Seed-time and Harvest Part 9

"Ah, Klucking," said Pomuchelskopp, as they left the garden, "always the Pastor's field! what can I do? See, I am an honest, straight-forward man; what can I do against such a pair of sly old fellows as Habermann and the Pastor? But the day is not over yet, Monsieur Habermann! We shall have something to say to each other yet, Herr Pastor!"

At the Pastor's house, this morning, three pretty little girls were sitting in the Frau Pastorin's neat parlor, busy as bees, their fingers sewing and their tongues chatting at the same time, and looking, amid the white linen, as fresh and red as ripe strawberries on a white plate; these were Louise Habermann and the little twins, Mining and Lining Nussler.

"Children," said the little, round Frau Pastorin, as she now and then looked in from the kitchen, "you cannot think what a pleasure it is to one in my old age, when I put away my clean linen in the linen-trunk, and think with every piece when it was spun and when it was sewed! And how prudent it makes one, to know for oneself how much pains it has cost! Mining, Mining, your seam is crooked! Good heavens, Louise! I believe you are looking off half the time, yet you sew right along, and get no knots in your thread. But now I must go and take up the potatoes, for my Pastor will be here soon," and with that she ran out of the door, looking back, however, to say, "Mining and Lining, you must stay here to dinner to-day!" And so she flew from the kitchen to the parlor, and from the parlor back to the kitchen, like the pendulum of a clock, and kept everything in running order.

But how came Lining and Mining Nussler to be in the Frau Pastorin's sewing-school? It happened in this way.

When the little twins had got so far that they could speak the "r"

plainly, and no longer played in the sand, and ran after Frau Nussler all day long, saying, "Mother, what shall we do now?" then Frau Nussler said to young Jochen that it was high time the children went to school; they must have a governess. Jochen had no objections, and his brother-in-law, the Rector Baldrian, undertook the task of procuring one. When she had been six months at Rexow, Frau Nussler said she was a cross old thing, she scolded the little girls from morning to night and made them so skittish that they did not know how to behave; she must go. Thereupon Kaufman Kurz looked up another; and one day, when n.o.body in Rexow dreamed of impending evil, a sort of grenadier walked in at the door, with heavy black eyebrows, and sallow complexion, and with spectacles on her nose, and announced herself as the new "governess."

She began to talk French to the little twins, and as she observed that the poor little creatures were so ignorant that they could not understand her in the least, she turned, in the same language, to young Jochen. Such a thing had never happened to young Jochen in his life; he let his pipe fall from his mouth, and as they were drinking coffee he said, in order to say something, "Mother, ask the new school-ma'am to take another cup."

This one was a "governess" over the whole house, and Frau Nussler stood it bravely for a while; but finally she said, "Stop! This won't do; if anybody is to command here it is I, for I am the nearest, as Frau Pastorin says;" and she gave the grenadier her marching orders. Then uncle Brasig offered his a.s.sistance, and engaged a teacher,--"A smart one," he said, "always in good spirits, and she can play you dead on the harpsichord." He was right; one evening in the winter, there arrived at Rexow a little blue-cheeked, hump-backed body, who, after the first ten minutes, attacked the new piano, which Jochen had bought at auction, and belaboured it as if she were threshing wheat. When she had gone to bed, young Jochen opened the piano, and when he saw that three strings were broken, he shut it up again, and said, "Yes, what shall we do about it?"

There were lively times in the house now; the girl-governess ran and romped with the little girls, until Frau Nussler came to the conclusion that her oldest, Lining, had really more sense than the mamselle. She wished to inform herself how the mamselle managed the children in school-hours; she requested, therefore, to be shown a plan of their studies, and the next day Lining brought her a great sheet of paper with all the "branches" marked out. There was German and French, Orthography and Geography, and Religion, and Biblical History, and other History, and also Biblical Natural History, and then to conclude with, music, and music, and music.

"Eh!" said Frau Nussler to Jochen, "she may teach them all the music she wants to, for all me, if the religion is only of the right sort.

What do you say, Jochen?"

"Yes," said Jochen, "it is all as true as leather!"

Well, she might have stayed, if Lining had not let out, accidentally, that mamselle played jack-stones with them in the Biblical History; and as Frau Nussler heard one day, during the "Religion" hour, such a romping in the school-room that she opened the door suddenly, to see what kind of religion was going on, behold! Mamselle was playing "Cuckoo" with the children. Madam Nussler could not approve of this lively sort of religion, so Mamselle "Hop-on-the-hill" hopped after the grenadier.

It was very inconvenient, because it was now the middle of the fourth quarter, and if Frau Nussler complained that the children were running wild, Jochen only said; "Yes, what shall I do about it?" But he began to study the Rostock "Times" with uncommon interest; and one day he laid aside the "Times," and ordered Christian to get out the "phantom."

His good wife was considerably astonished, for she had no idea what he was thinking of; but as she looked at the pipe side of his face, and noticed that his mouth was stretched wider than usual, which represented a friendly smile, she gave herself no more anxiety, and said, "Let him go! He has something good in his head."

After three days Jochen returned with an elderly, almost transparent-looking lady, and it went through the whole region like a running fire: "Only think! young Jochen has got a governess himself."

Brasig came the next Sunday to see her; he was tolerably contented with her, "But," said he, finally, "look out, young Jochen, she has nerves."

Brasig was not only a good judge of horses, but a judge of human nature; he was right,--Mamselle was nervous, very nervous indeed. The poor little twins went about on tiptoe, Mamselle took away Lining's ball, because she had accidentally thrown it at the window, and locked up the piano, so that Lining could no longer play, "Our cat has nine kittens," the only piece which she had learned from Mamselle "Hop-on-the-hill." Before long Mamselle added cramps to her nerves, and Madam Nussler must run with sundry bottles of "drops," and both Fika and Corlin must sit up with her nights, because either one alone would be afraid. "Send her away," said uncle Brasig; but Frau Nussler was too good for that, she sent rather for the doctor. Dr. Strump was summoned from Rahnstadt, and after examining the patient, he p.r.o.nounced it a very interesting case, the more so that he had lately been studying "the night-side of Nature."

Young Jochen and his wife thought nothing worse from that than that the doctor had lately been a good deal out of his bed o' nights, but he meant something quite different.

One day, when the doctor was with the mamselle, Corlin called from the stairs:--

"Frau, Frau! there is mischief going on. The doctor has been stroking her over her face, and now she is asleep, and talking in her sleep. She told me I had a lover."

"G.o.d bless me!" cried Brasig, who happened to be there, "what sort of business is the woman carrying on?" and he went up-stairs with Frau Nussler. After a while he came down, and asked, "Now, what do you say to, it young Jochen?"

Jochen reflected awhile, and then said, "Yes, that doesn't help the matter, Brasig."

"Jochen," said Brasig, going up and down the room with great strides, "I said to you before, 'send her away;' now I say, don't send her away.

I asked her if it would rain to-morrow, and she said to me, in her somnambulic state, that it would rain torrents. If it rains torrents to-morrow, then take down your barometer from the wall,--barometers are of no use, and yours has stood there two years, always at fair weather,--and hang her up there; you can benefit yourself and the whole region."

Young Jochen said nothing, but when next morning it rained torrents, he was silent indeed, and his astonishment kept him dumb for three days.

The rumor spread in the neighborhood, that young Jochen had a fortune-teller at his house, and that she had prophesied the great rain on Sat.u.r.day, and also that Corlin Krauger and Inspector Brasig would be married within a year. Dr. Strump naturally did his share toward setting this interesting case in a clear light, and it was not long before Frau Nussler's quiet house became a kind of pilgrim's shrine, to which resorted all who were curious, or scientific, or interested in physical science; and, because Frau Nussler would have nothing to do with it, and Jochen was incapable, Zachary Brasig undertook the business, when the doctor was not there, and ushered troops of visitors into the mamselle's room, and explained her somnambulic condition; and before the bed, by the mamselle, sat Christian the coachman, who was not afraid of the devil himself, for Corlin and Fika would no longer watch by her, even in the day time, having taken it into their heads that she was not respectable; because they translated Brasig's expression, "sonnenbuhlerisch" (somnambulic), into Platt-Deutsch, and said the mamselle was "sunnenbuhlerisch" (no better than she should be).

Among the visitors, who came to see this wonder, was the young Baron von Mallerjahn of Graunenmur, who came daily to investigate the physical sciences and thought no harm of going into mamselle's room without Brasig. Frau Nussler was disturbed by the impropriety of the thing, and requested Jochen to put a stop to the nuisance, upon which Jochen replied that they might put Christian up there; but when Christian came down one day, and said the Herr Baron had sent him away, because he smelled too strong of the stable, then Frau Nussler's annoyance broke out in a flood of tears, and, if Brasig had not arrived just then, she would herself have treated the Herr Baron to a scolding; but Brasig, like a true knight, took the business upon himself.

He went up-stairs, and said very courteously and decidedly, "Gracious Herr Baron, will you have the kindness to step the other side of the door for a moment."

It was possibly too fine for the Herr Baron's comprehension, he laughed rather confusedly, and said he stood for the moment in magnetic _rapport_ with the mamselle.

"Monetic apport!" said Brasig. "We need none of your money here, and none of your apporters either; Christian was put here on purpose to prevent such doings."

Brasig himself stood in magnetic _rapport_, without being conscious of it, for when Frau Nussler wept he fell into a pa.s.sion, and in great wrath he cried to the baron, "Herr, be off with you, out of the house!"

The baron was naturally astonished at this speech, and inquired rather haughtily whether Brasig was aware that he was growing rude.

"Do you call that rudeness?" cried Brasig, taking the baron by the arm.

"Then I will show you something else!"

But the disturbance awoke the mamselle out of her sleep; she sprang from the sofa and grasped the baron by the other arm: she wouldn't stay here, n.o.body here understood her, he alone understood her, she would go with him.

"The best thing you can do," said Brasig. "Don't let us detain you! Two birds with one stone!" and he a.s.sisted her down stairs.

The carriage of the Herr Baron was all ready, and drove up to the door; the Herr Baron himself was in great perplexity, but the mamselle held fast.

"Yes, there's no help for it," said young Jochen, as he watched their departure.

"Young Jochen," said Brasig, as the equipage left the yard, "she is like leather, she is tough. And you, madam," said he to Frau Nussler, "let the man go, now he can see as much as he likes of his monetic treasure."

Habermann had been absent a good deal of late, on business for his master, and, when he came home for a day or two, he had so much to attend to on the estate that he could not trouble himself about other people's affairs. He had been at his sister's however, and had comforted her about the mamselle, that it was merely sickness and would pa.s.s over; but as he came home this time, the report was all over the neighborhood that young Jochen's sleeping mamselle had gone off with the Baron von Mallerjahn, but that she had previously infected Brasig with prophesying, and Christian with sleeping. Brasig prophesied wherever he went, and Christian fell asleep even on his feet.

Habermann went to Pastor Behrens, and inquired what he knew of the story, and asked him to go with him to his sister's.

"Willingly, dear Habermann," said the Pastor; "but I have not troubled myself much about this matter, for good reasons. I know very well that in our good fatherland many of my brethren in Christ have occupied themselves in healing the possessed, and casting out devils; but I think such cases belong rather to the department of the physician, or"--with a rather peculiar laugh--"to that of the police."

When they came to Rexow, the cheerful, active Frau Nussler, who could usually shake off easily the worst misfortune, or the most annoying vexation, seemed quite another person.

"Herr Pastor," said she, "Brother Karl, that crazy woman has gone, and I had trouble enough about her, and so have they all gone, that I have had; but that is no matter, I shall get over that. What troubles me is my poor little girls, who know nothing and learn nothing. And when I think how the poor little dears will seem among their elders and equals like a couple of fools, knowing nothing that is talked about, and not even knowing how to write a letter--no, Herr Pastor, you, who have learned so much, you cannot know how one feels, but I know, and, Karl, you can understand it too. No, Herr Pastor, even though my heart should break, and I should go about alone with Jochen in this great house, like one in a dream, I will give up my little girls to go away to school, rather than have them remain stupid all their lives. You see, when Louise comes here, she is intelligent; one can talk with her, and she can read the newspaper to Jochen. Min can read too, but if she comes to a strange word, she begins to stammer. For instance the other day Louise read 'Burdoh,' and the place is called so,--and Min read 'Bo-ur-de-aux.' What is the good of 'Bo-ur-de-aux,' when the city is called 'Burdoh?'"

The Pastor had risen during this speech, and walked thoughtfully about the room; at last he came to a stand before Frau Nussler, looked at her observantly and said, "My dear neighbor, I will make you a proposition.

Louise is a little more advanced, to be sure, but that makes no difference; you shall not be separated from your little ones,--let me instruct them."

Frau Nussler had never thought of such an offer, and it seemed to her like drawing the great prize in the lottery, or as if she had stepped out of shadow into sunshine. She stared at the Pastor with her wide-open, blue eyes; "Herr Pastor!" she cried, springing up from her chair, "Jochen, Jochen, did you hear? The Herr Pastor offers to teach the children himself."

Jochen had heard, and was also on his feet, trying to say something; he said nothing, however, only fumbled and grappled for the Herr Pastor's hand, until he grasped it, then pressed it warmly, and drew him to the sofa, behind the supper table, which was spread; and when Frau Nussler and Habermann had fully expressed their pleasure, he also had become capable of expression, and said, "Mother, pour out a cup for the Herr Pastor."

So Mining and Lining were now daily guests at the Gurlitz parsonage.

They were as clearly a pair of twins as ever; only that Lining as the eldest was perhaps half an inch taller than Mining, and Mining was a good half inch larger round the waist, and--if one looked very closely--Mining's nose was a trifle shorter than Lining's.

And so on the day when Pomuchelskopp set out to make his first call at the parsonage, the twins were in the Frau Pastorin's sewing-school, for the Frau Pastorin also meant to do her duty by the children, when the Pastor was occupied with the business of his calling.

"G.o.d bless me!" exclaimed the Frau Pastorin, running into the room, "children put your work aside; take it all into the bedroom, Louise; Mining, pick up the threads and sc.r.a.ps; Lining, you put the chairs in order! Here come our new landlord with his wife and daughters, across the church-yard, right up to the house,--and, bless his heart! my Pastor has gone to Warnitz to a christening!" And she grasped unconsciously her duster, but had to lay it aside directly, for there was a knock at the door, and upon her "Come in!" Pomuchelskopp with his wife and his two daughters, Malchen and Salchen, entered the room.

"They did themselves the honor," said Pomuchelskopp, endeavoring to make a graceful bow, which on account of his peculiar build was rather a failure, "to wait upon the Herr Pastor, and the Frau Pastorin--acquaintance--neighborhood----"