Seed-time and Harvest Part 75

"No matter. The roof has not been mended these three years, and the rain runs in overhead, and when there is a hard storm, the living-room is flooded, and the poor little children must wade round like frogs, while their father and mother are away at work, and when he complained about it Herr Pomuchelskopp said his name was Willgans (Wild-goose), and water was suitable for geese."

"Fie! fie! He ought not to say that!"

"And now about the free pasturage, and the hay for the cow! _Where_ is the pasturage? Half a mile from the village, on the out-field, where nothing grows but goat's-beard, and among the fir-trees, and can the women go back and forth three times a day to milk? Well they don't need to go so often as that, for eighteen laborers, out of the one and twenty, have lost their cows, from one complaint or another, and the three that are left are real dancing-masters."

"The fellow is a Great Mogul!" cried the carpenter, "out with him!

out!"

"Quiet, quiet! Go on again!"

"Yes, fellow-citizens, I will go on. About the wood and peat! The peat is moss-peat from the bog, and crumbles apart, and gives no heat, and the wood is fir-brush, and scattered branches, which the children carry home on their shoulders; and then the potato and flax land! Where is it? In the out-fields, on the worn-out soil. How is it manured? Only by the birds, and when one looks at his few potatoes, at harvest, he clasps his hands above his head, and says, 'G.o.d preserve us! Shall the family and the pig live on those all winter!' But they do not live on them, they steal. They don't steal from Pomuchelskopp, for they would pay too dear for it, but they steal in the neighborhood, and a good friend of mine, Frau Nussler, has given orders that, if the Gurlitz laborers are caught stealing potatoes there, they shall let them go, for they do it from necessity, and they are to be pitied!"

"Hurrah for Frau Nussler!" said Johann Bank, and "Hurrah!" was repeated, again and again.

"And the flax!" continued Brasig, "so long!"--measuring about a foot on his arm,--"so that even the Herr Notary Slusuhr himself, who is a particular friend of Herr Pomuchelskopp's, once made the bad joke in my presence, that the womenfolk at Gurlitz wear such short dresses, because the flax is too short to make long ones."

"He is an infamous donkey," cried the carpenter, "to be cracking his jokes at the poor! Out with him!"

"Fellow-citizens!" began Brasig afresh, "I will only say, the house, the cow-pasture, and the wood and peat, and flax and potato land are, for the laborers in the country, their roast beef and plum pudding, they are very nice; but they can't get them, and therefore there is poverty in the country. But how does it come about in the city?

Fellow-citizens, I will tell you, for I have lived here long enough, and have studied human nature: the great poverty in the city comes from the great dest.i.tution here!"

With that, he made a bow, and took his leave, and "Bravo!" resounded through the hall: "The man is right!" "Long live Inspector Brasig!"

And then President Rein dismissed the a.s.sembly, saying that after such a speech no one could have anything more to say; and they all came up and congratulated Brasig, and shook hands with him all at once, all except Pomuchelskopp and the city musician, David Berger; the one had stolen away quietly, and the other had run home to call together his fellow-musicians, and when Brasig stepped out of Grammelin's door, there stood seven bra.s.s instruments before him, in a semi-circle, and opened fire on him at once, with "Hail to the chief!" and David Berger had his spectacles on, and was conducting with Grammelin's billiard cue, so that Uncle Brasig must look out for his head. And the Gurlitz laborers stood around him, in a body, and weaver Ruhrdanz said, "Don't be afraid, Herr Inspector, you have stood by us, and we will stand by you." And as Brasig was escorted by this festive procession, across the market, and through the streets of Rahnstadt, these poor, despised people followed him in trust and reverence, for it was the first time that the world had troubled itself about their distress and sorrow, and the feeling that one is not wholly forsaken works more good in the human soul than any amount of admonitions.

Before the Frau Pastorin's house, Brasig made a short speech to his guard of honor: he regretted that he could not invite them in, but it would be unsuitable in a clerical house, for he lived with the Frau Pastorin; but he hoped they would all meet him at Grammelin's, to-morrow evening, over a bowl of punch. They received this with a "Hurrah!" and when Brasig had gone to bed, after telling Karl the whole story, the Rahnstadt glee-club sang under window,

"Laurels wave where the warrior sleeps,"

and on the road to Gurlitz went the day-laborers, in serious mood; and old weaver Ruhrdanz said, "Children, listen to me! We will get rid of him; but not by force, no! in all moderation, for what would the grand-duke and the Herr Inspector Brasig say, if we should show our grat.i.tude for his speech by making fools of ourselves?"

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

After church next day, for it was Sunday, Kurz came in to see Habermann and Brasig:

"Good day! good day! I am angry; nothing but vexations the whole day!

What? Such a set of people! Won't let a man speak at all! Eh, one might better keep swine than be a democrat! They listen to the stupidest speeches, and cry 'Bravo,' and give serenades, disturbing people out of their sleep, and when one tries to make an important subject clear to them, do they drum and pipe then? and they call that a Reformverein!"

"Listen to me, Herr Kurz," said Brasig, stepping up to him, fully two inches taller than usual, "it is very unbecoming in you, to sneer at that serenade, for that serenade was given to _me_, and _you_ would have been turned out again, if the well-meaning Herr Schultz and I had not taken you under our protection. What? What does the old proverb say? 'When it is the fashion, one rides to the city on a bull;' but it is not the fashion in the Reformverein, and if one persists in riding in and rampaging about on a bull, the people won't stand it, and they turn him out, with his bull, for the Reformverein is not designed for such purposes."

"It is all one to me!" cried Kurz, "other people rode in on donkeys, and were treated with great distinction."

"You are a rude fellow!" cried Uncle Brasig, "you are an impertinent rascal! If this were not Karl Habermann's room, I would kick you down stairs, and you might carry your bones home in a bag."

"Hush, Brasig, hush!" interposed Habermann, "and you, Kurz, ought to be ashamed of yourself, to come here stirring up strife and contention."

"I had strife and contention last evening; I have had strife and contention all day long. This morning, when I had hardly opened my eyes, my wife began with strife and contention; she is not willing I should go to the Reformverein."

"She is quite right, there," said Habermann, seriously, "you are not a fit person to go, for, with your hasty, inconsiderate behavior, you do nothing but mischief;" and leaving him he went over to Brasig, who was running up and down the room, puffed up like an adder: "Brasig, he couldn't have meant it so."

"It is no consequence to me, Karl, what such an uncouth, malicious, miserable beast thinks of me. Riding in on a donkey? Fie, it is nothing but the meanest envy."

"I did'nt mean _you_!" cried Kurz, running up and down the other side of the room, "I meant my brother-in-law, Baldrian, and the dyer, and the other blockheads. And is'nt it enough to drive one crazy? First, the quarrel with my wife, about the Reformverein, then a quarrel with my shopman,--he slept till nine o'clock this morning, was out singing on the streets last night, and at the beer-house, till four o'clock; then a quarrel with the stable-boy and the horse-doctor,--my saddle-horse has got the influenza,--then another quarrel with my wife, she don't want me to have anything to do with farming."

"There she is right again," interrupted Habermann. "All your farming amounts to nothing, because you don't understand it."

"So! I don't understand it? Nothing but vexations! Afterwards the stupid servant maid, she put on a table-cloth for dinner that came down to the floor; well, we sit there, a customer rings, I am provoked with the shopman because he doesn't start up immediately, start up myself, catch the table-cloth between my feet, and pull off the soup-tureen, and the whole concern, on the floor. Do you see, then my wife comes, and holds me fast, and says, 'Kurz, go to bed, you are unlucky to-day;'

and every time that I get angry, she says, 'Kurz, go to bed!' It is enough to drive one crazy."

"And your wife was right again," said Habermann, "if you had stayed in bed, you would not have come here to make trouble."

"So?" cried Kurz, "did you ever lie in bed all day, with sound limbs, merely because it was an unlucky day? I will never do it again, no matter how much my wife begs me. One worries himself to death! She took away my boots and my trousers, and I lay there and fretted, because I could not get up, if I wanted to."

Uncle Brasig began to laugh heartily.

"Well," said Habermann, "then you came over here, and got vexed again."

"Eh, how?" said Kurz, "I did'nt mean that at all, I only came over to ask you two Herr Inspectors if you would go with me to my field, and see if it was ready for ploughing."

Through Habermann's persuasions the quarrel was made up, and the three farmers went to the field, Kurz making close calculations, and reeling off his agricultural phrases, while Brasig said to himself, "Who is riding on the donkey now?"

"I have a piece of ground here," said Kurz, "measuring a hundred and fifty square rods, and I have bought ten cartloads of manure from Kranger the butcher, real, fat, slaughter-house manure; I am going to plant beets; I had it strewed yesterday; is'nt that enough, gentlemen?

Look here!" and he turned out of the road into the field.

"Very badly strewed!" said Brasig. "A properly manured field should look like a velvet cover," and he began to poke the lumps apart with his stick.

"Never mind," said Kurz, "something will grow, it is good slaughter-house manure, cost me ten thalers."

All at once he stood stock still, caught at the air with his hands, and looked wildly around him.

"Good heavens!" cried Brasig, "what is the matter?"

"Thunder and lightening!" cried Kurz, "the devil is in it! This is not my field, this next one is mine, and that confounded rascal has gone and put my manure on another field! And I told him to do it! Ten thalers! And the carting! And the strewing! Isn't it enough to make one crazy?"

"Eh, Kurz, that is not so bad," said Habermann, "that can be settled, your neighbor will be good-natured, and pay for the manure."

"That is the very thing!" cried Kurz. "This is baker Wredow's field, whom I have such a quarrel with about the stadtbullen; he had better take care!"

"There's a farmer for you," said Brasig very quietly, "carting his manure into other people's fields!"

"It is enough to drive one crazy!" cried Kurz, "but I will save what I can," and he ran to the boundary of the field, and began tossing the lumps of manure over into his field with his stick, and worked away, until he was out of breath with exercise and rage, and then he threw his stick across the field, and panted out the words: "I will have nothing more to do with it! Why didn't I stay in bed! When I get home, and get hold of that rascal of a boy,--children, I beg you, hold me fast, or something dreadful will happen!"