And you, and especially your wives, (as is likely!) are very angry with me, I hear, on all hands;—and think me hostile to you. As well might a carter asleep on his shafts accuse me of being his enemy for trying to wake him; or his master’s enemy, because I would fain not see the cart in the ditch. Nay, this notable paragraph which has given Mr. Hansard’s friends so much offence, was credited and printed by me, because I thought it one of the noblest instances I had ever heard of energy and unselfishness; [[187]]and though, of all the sects of ecclesiastics, for my own share, I most dislike and distrust the so-called Evangelical, I took the picture of Swiss life, which was meant to stand for a perfect and true one, from the lips of an honest vicar of that persuasion.
Which story, seeing that it has both been too long interrupted, and that its entire lesson bears on what I have to say respecting the ministrations of Felix Neff, I will interrupt my too garrulous personal reminiscences by concluding, in this letter, from that of March, 1874.
“The old cart went again as well as ever; and ‘he could never have believed,’ said Hansli, ‘that a cart could have taken itself up so, and become so extremely changed for the better. That might be an example to many living creatures.’
More than one young girl, however, in her own secret heart reproached Hansli for his choice—saying to herself that she would have done for him quite as well. ‘If she had thought he had been in such a hurry, she could have gone well enough, too, to put herself on his road, and prevented him from looking at that rubbishy rag of a girl. She never could have thought Hansli was such a goose,—he, who might easily have married quite differently, if he had had the sense to choose. As sure as the carnival was coming, he would repent before he got to it. All the worse for [[188]]him—it’s his own fault: as one makes one’s bed, one lies in it.’
But Hansli had not been a goose at all, and never found anything to repent of. He had a little wife who was just the very thing he wanted,—a little, modest, busy wife, who made him as happy as if he had married Heaven itself in person.
It is true that she didn’t long help Hansli to pull the cart: he soon found himself obliged to go in the shafts alone again; but, aussi, once he saw he had a mustard,[1] he consoled himself. ‘What a fellow!’ said he, examining him. ‘In a wink, he’ll be big enough to help me himself.’ And, thereupon, away he went with his cart, all alone, without finding any difference.
It is true that in a very little while his wife wanted to come again to help him. ‘If only we make a little haste to get back,’ said she, ‘the little one can wait well enough—besides that the grandmother can give him something to drink while we are away.’ But the mustard himself was not of their mind, and soon made them walk in his own fashion. They made all the haste they could to get home—but before they were within half a league of their door, the wife cried out, ‘Mercy! what’s that?’ ‘That’ was a shrill crying like a little pig’s when it is being killed. ‘Mercy on us, what is it,—what’s the matter!’ cried she; and [[189]]left the cart, and ran off at full speed: and there, sure enough, was the grandmother, whom the little thing’s cries had put into a dreadful fright lest it should have convulsions, and who could think of nothing better than to bring it to meet mamma. The heavy boy, the fright, and the run, had put the old woman so out of breath that it was really high time for somebody to take the child. She was almost beside herself; and it was ever so long before she could say, ‘No—I won’t have him alone any more: in my life I never saw such a little wretch: I had rather come and draw the cart.’
These worthy people thus learned what it is to have a tyrant in one’s house, little one though he be. But all that didn’t interrupt their household ways. The little wife found plenty to do staying at home; gardening, and helping to make the brooms. Without ever hurrying anything, she worked without ceasing, and was never tired,—so easily things ran under her hand. Hansli was all surprise to find he got along so well with a wife; and to find his purse growing fatter so fast. He leased a little field; and the grandmother saw a goat in it; presently two. He would not hear of a donkey, but arranged with the miller, when he went to the town, to carry some of his brooms for him; which, it is true, skimmed off a little of the profit, and that vexed Hansli, who could not bear the smallest kreutzer to escape him. But [[190]]his life soon became quite simple and continuous. The days followed each other like the waves of a river, without much difference between one and another. Every year grew new twigs to make brooms with. Every year, also, without putting herself much about, his wife gave him a new baby. She brought it, and planted it there. Every day it cried a little,—every day it grew a little; and, in a turn of the hand, it was of use for something. The grandmother said that, old as she was, she had never seen anything like it. It was, for all the world, she said, like the little cats, which at six weeks old, catch mice. And all these children were really like so many blessings—the more there came, the more money one made. Very soon—only think of it—the grandmother saw a cow arrive. If she had not with her own eyes seen Hansli pay for it, it would have been almost impossible to make her believe that he had not stolen it. If the poor old woman had lived two years more,[2] she would even have seen Hansli become himself the owner of the little cottage in which she had lived so long, with forest right which gave him more wood than he wanted; and ground enough to [[191]]keep a cow and two sheep, which are convenient things enough, when one has children who wear worsted stockings.
(Upon all that,[3] Hansli certainly owed a good deal, but it was well-placed money, and no one would ask him for it, as long as he paid the interest to the day; for the rest, ‘if God lent him life, these debts did not trouble him,’ said he.) He might then learn that the first kreutzers are the most difficult to save. There’s always a hole they are running out at, or a mouth to swallow them. But when once one has got to the point of having no more debts, and is completely set on one’s legs, then things begin to go!—the very ground seems to grow under your feet,—everything profits more and more,—the rivulet becomes a river, and the gains become always easier and larger: on one condition, nevertheless, that one shall change nothing in one’s way of life. For it is just then that new needs spring out of the ground like mushrooms on a dunghill, if not for the husband, at least for the wife,—if not for the parents, at least for the children. A thousand things seem to become necessary of which we had never thought; and we are ashamed of ever so many others, which till then had not given us the smallest concern; and we exaggerate the value of what we have, because once we had [[192]]nothing; and our own value, because we attribute our success to ourselves,—and,—one changes one’s way of life, and expenses increase, and labour lessens, and the haughty spirit goes before the fall.