Seed-time and Harvest: A Novel

by Fritz Reuter

The latter was the only enduring retrenchment--probably because he was not fed at the same crib with his mares; all the others stopped after a week or so; it was of no use, he said, to begin things that one couldn't carry through. It was much in the same way with his agricultural studies. The first three pages of every book, he knew almost by heart, he had read them so often; for he always began at the beginning, because, when he had got so far, some thing would divert his attention from the text. Then, as he felt so sure of these, he would reward himself for his industry by looking up something interesting in the books, and as he read a chapter on the breeding of horses, he would say to himself he knew all that, and more too; there had been great progress in those matters. After all, what good would it do for him to read these books, if he could not take hold of the business practically? he knew very well a farmer should be practical,--nothing if not practical! So he made the acquaintance of a Herr von So-and-So, who owned an estate in the neighborhood; he rode with him over the fields, and asked the inspector what he was doing that day, and when they returned to the house, he knew as well as the Herr von So-and-So that in Seelsdorp on the 15th of June, they were carting manure, and that his gray Wallach was foaled in Basedow from the gray Momus; or he went with Herr von So and So, with a gun over his shoulder, through the barley stubble, and got the information by the way that the barley had been harvested on the 27th of August, shot a brace of partridges, and when he went to bed at night he knew as well as Herr von So and So how the partridges tasted.

He found this sort of practical apiculture very agreeable, and as a man is apt to talk about the things that please him, Axel did not fail to exhibit his attainments, and was soon known among his comrades as a shining light, quite an agricultural tallow candle, four to the pound. Since most of them were the sons of noble landed proprietors, and destined to the same life, and looking forward with horror to the time when they must leave their jolly soldier-life, for the hard work of gentlemen farmers, Axel seemed to them an unusual example of diligence, and they looked upon him as upon some wonderful animal who out of pure love for labor had put his head into the yoke. Most of them admired him accordingly, though a few blockheads turned up their noses, and insinuated that for a lieutenant his conversation savored too strongly of the farm-yard.

Having set himself up as an authority in agricultural matters, it was necessary to sustain his reputation, and to make progress with time. And that was a period of wonderful progress in agricultural science, for Professor Liebig had written a famous book for the farmers, which was brimful and running over of carbon and saltpetre, and sulphur, and gypsum, and lime, and sal-ammoniac, and hydrates and hydropathy, enough to drive one crazy. People who wished to dip their fingers in science procured this book, and sat down to it, and read and read, until their heads were dizzy; and if they tried to recollect, they could not tell whether gypsum were a stimulant or a nutriment,--that is to say, for clover, not for human beings.

Axel bought this book, and it fared with him as with the rest, he read and read, but kept growing dizzier, and his head turned round as if there were screws getting loose in it, and he shut the book. It would probably have stopped here, with him, as with the others, he would have forgotten the whole concern, if he had not had the fortune to know a good-natured apothecary, who could let him take all the drugs, of which the book treated, into his own hands, and smell them with his own nose. This was the practical way, and from that moment he understood the business, yes, as well as Liebig himself, so that he had no occasion to read farther in the book.

The branch of agriculture which gave him particular pleasure was farming-implements and machinery. He had from a child taken great delight in all sorts of inventions; as a boy he had made little mills, he had pasted, and, although his mother had a great dislike to anything that smacked of handicraft, he had, during his school-days, taken private lessons in book-binding. These tastes came into exercise now; he was uncommonly pleased to see a design of a new-fashioned American rake, or a Scotch harrow, and it was not long before he indulged in the innocent amusement of cutting little rakes and harrows and rollers himself.

He did not stop here, however, but went on to design rape-clappers, flax-bruisers, and corn-shellers. He might possibly have rested in these achievements,--and it was surely worthy of honor in a lieutenant to lay aside his uniform and go to work with drawing-knife, auger and glue-pot,--if he had not made the acquaintance of an old half-crazy watchmaker, who had wasted his life and his small property in endeavoring to discover, for an ungrateful world, the secret of perpetual motion. This old benefactor of humanity led him into his workshop, and showed him how one wheel must be made to turn upon another, and this upon a cylinder, and that upon a screw, and the screw upon a winch, and that upon a wheel again, and so on, over and over; he showed him machines that wouldn't go, and others that would go, and yet others which wouldn't go as they should; he exhibited machines which Axel could comprehend, and some which he couldn't comprehend, and some which he didn't comprehend himself; but it was all very interesting to Axel, and he became inspired in his turn with the desire of being a benefactor to mankind. His idea was to invent a machine, which would do all sorts of field labor, which should rake, harrow, roll, and pull up weeds. It was really touching to see the fresh, young lieutenant of cavalry and the withered, wrinkled old watchmaker, sitting together and planning with the lever and screws to elevate mankind.

And so it might have gone on, for all me, and for all him, and he might possibly have elevated mankind, though the constant tugging of securities and discounts and such matters had a tendency to bring him down, for he thought nothing about the payment of his debts, and although there was a good income from Pumpelhagen, according to his father's will it was I to be applied first to the payment of his own debts, and the sisters must be supported out of it; and, as for the rest, he lived without anxiety when his first needs were supplied.

But there are a pair--brother and sister--who shake the most indifferent person out of his dreams, and drive him, without, ceremony, out from the warm chimney-corner, into the storm and rain,--these are hate and love. Hate thrusts one head-foremost out of the door, saying, "There, scoundrel, away with you!" Love takes one gently by the hand, leads one to the door, and says, "Come, with me, I will show you a better place." But it comes to the same thing; one must leave his nice, warm chimney-corner. Axel made the acquaintance of both; and it happened quite accidentally, it was none of his doing.

I don't know whether it is so still; but at that time it was the custom, among the Prussians, for the regimental commanders to send regular deportment lists of the officers to Berlin, and King Frederic William was in the habit of looking into the papers himself, in order to see what his officers were fit for.

Now Axel's good old colonel liked the Herr Lieutenant very much, because he had once owned an estate himself, alongside Bütow and Lauenburg, which he had got rid of through his singular methods of farming; and because he still owned one, on which he could carry out these methods, one of them being never to enrich the soil, because he thought it not good for the land. He had a great opinion of his own methods, and as he was like the old carrier who, when they can no longer drive, still like to crack the whip, he enjoyed talking about them, and as Axel listened attentively, and was too polite to contradict him, the old colonel conceived a high opinion of his wisdom. For this reason Axel's testimonials were always very good; but unfortunately the old Colonel paid little attention to orthography, and so he wrote once, "Lieutenant von Rambow is a thoroughly 'feiger' officer," when he meant to say "fähiger" (capable). The king himself saw it, and wrote on the margin, "I have no occasion for a 'feiger' (cowardly) officer; let him be dismissed at once." It was a stupid thing in the old colonel; the mistake must be corrected; but he did not know how to do it without taking his adjutant into counsel. With his assistance, the orthography and the business were made right; but the rogue could not hold his tongue, and before long the whole set were aiming their poor jokes at our innocent Axel. Especially one thick-headed fellow, of "very old family," who had all along poked fun at him on account of his agricultural pursuits, not because he managed them foolishly, but because he took to them at all,--now applied the screw so insolently that all his comrades observed it; Axel alone took no notice, because he had not the slightest suspicion of the cause.