"Stina," said he, "we shall never again have such a master."
"The Lord knows that," said she, and both went sadly back to their daily labor.
CHAPTER II.
About eight miles from the place where Habermann had left his wife in her quiet grave, lay in Mecklenburg a farm of less than medium size, which was tenanted by his brother-in-law, Jochen Nüssler. The farm-buildings had never been very substantial, and were now much in need of repair, and moreover things were very disorderly; here a little refuse heap, and there another, and the wagon and farm implements stood here and there, and mingled together, like the people at a fair, and the cart said to the wagon, "Brother, how came you here?" and the rake laid hold of the harrow and said, "Come, dear, we will have a dance." But the music was lacking, for it was all still in the farm-yard, quite still. This lovely weather, all were in the meadow, haying, and even from the little open windows of the long, low, straw-roofed farm-house came no sound, for it was afternoon; the cook had finished her baking, and the housemaid her cleaning, and both had gone together to the meadow; and even the farmer's wife, who usually had something to say for herself, was nowhere visible, for she also had gone from the farm-yard with a rake in her hand; the hay must all be gathered into great stacks before night-fall.
But there was yet life in the house, though of a little, quiet kind. In the room at the right of the porch, in the living-room, where the blue-painted corner-cupboard stood,--the schenk, they called it, and the sofa covered with black glazed linen, which was freshly polished up with boot-blacking every Saturday and the oaken chest of drawers with gilt ornaments, sat two little maidens of three years, with round flaxen heads, and round rosy cheeks, playing in a heap of sand, making cheeses with mother's thimble, and filling the damp sand into two little shilling pots, which they turned upside down, laughing and rejoicing if the lump stood firm.
These were Lining and Mining Nüssler, and they looked, for all the world, like a pair of little twin apples, growing on one stem; and they were so indeed, for they were twins, and one who did not know that Lining was not Mining, and Mining was not Lining, would be puzzled from morning to night, for their names were not written in their faces, and if their mother had not marked them with a colored band on the arm, there would have been grave doubts in the matter, and their father, Jochen Nüssler, was even yet in some uncertainty; Lining was properly Mining, and Mining Lining, they had been as it were shaken up together at the outset of their little lives. At present, there was no occasion for such perplexity, for the mother had tied a blue ribbon in Lining's little flaxen curls, and a red one in Mining's; and if one kept that in mind, and observed them carefully, one would see plainly that Jochen Nüssler was wrong, for Lining was half an hour older than Mining, and, slight as the difference was, the seniority made itself quite evident, for Lining took the lead in everything; but she comforted her little sister also, when she was in trouble.
Besides this little, unmistakable pair of twins, there was yet another pair of twins in the room; but an old, experienced, circumspect couple, who looked down from the chest of drawers on the children, and shook their heads hither and thither, in the light breeze which came in at the open window; these were grandfather's peruke, and grandmother's state-cap, which were paraded on a pair of cap-stocks, and which to-morrow,--Sunday,--would play their part.
"Look, Lining," said Mining, "there is grandfather's puk." She could not get the "r" quite right yet.
"You always say 'puk;' you must say 'p-u-k,'" said Lining, for she also was not quite up to the "r;" but being the eldest she must needs direct her little sister in the right way.
With that the little pair of twins got up and stood before the chest of drawers, and looked at the old pair of twins on the cap-stocks, and Mining, who was still very thoughtless, reached after the peruke stock, and took down grandfather's peruke, turned it over on her head as seemed well to her, and, placing herself before the glass, performed just as grandfather did on Sundays. Now was the time for Lining to exercise her authority, but Lining began to laugh, and catching the joke took down grandmother's cap from the other stock, and imitated grandmother's Sunday performances, and then Mining laughed, and then both laughed, and then took hold of hands and danced "Kringelkranz, Rosendanz," and let go, and laughed again and joined hands again and danced.