Aloys had begun the practice too, but only in secret. One evening he mustered up courage to mingle with his fellows, with the point of his pipe peeping forth from his breast-pocket. One of the boys pulled the pipe out of his pocket with a yell; Aloys tried to seize it, but it passed from hand to hand with shouts of laughter, and the more impatiently he demanded it the less it was forthcoming, until it disappeared altogether, and every one professed to know nothing of what had become of it. Aloys began to whimper, which made them laugh still more; so at last he snatched the cap of the first robber from his head, and ran with it into the house of Jacob the blacksmith. Then the capless one brought the pipe, which had been hidden in the wood-yard.
Jacob Bomiller the blacksmith's house was what is called Aloys' "go-out." He was always there when not at home, and never at home after his work was done. Aunt Applon, (Apollonia,) Jacob's wife, was his cousin; and; besides his own mother and us children, she and her eldest daughter Mary Ann always called him by his right name. In the morning he would get up early, and, after having fed and watered his two cows and his heifer, he always went to Jacob's house and knocked at the door until Mary Ann opened it. With a simple "Good-morning," he passed through the stable into the barn. The cattle knew his step, and always welcomed him with a complacent growl and a turn of the head: he never stopped to return the compliment, but went into the barn and filled the cribs of the two oxen and the two cows. He was on particularly good terms with the roan cow. He had raised her from a calf; and, when he stood by her and watched her at her morning meal, she often licked his hands, to the improvement of his toilet. Then he would open the door of the stable and restore its neatness and good order, often chatting cosily to the dumb beasts as he made them turn to the right or left. Not a dunghill in the village was so broad and smooth and with such clean edges as the one which Aloys built before the house of Jacob the blacksmith; for a fine dunghill is the greatest ornament to a villager's door-front in the Black Forest. The next thing he did was to wash and curry the oxen and cows until you might have seen your face in their sleek hides. This done, he ran to the pump before the house and filled the trough with water: the cattle, unchained, ran out to drink; while he spread fresh straw in their stalls. Thus, by the time that Mary Ann came to the stable to milk the cows, she found every thing neat and clean. Often, when a cow was "skittish," and kicked, Aloys stood by her and laid his hand on her back while Mary Ann milked; but generally he found something else to do. And when Mary Ann said, "Aloys, you are a good boy," he never looked up at her, but plied the stable-broom so vehemently that it threatened to sweep the boulder-stones out of the floor. In the barn he cut the feed needed for the day; and, after all the work required in the lower story of the building--which, in the Black Forest, as is well known, contains what in America is consigned to the barn and outhouses--was finished, he mounted up-stairs into the kitchen, carried water, split the kindling-wood, and at last found his way into the room. Mary Ann brought the soup-bowl, set it on the table, folded her hands, and, everybody having done the same, spoke a prayer. All now seated themselves with a "God's blessing." The bowl was the only dish upon the table, into which every one dipped his spoon, Aloys often stealing a mouthful from the place where Mary Ann's spoon usually entered. The deep silence of a solemn rite prevailed at the table: very rarely was a word spoken. After the meal and another prayer, Aloys trudged home.
Thus things went on till Aloys reached his nineteenth year, when, on New-Year's day, Mary Ann made him a present of a shirt, the hemp of which she had broken herself, and had spun, bleached, and sewed it. He was overjoyed, and only regretted that it would not do to walk the street in shirt-sleeves: though it was bitter cold, he would not have cared for that in the least; but people would have laughed at him, and Aloys was daily getting more and more sensitive to people's laughter.
The main cause of this was the old squire's[2] new hand who had come into the village last harvest.
He was a tall, handsome fellow, with a bold, dare-devil face appropriately set off with a reddish mustache. George (for such was his name) was a cavalry soldier, and almost always wore the cap belonging to his uniform. When he walked up the village of a Sunday, straight as an arrow, turning out his toes and rattling his spurs, every thing about him said, as plainly as words could speak, "I know all the girls are in love with me;" and when he rode his horses down to Jacob's pump to water them, poor Aloys' heart was ready to burst as he saw Mary Ann look out of the window. He wished that there were no such things as milk and butter in the world, so that he too might be a horse-farmer.
Inexperienced as Aloys was, he knew all about the three classes or "standings" into which the peasants of the Black Forest are divided. The cow-farmers are the lowest in the scale: their draught-cattle, in addition to their labor, must yield them milk and calves. Then come the ox-farmers, whose beasts, after having served their time, may be fattened and killed. The horse-farmers are still more fortunate: their beasts of draught yield neither milk nor meat, and yet eat the best food and bring the highest prices.
Whether Aloys took the trouble to compare this arrangement with the four castes of Egypt, or the three estates of feudalism, is doubtful.
On this New-Year's day, George derived a great advantage from his horses. After morning service, he took the squire's daughter and her playmate Mary Ann sleighing to Impfingen; and, though the heart of poor Aloys trembled within him, he could not refuse George's request to help him hitch the horses and try them in the sleigh. He drove about the village, quite forgetting the poor figure he cut beside the showy soldier. When the girls were seated, Aloys led the horses a little way, running beside them until they were fairly started, and then let them go. George drove down the street, cracking his whip; the horses jingled their bells; half the commune looked out of their windows; and poor Aloys stared after them long after they were out of sight; and then went sadly home, cursing the snow which brought the water to his eyes. The village seemed to have died out when Mary Ann was not to be in it for a whole day.
All this winter Aloys was often much cast down. At his mother's house the girls frequently assembled to hold their spinning-frolics,--a custom much resembling our quiltings. They always prefer to hold these gatherings at the house of a comrade recently married or of a good-natured widow; elder married men are rather in the way. So the girls often came to Mother Maria, and the boys dropped in later, without waiting to be invited. Hitherto Aloys had never troubled himself about them so long as they left him undisturbed: he had sat in a corner doing nothing. But now he often said to himself, "Aloys, this is too bad: you are nineteen years old now, and must begin to put yourself forward." And then again he would say, "I wish the devil would carry that George away piecemeal!" George was the object of his ill-humor, for he had soon obtained a perfect control over the minds of all the boys, and made them dance to his whistle. He could whistle and sing and warble and tell stories like a wizard. He taught the boys and girls all sorts of new songs. The first time he sang the verse,--