"I must tell you something else, too. Only think, mother! last Tuesday three weeks, as I was sitting at my wagon and mending the tongue,--you can't run to the wagoner's here every five minutes: you must do such things yourself,--what should I hear but somebody say to me, 'Hard at it, Aloys?' and, as I looked up, who should stand there but Long Heartz's Jake, who was in the Guards? We didn't use to be the best of friends; but I forgot all about it, and fell on his neck and almost hugged him to death. I do believe if George himself was to come I'd shake hands with him just to think he came from Nordstetten. I called the whole house together and cut the throat of a turkey. Jake ate his dinner with me just as anybody else would. The laws about eating with Jews, and so on, are for the Old World, and not for the New.
"Jake stayed a week and helped me work in the field: he can do it just as well as a Christian. I was so glad to see he's come to understand that, for a soldier who has honor in him, it isn't the thing to run about peddling. He's going to buy land somewhere hereabouts. I'm helping him do it. I must have my dear Nordstetten Jews here too, for it wouldn't be Nordstetten without them. After that, he's going to join the militia. He'll be an officer before long, most likely. In the evening we used to sit together, I and my Mechtilde, my brothers-in-law and my sisters-in-law, and their boys and girls, and Jake, and we'd sing the songs we used to sing at home; and then I felt just as I did that time Mary Ann got her new distaff. But you mustn't suppose I think very often of Mary Ann. I love my Mechtilde very much, and she loves me too. I wish every couple loved each other as much as we do, and lived as happily together.
"Now, about your coming here. I don't want to beg you too hard: Mat'll write all about it. But, if it's possible---- No, no, I won't beg you. Jake tells me that our Xavier goes to see Valentine's Mag: well, she won't be afraid of the sea I guess, and he can bring her over too. It's all one now, Nordstetten here or Nordstetten there.
"Write me an answer right soon. Only send the letter to Mat, as you did before: he goes to town oftener than I do.
"Now, good-bye to you, and I hope this will find you very well indeed. Think of me sometimes. My Mechtilde and my Bat and my parents-in-law send you their best loves. My sister-in-law has taught little Bat to say, when they ask him, 'Where's your grandmother?' 'Over there in the Black Forest.' I am your loving son.
"Aloys Schorer.
"See how I reach my little hand Far over to your distant land.
"That's my Bat's hand: I drew it, dear mother, just as he laid it on the paper, because there was room enough."
Ivo was asked to read Mat's letter also; but he promised to do so another time, and took his leave, the grateful mother, who was wiping the tears from her eyes, having accompanied him to the door. Outside of the village he saw his sister Mag walking in the meadow with Xavier. He now understood what it was that often made her so disputatious and discontented: her father would not tolerate her acquaintance with "the American," as he called Xavier.