Seed-time and Harvest Part 31

"Frau Nussler," said Brasig, "love is a thing which begins in some hidden way, perhaps with a bunch of flowers, or a couple say 'Good morning' to each other, and touch each other's hands, or they stoop, at the same time, to pick up a ball of cotton, and knock their heads together, and a looker-on observes nothing more, but after a while, it becomes more perceptible, the women often turn red, and the men cast sheep's-eyes, or the women entice the men into the pantry, and offer them sausage and tongue and pig's head, and the men come to see the women, dressed up in red and blue neck-ties, or, if it is very far gone, they go out walking on summer evenings, in the moonlight, and sigh. Anything of that sort with the little rogues?"

"I cannot say, Brasig. They have been in my pantry, off and on; but I soon sent them out, for I won't have people eating in the pantry, and I never noticed that my little girls turned red, though they have cried their eyes red, often enough, of late."

"Hm!" said Brasig, "this last is not without significance. Now I will tell you, Frau Nussler, leave it wholly to me, I know how to track them; I detected Habermann's confounded greyhound, in his love-affairs.

I am an old hunter; I can track him to his lair; but you must tell me where they have their haunts; that is, where I shall be likely to find them."

"That is here, Brasig, here in this arbor. My little girls sit here in the afternoon, and sew, and the other two come and sit with them; I never thought any harm of it."

"No harm in that," said Brasig, and stepping out of the arbor he looked carefully around, and in so doing perceived a large Rhenish cherry-tree, full of leaves, which stood close by the arbor.

"All right!" said he, "what can be done shall be done."

"Dear heart!" sighed Frau Nussler, as went back to the house, "what a miserable time we shall have to-day! Kurz is coming this afternoon, in time for coffee, he is bitterly angry with his son, and such a malicious little toad. You shall see, there will be a great uproar."

"It is always the way with little people," Brasig: "the head, and the lower const.i.tution are so close together, that fire kindles quickly."

"Yes," sighed Frau Nussler, again entering the house, "it is a misery."

She had no idea that the misery in her house was already in full course.

While these transactions were going on below stairs the two little twin-apples sat up in their chamber, sewing. Lining sat by one window, and Mining by the other, and they never looked up from their work, they never spoke to each other, as in those old times, at the Frau Pastorin's sewing-school,--they sewed and sewed, as if the world were coming to pieces, and they, with needle and thread, were patching it together again, and they looked so solemn about it, and sighed so heavily, as if they knew right well what an arduous task they had under their fingers. It was strange that their mother had said nothing to Brasig of how their pretty, red cheeks had grown pale, and it must have been because she had not noticed it herself. But it was so, the two little apples looked as wan as if they had grown on the north side of the life-tree, where no sun-beams pierced to color their cheeks, and it seemed, too, as if they hung no longer on the same twig. At last Lining let her work drop in her lap, she could not sew any longer, her eyes filled, and the tears ran down her white cheeks; and Mining reached for her handkerchief, and held it to her eyes, and great tears dropped in her lap, and so they sat and wept, as if the fair, innocent world in their own bosoms had gone to pieces, and they could not patch it together again.

All at once Mining sprang up and ran out of the door, as if she must get into the free air; but she bethought herself, she could not run off without being seen and questioned by her mother, so she stood there, on the other side of the door, still crying. Lining sprang up also, as if she should comfort Mining, but she bethought herself that she did not know how, so she stood on this side the door, crying.

So is often interposed, between two hearts, a thin board, and each heart hears the other sighing and weeping, and the thin board has on each side a latch, that one needs merely to lift, and what has separated the hearts may be shoved aside; but neither will stir the latch, and the two hearts weep still.

But, thank G.o.d! such selfish pride towards each other these little hearts had not yet learned, and Mining opened the door, and said, "Lining, why are you crying?" and Lining reached out her hands, and said, "Ah, Mining, why are _you_ crying?" And they fell into each others arms, still crying, but their cheeks grew red as if the sunlight had reached them, and they clung fast to each other, as if they were again growing on the same stem.

"Mining!" said Lining, "I will give him up to you, and you shall be happy with him."

"No, Lining!" cried Mining, "he cares more for you, and you are a great deal better than I am."

"No, Mining, I have made up my mind; uncle Kurz is coming this afternoon, and I will ask father and mother to let me go back with him, for to stay here and look on might be too hard for me."

"Do so, Lining; then you will be with his parents; and I will ask Gottlieb to get me, through his father, a place as governess, somewhere, far, far away, before you come back; for my heart is too heavy to stay here."

"Mining," said Lining, pushing her sister back, and looking earnestly in her eyes,--"with his parents? whom do you mean?"

"Why, Rudolph."

"You mean Rudolph?"

"Yes, of course; whom do you mean, then?"

"I? I meant Gottlieb."

"No, no!" cried Mining, throwing her arms again about her sister's neck, "how is that possible? Why, we don't mean the same one, after all!"

"Dear heart!" exclaimed Lining, "and what misery we have made ourselves!"

"And now it is all right!" cried Mining, dancing about the room, "it is all right now!"

"Yes, Mining, it is all right now," and Lining also danced about the room. And Mining fell upon her sister's neck again, this time in joy.

Yes, when one touches the latch, in time, and shoves back the separating wall, then the hearts come together again, and all is right, even if there is not such a rejoicing as here in the little chamber.

First they wept, and then they danced about the room, then they sat down one in the other's lap, and talked it all over, and blamed themselves for stupidity, that they had not noticed how it stood with them, and wondered how it was possible that they should not have come to an explanation before, and then each confessed how far she had gone with her cousin, and that the young men had not yet spoken openly, and they were both half inclined to scold them, as the cause of all the trouble. And Lining said she had been, all along, in great doubt; but since last Sunday, she had been convinced that Mining cared for Gottlieb, for otherwise why should she have cried so? and Mining said she could not help crying, because Rudolph had done such a dreadful thing, and she supposed Lining was crying for the same reason. And Lining said that what troubled her was because her poor Gottlieb was served so. But it was all right now; and when the dinner-bell rang, the little twin-apples tumbled down stairs, rosy-red, and arm in arm, and Brasig, who had seated himself with his back to the light that he might judge the better of their appearance, stared in astonishment at their bright eyes and joyous faces, and said to himself: "How? they are shy?

They are in trouble? They are in love? They look just ready for a frolic."

Upon the ringing of the dinner-bell, entered Brasig's proselyter, the candidate Gottlieb Baldrian. Lining grew red, and turned away, not in ill humor, but on account of the confession she had made upstairs, and Brasig said to himself, "This strikes me as a very curious thing; Lining is affected. How can it be possible? and he such a scarecrow!"

Brasig had expressed himself too strongly, but Gottlieb was no beauty.

Nature had dealt n.i.g.g.ardly with him, and the little that he had he did not use to advantage. Take his hair, for instance. He had a thick head of hair, and if it had been properly kept under by the shears, it would have been good, respectable light hair, and he might have gone about, without attracting any attention; but he had, in his clerical heart, set up for his model, St. John the beloved, and he parted his hair in the middle, and combed it down on each side, though its natural tendency was to stand upright. Eh, well, I have nothing to say against it if a little rogue of ten or twelve years runs around with curls about his head, and the mothers of the little rogues have still less to say against it, and they turn them about, and stroke the hair out of their eyes, and comb it smooth, too, when a visitor is coming,--silly people sometimes go so far as to put it up in curl-papers, and use hot irons; I should have nothing to say, if it were the fashion for old people to curl their hair in long curls, for the old pictures look very fine so; but he who has no calves ought not to wear tight trowsers, and if a man's hair does not curl, he does better to keep it short. Our old Gottlieb's incongruous wig hung down, tanned by the sun, as if he had tied in a lot of rusty lath-nails, and because he had to oil it very liberally to keep it in its place, it ruined his coat-collar,--farther, it did not reach. Under this rich gift of nature, looked out an insignificant, pale face, which usually wore a melancholy expression, so that Brasig was always asking him what shoemaker he employed, and whether his corns troubled him. The rest of his figure harmonized with this expression, he was long, and thin and angular; but the part devoted to the enjoyment of the good things of this world seemed quite wanting, and the place which this necessary and useful organ generally occupies was a great cavity, like Frau Nussler's baking-tray, seen from the inside. He was really a natural curiosity for Brasig, who ate like a barn-thresher, and couldn't help it. One would almost have believed that the Pietist was nourished in some other way than by eating and drinking. I have known people, and know some people still, whom I never could rival in this respect. It is true these candidates are often very thin, as one may see by the best of the Hanover candidates, who are so plenty among us; but when one gets a fat parish, he often begins to fill out, and so Brasig did not give up the hope that Gottlieb might come to something, in time, though he puzzled his brains over him a great deal. This was the way Gottlieb Baldrian looked; but the picture would not be complete, if I did not say that over the whole was spread a little, little smirk of Pharisaism; it was a very little, but that Pharisee stuff is like a calf's stomach; with a little, little bit one can turn a whole pan of milk sour.

They sat down to dinner, and Jochen asked,--

"Where is Rudolph?"

"Good gracious, Jochen, what are you talking about?" said Frau Nussler hastily, "you ought to know by this time, that he never in his life was in season. He has gone fishing; but if people won't come in time, they may go without their dinner."

The meal was a quiet one, for Brasig did not talk, he lay in wait, with all his senses and faculties, and Frau Nussler wondered in silence what could have so changed her little girls. They sat there laughing and whispering lightly to each other, and looking so happy, as if they were just awaked from a bad dream, and were rejoicing that it wasn't true, and that the sun shone brightly once more.

CHAPTER XVIII.

When dinner was over, Mining, whose turn it was to help her mother, in clearing up, tidying the room and making coffee, asked her sister, "Lining, where are you going?"

"I am going to get my sewing," said Lining, "and sit in the arbor."

"Well, I will come soon," said Mining.

"And I will come too," said Gottlieb slowly, "I have a book that I must finish reading to-day."

"That is right," said Brasig, "that will be a devilish fine entertainment for Lining."

Gottlieb wanted to preach him a little sermon upon his misuse of the word devilish, but restrained himself, since he reflected that it would be thrown away upon Brasig; so he said nothing, but followed the girls out of the room.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Frau Nussler, "what has happened to my children? I don't know what to make of it; they are one heart and one soul again."

"Keep quiet, Frau Nussler," said Brasig, "I will find out all about it, to-day. Jochen, come out with me; but don't go to talking!"

Jochen followed him into the garden. Brasig took him under the arm.

"Keep quite still, Jochen, and don't look round, and act as if we were taking a walk after dinner."

Jochen did so, very skilfully.

When they came to the cherry-tree before the arbor, Brasig stopped.