"Well, look after your feet, at all events," said the other, as the shoemaker tripped again. "You do nothing but stumble. No; shares are beginning to fall, so far I am of your opinion; but what matters; I shall eat my way through; I've no fear of that; and if M. Von Schwanthal only shoots as much game as he has promised, and we get meat, and such meat, too, three times a day, I don't mind about this little mud excursion. Moreover, I've been on the look-out for some time past after a deer; it's strange that, in such a forest as this, the game should not be running about more plentifully. But, shoemaker, did you imagine the river on which our town was to be built, like what it really is?"
"How? what is it really? it does not exist at all. Call that a river!"
"Well, what I mean is, did you imagine it like what it is?"
"I don't exactly know," said the shoemaker, with a sly laugh at the tailor, "I have not examined it so narrowly as you have, you know; you have a well-grounded acquaintance with it."
"A fine subject for joking, to be sure," said the little one, indignantly; "suppose I had been drowned?"
"If we creep along in this style," said Schmidt, who now joined in the conversation, "we shall certainly not come to our journey's end to-day; we don't advance a hundred yards straight forward, before some tree or other has to be cut down to make room for the wagon. Are there no foresters[16] here, I wonder?"
"Yes, a nice place this for foresters," said the brewer; "foresters in this wood! But if we don't soon reach some place where one may get something to drink, I shall get thirsty. What do you call all the towns, then, that are said to be in this neighbourhood? Deuce take it; where there are so many towns, there must surely be some village or other to be met with."
The worthy brewer was not aware, that in the United States of North America everything, even a group of two or three houses only, is called a town. A grand name, some ancient Greek or Roman one if possible, throws sand into the eyes of foreigners, and the land speculators in the large towns often sell "lots," as they call them, to emigrants, who expect to find a lively, animated place, and instead, have to be thankful if they can meet with anybody at all there to supply them with bread to begin with.
The women had meanwhile reconciled themselves to their wanderings as well as they could, and only one of them, a young girl, who was sick, and unable to walk, had been, on that account, placed upon the wagon, where, upon some spread-out mattresses between the well-secured chests, she had a sufficiently convenient, although not very quiet place, for the wagon, owing to the rough uneven road, tumbled about dreadfully. The Hehrmanns went foremost, and evidently struggled to let no melancholy humour be seen, although the tough mud which they had to wade through, and the innumerable stringy, and sometimes prickly, creeping plants, which entangled their feet, while the thorns penetrated their stockings, and tore their ancles and insteps till they bled, made walking as troublesome and unpleasant as well could be.
Thus they wandered and wandered on, until the sun went down below the tree tops, for fortunately he had driven away the clouds of rain, and the heaven extended its blue tent, brightly and clearly, over the travellers; but the close oppressive heat, on the other hand, operated yet more unfavourably upon them, because no good water was to be had, wherewith to quench their burning thirst. The wished-for fresher evening air at last cooled their heated faces, although the mosquitoes, which had lain concealed during the glowing heat, now re-appeared with fresh vigour. Yet they cared less for these than for the burning rays of the sun, and wandered forward with quickened and more elastic tread. But ere long, their silent leader intimated to them that they must bivouack where they were, for that he could not trust himself to keep a straight course after dark, and besides that, to proceed further at night was not only extremely wearisome, but even dangerous.