Quite early, as is the custom in the country, the guests for the evening arrived; and both Mary and Aunt Sarah felt fully repaid for their hard work of the past weeks by the pleasure John Landis evinced at the changed appearance of the room.
The Professor's wife said, "It scarcely seems possible to have changed the old room so completely."
Aunt Sarah replied, "Paint and paper do wonders when combined with good taste, furnished by Mary."
During the evening one might have been forgiven for thinking Professor Schmidt disloyal to the Mother Country (he having been born and educated in Heidelberg) had you overheard him speaking to Ralph on his favorite subject, the "Pennsylvania German." During a lull in the general conversation in the room Mary heard the Professor remark to Ralph: "The Pennsylvania Germans are a thrifty, honest and industrious class of people, many of whom have held high offices. The first Germans to come to America as colonists in Pennsylvania were, as a rule, well to do. Experts, when examining old documents of Colonial days, after counting thousands of signatures, found the New York 'Dutch' and the Pennsylvania 'Germans' were above the average in education in those days. Their dialect, the so-called 'Pennsylvania German' or 'Dutch,' as it is erroneously called by many, is a dialect which we find from the Tauber Grund to Frankfurt, A.M. As the German language preponderated among the early settlers, the language of different elements, becoming amalgamated, formed a class of people frequently called 'Pennsylvania Dutch'."
Professor Harbaugh, D.D., has written some beautiful poems in Pennsylvania German which an eminent authority, Professor Kluge, a member of the Freiburg University, Germany, has thought worthy to be included among the classics. They are almost identical with the poems written by Nadler in Heidelberger Mundart, or dialect.
Mary, who had been listening intently to the Professor, said, when he finished talking to Ralph: "Oh, please, do repeat one of Professor Harbaugh's poems for us."
He replied, "I think I can recall several stanzas of 'Das Alt Schulhaus an der Krick.' Another of Professor Harbaugh's poems, and I think one of the sweetest I have ever read, is 'Heemweeh.' Both poems are published in his book entitled 'Harbaugh's Harfe,' in Pennsylvania German dialect, and possess additional interest from the fact that the translations of these poems, in the latter part of the same book, were made by the author himself."
"Oh, do repeat all that you remember of both the poems," begged Mary.
The Professor consented, saying: "As neither you nor Mr. Jackson understand the Pennsylvania German dialect, I shall translate them for you, after repeating what I remember. 'Heemweeh' means Homesickness, but first I shall give you 'Das Alt Schulhaus an der Krick'."
[[A]]DAS ALT SCHULHAUS AN DER KRICK.