, say, how did that happen?"

"Yes, how did it happen?" said Habermann, and seated himself, and related his misfortunes in few words.

Meanwhile, Lining and Mining went slowly and shyly toward the strange child, saying nothing, but ever drawing a little nearer, till Lining mustered courage, and took hold of the sleeve of her dress, and Mining showed the fragments of her pot: "Look my pot is broken." The little new-comer however looked around shyly with her large eyes, and fixed them at last closely upon her father.

"Yes," Habermann closed his short story, "it has gone hard with me, Bräsig, and you still hold my note for two hundred thalers; but don't press me, if God spares my life, you shall be honourably paid." "Karl Habermann,--Karl Habermann," said Bräsig, and wiped his eyes, and blew his stately nose, "You are--you are a sheep's-head! Yes," said he, and stuffed his handkerchief fiercely into his pocket, and elevated his nose again, "You are just the sheep's-head you always were!" And as if it occurred to him that his old friend should be diverted to other thoughts, he picked up Lining and Mining like a couple of dolls, and set them on Habermann's knee,--"There, you little rogues, that is your uncle!"--exactly as if Lining and Mining were playthings, and Habermann a little child, who might be comforted by them in his trouble; and he himself took Habermann's little Louise on his arm, and danced with her about the room, and all this time the tears were running down his cheeks, and for a happy ending he put the child down in a chair, and, as it happened, exactly the chair on which he had deposited his half-finished millinery.

By this time the house-people were coming back from the hay-field, and a loud, clear, female voice was heard without, urging the maids to hasten. "Hurry, hurry, come out with your milk-pails, the sun is going down, and this year the pasture is so far off; we shall have to milk to night in the twilight. Girl, where are your trenchers? Quick, run in and fetch them. Go right along; I must look after my little ones first." And into the room came a tall young woman, of seven and twenty years, full of life and energy in face and figure, her cheeks red with health and labor and the heat of the summer day, hair and eyes light, and forehead white as snow, so far as the chip hat had sheltered it from the sun. At the first glance one saw the likeness between her and Habermann, but his features and demeanor seemed reserved, and hers quite fresh and open; her whole appearance showed that she was as active a worker from temperament as he was from honor and duty.

To see her brother, and to fly toward him was all one. "Karl, my brother Karl, my other father!" cried she, and hung about his neck; but, as she looked more closely into his eyes, she held him back from herself: "Tell me what has happened, tell me what dreadful thing has happened! what is it?"

Before he could answer, her husband entered the door, and going up to Habermann gave him his hand, and said slowly, as if with an effort; "Good day, brother-in-law; take a seat."

"Let him tell what has happened to him," cried his wife, impatiently.

"Yes," said Jochen, "sit down, and then tell. Good day to you also, Bräsig; sit down too, Bräsig," and with that Jochen Nüssler, or as he was generally called young Jochen, sat down himself in a corner by the stove, which piece of furniture he had bought with his own separate money. He was a long lean man, who carried himself with stooping shoulders, and it seemed as if all his limbs had particular objections to being put to the ordinary use. He was well on toward forty, his face was pale, and as dull as his speech, and his soft sandy hair hung in front and behind of equal length, over his forehead and the collar of his coat, and never had known any fashions of parting or curling; his mother had from his childhood up combed the hair over his face, and so it had stayed, and when it looked rather tangled his mother would say: "Never mind, Joching, the rough foal makes the smartest horse." Whether it was because his eyes must always peer through this long hair, or from his nature, his glance had something shy, as if he could not see things clearly or make up his mind positively, and though he was right-handed, his mouth was askew. This came from tobacco-smoking, for that was the one business which he followed with perseverance, and as he kept the pipe hanging in the left corner of his mouth, it had drawn it down in that direction, and, while looking at him from the right it seemed as if he could not say "zipp," from the left he appeared like an ogre who would devour children.

Now he sat there in his own especial chimney-corner, and smoked out of his peculiar mouth-corner, and while his impulsive wife for sorrow and compassion lamented over Habermann's story as if it had all happened to herself that very day, and now it was her brother, and now his little daughter that she kissed and comforted, he sat and looked over at the chief actors, from the side next Bräsig, and with the tobacco smoke came now and then a couple of broken words from the left side of his mouth: "Yes, it is all so, as you say. It is all as true as leather. What shall we do about it?"

The Herr Inspector Bräsig was the exact opposite of young Jochen; now he ran about the room, now he sat down on a chair, and now on a table, and worked his little legs with jumping up and down, like a linen-weaver, and when Frau Nüssler kissed and stroked her brother, he kissed and stroked him also, and when Frau Nüssler took the little child in her arms and patted her, then he took her up afterward, and carried her about the room, and sat her down again in a chair, but always on grandmother's cap.

"God bless me!" cried the house wife suddenly, "have I clean forgotten everything? Bräsig, you should have thought of it. All this time you have had nothing to eat and drink!" and with that she ran to the cup-board, and brought fair, white, country bread, and fresh butter, and went out and brought in sausages and ham and cheese, and a couple of bottles of the strong beer brewed especially for grandfather, and a pitcher of milk for the little ones; and when all was neatly arranged on the white table-cloth, she drew her brother to the table, and taking up the little girl, chair and all, sat her down to the table also, and cut bread, and served them, and all so nimble with hand and foot, and as nimble with mouth and speech. And so bright were knife and fork, and as bright mien and eye; and so pure and white apron and table-cloth, and as pure and white her good heart!

"You shall have something next," said she to her little twin-apples, and stroked the little flaxen heads. "Little cousin comes first. Bräsig, sit up to the table. Jochen, you come too."

"Yes, I may as well," said Jochen, took a long, last pull at his pipe, and brought his chair and himself to the table.

"Karl," said Bräsig, "I can recommend these sausages, your sister has an uncommon knack at them, and I have many a time told my housekeeper she should get the recipe, for the old woman messes all sorts of unnatural things together, which don't harmonize at all; in short there is no suitability or connection, although the ingredients are as good as a swine fed exclusively on peas can furnish."

"Mother, help Bräsig," said Jochen.

"Thank you, Frau Nüssler; but with your leave I will take my drop of Kümmel. Karl, since the time when you and I and that rascal Pomuchelskopp were serving our apprenticeship under old Knirkstädt, I have accustomed myself to take a little Kümmel with my breakfast, or with my bit of supper, and it suits me well, thank God! But, Karl, how came you to get in with that rascal Pomuchelskopp? I told you long ago the beggar was not to be trusted; he is such an old snake, he is a crafty hound, in short, he is a Jesuit."

"Ah, Bräsig," said Habermann, "we won't talk about it. It is true he might have treated me differently, but still I was to blame; why did I fall in with his proposal? Something else is in my head now. If I could only have a place again!"

"Of course, you must have a place again. My gracious Herr Count is looking out for a competent inspector for his principal estate; but, Karl, don't take it ill of me, that wouldn't suit you. Do you see, you must be rigged every morning with freshly blacked boots and a tight-fitting coat, and you must talk High-German to him, for he regards Platt-Deutsch as uncultivated, and then you have all the women about your neck, for they rule everything there. And if you could get along with the boots and the dress-coat, and the High-German,--for you used to know it well enough, though you may be a little out of practice now,--yet the women would be too much for you. The gracious Countess looks after you in the cow-stable and in the pig-pen. In short it is a service like--what shall I say? like Sodom and Gomorrah!"

"Look here!" cried the mistress of the house, "it just occurs to me that the Pumpelhagen inspector is going to leave on St. John's day; that will be the place for you, Karl."

"Frau Nüssler is always right," said Bräsig. "What the Herr Kammerrath von Pumpelhagen is,"--for he laid the emphasis in the man's title always upon rath, so that it seemed as if he and the Kammerrath had served in the army together, or at least had eaten out of the same spoon and platter,--"what the Herr Kammerrath von Pumpelhagen is, nobody knows better than I. A man who thinks much of his people, and gives a good salary, and is quite a gentleman of the old school. He knew you too, in old times, Karl. That is the right place for you, and to-morrow I will go over there with you. What do yow say to it, young Jochen?"

"Yes," said Herr Nüssler, "it is all as true as leather."

"Bless me!" cried the young wife, and an anxious look overspread her handsome face, "how I forget everything to-day! If grandfather and grandmother knew that we were sitting down to supper with company, and they not called, they would never forgive me. Sit a little closer together, children. Jochen, you might have thought of it."

"Yes, what shall I do about it now?" said Jochen, as she was already out of the room.

It was not long before the two old people came back with her, shuffling in with their leathern slippers. Upon both their faces lay that lurking expectation and that vague curiosity which comes from very dull hearing, and which quite too easily passes into an expression of obstinacy and distrust. It has justly been said that married people, who have lived long together, and have thought and cared and worked for the same objects, come at last to look like each other; and even if that is not true of the cut of the features, it holds good for the expression. Both looked like people who never had allowed themselves any pleasure or satisfaction which would be in the least expensive; both looked shabby and dingy in their clothing, as if they must still be sparing and tug at the wheel, and as if even water cost money. No look of comfort in their old age, no pleasure sparkled in their eyes, for they had had but one pleasure in their whole lives,--that was their Jochen and his good success; now they were laid aside and heaviness lay on their natures, and on their only joy, for Jochen was quite too heavy; but for his success they still cared and toiled,--it was the last goal of their lives.

The old man was almost imbecile, but the old woman still kept her faculties, and her eyes glanced furtively into all the corners, like a pair of sharpers watching their opportunity.

Habermann rose and gave his hand to the two old people, and his sister stood by, looking anxiously in their faces to see what they thought of the visit. She had already told them the occasion of her brother's coming, and that might have been the reason why their faces looked sourer than usual; or it might have been on account of the luxurious supper with which the table was spread.

The old folks sat down to the table. The old woman looked sharply at Habermann's little girl. "Is that his?" she asked.

The young woman nodded.

"Going to stay here?" she asked further.

The young woman nodded again.

"So!" said the old woman, and prolonged the word, as if to indicate all the damage which she expected her Jochen to suffer on that account. "Yes, times are hard," she began, as if she must have a fling at the times, "and one has enough to do to carry oneself through the world."

The old man all the time was looking at the beer bottles and Bräsig's glass. "Is that my beer?" asked he.

"Yes," shouted Bräsig into his ear, "and it is fine beer, which Frau Nüssler has brewed, a good cordial for a thin, weak person."

"Too extravagant! Too extravagant!" muttered the old man to himself. The old woman ate, but kept looking away, over the table, toward the chest of drawers.

The young wife, who must have studied attentively the old woman's behavior, looked in the same direction, and perceived with horror that the cap was missing from the stand. "Good heavens! what had become of the cap?" She had herself that very morning plaited it and hung it up on the stand.

"Where is my cap for to-morrow?" asked the old woman, at last.

"Never mind now, mother," said the young woman, bending toward her, "I will get it for you by and by."

"Is it all plaited?"

The young woman nodded, and thought surely now grandmother would be satisfied; but the old woman glanced her eyes sideways about the room, as, fifty years ago, she had been used to look at young men. The Herr Inspector Bräsig called his sins to mind, as they began to talk about the cap, and tried, in a couple of hasty glances, to ascertain what had become of the affair; but he had not much time, for there shot over the old woman's face such a bitter-sweet, venomous grin, that she reminded one of the dry bread steeped in poisonous syrup with which one catches flies.

"Are you sure you plaited it?" said she, and pointed to Habermann's little Louise.

"Good heavens, what is that!" cried the young woman, and sprang up and perceived an end of the cap-string hanging out under the child's little dress. She lifted the child, and would have taken the head-gear, but the old woman was quicker. Hastily she seized her disordered finery, and, as she perceived the burst-out puff and Bräsig's half-inserted drawing-string, the venom broke out, and, holding up the cap, "Mischievous child!" cried she, and made a motion as if she would box the child's ears with it.

But Bräsig caught her arm, and cried, "The child knows nothing about it;" and to himself he muttered, "The old dragon!" And behind grandmother's chair began a great crying, and Mining sobbed, "Won't do it again! Won't do it again!" and Lining sobbed also, "Won't do it again! Won't do it again!"

"Bless my soul!" cried the young woman, "our own children have done the mischief. Mother, it was our own children!" But the old woman had all her life understood too well what was for her own advantage, not to know in her old age how to profit by her grievances; what she would not hear, she did not hear, and she would not hear this. She called and beckoned to the old man: "Come!"

"Mother, mother," begged the young woman, "give me the cap, I will make it all right again."

"Who is up in the pasture?" asked the old woman, and went with old Jochen out of the door.

Young Jochen lighted his pipe. "God bless me!" said the young woman, "she is right, I must go to the pasture. Grandmother will not think well of me for the next four weeks."

"Gruff was an old dog," said Bräsig, "but Gruff had to give in at last."

"Don't cry any longer, you poor little things," said the mother, drying her children's tears. "You didn't mean any harm, but you are too heedless. And now behave well, and play with little cousin. I must go. Jochen, look after the children a little," and with that she put on her chip hat and went to the pasture.

"Mothers-in-law are the devil's claw!" said Bräsig. "But you, young Jochen," turning to the man, who sat there as if his mother and his wife were no concern of his, "you should be ashamed of yourself to let your wife be so abused by the old woman."

"Yes? what shall I do about it, being her son?" said young Jochen.

"You cannot beat her, to be sure, since they are unfortunately your parents; but you might give a filial admonition, now and then, like a dutiful son, that the devil in her must be cast out, if she will not keep peace in the family. And you, Karl Habermann, don't take this little quarrel too much to heart; for your dear sister has a good temper and a joyous heart. She soon gets over it, and the old termagant must give in at last, for they can do nothing without her. The young woman is the mainspring of the house. But"--here he drew out from his pocket an immense double-cased watch, such a thing as one calls a warming-pan--"really, it is close upon seven! I must hurry, for my people need looking after."

"Hold on," said Habermann, "I will go part way with you. Good-bye for so long, Jochen."

"Good-bye, also, brother-in-law," said Jochen, and remained sitting in his corner.

As they came out of doors, Habermann said, "But, Bräsig, how can you speak so of the old people, in their son's presence?"

"He is used to it, Karl. No devil could endure those two old dogs-in-the-manger. They have embroiled themselves with the whole neighborhood, and as for the servants, they run miles to get out of their way."

"Good heavens," said Habermann, "my poor sister! She was such a joyous child, and now in such a house, and with such a lout of a man!"

"There you are right, Karl, he is an old lout (Nüss), and Nüssler is his name; but he does not treat your sister badly, and, although he is an old blockhead and has no sort of smartness about him, he is not yet so dull that he cannot see how your sister manages the whole concern."

"The poor girl! On my account, that she might not be a burden on me, as she said, and that our old mother might see one of her children settled before her death, she took the man.

"I know all about it, Karl, I know it from my own experience. Don't you remember? It was in rye-harvest, and you said to me, 'Zachary,' said you, 'your activity is a disadvantage to you, you are carrying in your rye still damp.' And I said, 'How so?' For on Sunday we had already had Streichelbier, and your sister was there also, and with such weather why shouldn't I get in my rye? And then I told you, unless I am mistaken, that of my three partners I would marry no other than your sister. Then you laughed again, so mischievously, and said, she was still too young. 'What has her youth to do with it?' said I. Then you said again my other two partners had the first chance, and laughed, not believing I was in earnest; and so the matter dawdled along for awhile, for my gracious Herr Count would not give his consent, and allowed no married inspectors. And next thing it was too late, for young Jochen had spoken for her, and your mother was on his side. No, it was not to be," said the honest old fellow, looking pensively along his nose, "but when I see her little rogues of twins, and think to myself that they ought rightly to be mine, listen to me, Karl, then I feel as if I could trample the old woman and old Jochen and young Jochen into the ground together. But it is a real blessing to the old Jesuits that your sister has came into the house, with her kind heart and cheerful disposition; for if they had had a daughter-in-law of a different sort, they would long since have been dead and buried."

With these words, they had come out of the hamlet, and as they turned by the farm-garden Habermann exclaimed, "Good heavens, can it be that the two old people are standing on that hill?"

"Yes," said Bräsig, with a scornful laugh, "there is the old pack of Jesuits again at their place of retirement."

"Retirement!" exclaimed Habermann. "On a hill-top!"

"It is even so, Karl. The old reptile trusts nobody, not her own children, and if she has something to say which her ordinary gestures and pantomime will not suffice for, then they always come here to this steep hill, where they can see all around if any one is within hearing, and then they shout their secrets in each other's ears. Yes, now they are in full conclave, the old woman has laid a dragon's egg, and they are setting on it together."

"She is so hasty and passionate," said Habermann. "Just see how the old woman gesticulates! What would she have?"

"I know right well what they are deliberating and ruminating upon. I can understand a hundred paces off, for I know her of old. And Karl," he added, after a little thought, raising his eyebrows, "it is best you should know all, that you may hold yourself ready; they are talking of you and your little one."

"Of me, and my little girl?" asked Habermann, in astonishment.

"Yes, Karl. You see if you had come with a great bag of money, they would have welcomed you with open arms, for money is the one thing which they hold in respect; but in your temporary embarrassment they look upon you and your little girl as nothing better than a couple of intruders, who will take the bread from their mouths, and from their old blockhead of a Jochen."

"God bless me!" cried Habermann, "why didn't I leave the child with the Rassows? What shall I do with the poor little thing? Do you know any expedient? I cannot leave her here, not even with my own sister can I leave her here."

"But naturally, you wish to have her near you. Now I will tell you, Karl, tonight you must stay with the Nüssler's; tomorrow we will go to the Herr Kammerrath at Pumpelhagen. If that goes well, then we can find a place for the child here in the neighbourhood; if not, we will ride to the city, and there we must find some opening,--if not otherwise, with the merchant Kurz. And now good-bye, Karl! Don't take the matter too much to heart,--things will improve, Karl!" whereupon he departed.

"Yes, if all were like you," said Habermann, as he went back to his sister's house, "then I should get over the steep mountain; but get over it I must, and will," and the cheerful courage, which had been nurtured by labor and his feeling of duty, broke through the gloom, like the sun through a mist. "My sister shall suffer no inconvenience on my account, and I will take care of my child myself."

In the evening, when the milk had been cared for, Habermann walked with his sister along the garden-path, and she spoke of his, and he of her, troubles.

"Eh, Karl," said she, "don't fret about me! I am used to it all now. Yes, it is true, the old folks are very selfish and irritable; but if they sulk at me for a week, I forget it all the next hour, and as for Jochen, I must own that he lays nothing in my way, and has never given me a hard word. If he were only a little more active and ready,--but that is not to be looked for in him. I have enough to do in my house-keeping, but I have to concern myself with the out-of-door work, too, which is not a woman's business, and there Bräsig is a real comfort to me, for he has an eye to the fields and the farm-yard, and starts Jochen up a little."

"Does the farming go well on the whole, and do you come out right at the year's end?" asked the brother.

"It does not go as well as it ought. We are too sparing for that, and the old folks will not allow us to make any changes or improvements. We come out right, and the rent is always paid promptly, but there are Jochen's two old brothers-in-law, the merchant Kurz, and the Rector Baldrian--they made quite a stir about it, and set the old people and us by the ears because they wanted their share of the property. The Rector doesn't really need it, but he is such an old miser; but Kurz could use his money, for he is a merchant, and will yet have a large business. But the two old people wish to give almost everything to Jochen, and with that which they have kept back for themselves they cannot part, and the old woman has an old rhyme, which she always quotes, if one touches on the subject:--

'Who to his children gives his bread,
Himself shall suffer need instead,
And with a club be stricken dead.'

But it is wrong, all wrong, and no blessing can come of it, for one child is as good as another, and at first I said that right out to the old people. Oh, what an uproar there was! They had earned it, and what had I brought into the family? Upon my knees I ought to thank God and them, that they would make a man of Jochen. But I have persuaded Jochen, so that to Kurz at least he has from time to time given upwards of fifteen hundred thalers. The old woman has noticed it, to be sure, and has reckoned it all up, but she does not know yet the truth of the matter; because, since Jochen is rather slow, and is not used to reckoning, I keep the purse myself, and there I positively will not allow grandmother to interfere. No, grandmother, I am not so stupid as that! If I have a house of my own, I will have my own purse. And that is their great grievance, that they can no longer play the guardian over Jochen; but Jochen is almost forty, and if he will not rule himself, then I will rule him, for I am his wife, and the nearest to him, as our Frau Pastorin says. Now, tell me, Karl, am I right or am I wrong?"

"You are right, Dürten," said Habermann.

With that they said good-night, and went to bed.