'No; I's better here.'
'But you can see the great world, Mina. You need not work, I will take care of you. You shall have pretty dresses; wouldn't you like that?' I asked, curious to discover the secret of the Separatist indifference to everything outside.
'Nein,' answered the little maiden, tranquilly; 'nein, fräulein. Ich bin zufrieden.'
Those three words were the key. 'I am contented.' So were they taught from childhood, and—I was about to say—they knew no better; but, after all, is there anything better to know?
We talked on, for Mina understood English, although many of her mates could chatter only in their Würtemberg dialect, whose provincialisms confused my carefully learned German; I was grounded in Goethe, well read in Schiller, and struggling with Jean Paul, who, fortunately, is 'der Einzige,' the only; another such would destroy life. At length a bell sounded, and forthwith work was laid aside in the fields, the workshops, and the houses, while all partook of a light repast, one of the five meals with which the long summer day of toil is broken. Flagons of beer had the men afield, with bread and cheese; the women took bread and apple-butter. But Mina did not care for the thick slice which the thrifty house-mother had provided; she had not the steady unfanciful appetite of the Community which eats the same food day after day, as the cow eats its grass, desiring no change.
'And the gardener really wishes you to marry Jacob?' I said as she sat on the grass near me, enjoying the rest.
'Yes, Jacob is good,—always the same.'
'And Gustav?'
'Ah, mein Gustav! Lady, he is young, tall,—so tall as tree; he run, he sing, his eyes like veilchen there, his hair like gold. If I see him not soon, lady, I die! The year so long,—so long they are. Three year without Gustav!' The brown eyes grew dim, and out came the square-folded handkerchief, of colored calico for week-days.
'But it will not be long now, Mina.'