The German Pioneers Part 6

"I will help you," said Catherine, after she had looked on for a few minutes.

"This is no labor for you," said Lambert, looking up.

"So, once for all, you must not speak," serenely replied Catherine. "If you want a princess in your house you must at once send me away again.

I own myself unfit for that."

Lambert smiled with pleasure when he saw how skillfully she took hold of the matter, and how handy she was. He now noticed for the first time that the roses had again blossomed on her cheeks; and as she now, in helping him, bent over and back, the agreeable play of the lines of her slender, girlish body filled him with trembling delight.

"But you also should not be unemployed," said Catherine.

The young man, blushing deeply, returned to his work with redoubled zeal, so that it was soon completed.

"What comes next?" asked Catherine.

"I intended to go up into the woods to look after my pine trees. There will be probably more to do there than here, where my kind uncle has kept every thing so well in order. But about woodcraft he understands little or nothing; and Conrad concerns himself only with his hunting.

It was fortunate that I could do the chief labor before I left home in the spring."

He hung the gun, which leaned against the hedge near him, over his shoulder and looked at Catherine.

Lingering he said: "Will you go with me? It is not far."

"That is truly fortunate," said Catherine. "You know I am shy of long roads. Will you not rather saddle Hans?"

She called the horse, grazing in an enclosure near by, in which there was also a small flock of black-wooled sheep. He p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, came slowly, swinging his tail, and put his head over the bars.

"You good Hans," said Catherine, brushing the thick forelock out of the eyes of the animal, "I gave you a good deal of trouble on the long journey."

"The trouble was not so very great. Is it not so, old Hans?" said Lambert.

Hans seemed to think that to such an idle question no answer was necessary and went on quietly chewing his last mouthful of gra.s.s.

The young people stood and looked on and stroked the head and neck of the animal, while in the branches of a blossoming apple tree a robin-redbreast sang. Their hands touched. Lambert's large eyes a.s.sumed a determined expression and then were raised with a cordial look to the blushing face of the maiden.

"Now you must also show me the barn-yard," said Catherine.

"Cheerfully," said Lambert.

They entered the barn-yard which like the house was inclosed with a stone-wall of the height of a man, and contained several low buildings formed of logs. First the stable in which, in the winter and in bad weather, Hans, the cows and the sheep stayed quietly together. This was now empty with the exception of a couple of half-grown pigs grunting within a part.i.tion, and a large flock of hens and turkeys which had been contentedly scratching in the straw, but now, frightened at the unwelcome intrusion, cackling and flying apart rushed out of the open door. Then they entered the work-shop, in which Lambert worked during the winter, and where, besides excellent timber and all kinds of tools, there were standing, begun and finished, tubs which would have done credit to a cooper.

"In the fall these are all filled with tar and rosin," said Lambert, "and sent to Albany. It won't be long before I must stick to this, and my Uncle Ditmar, of whom I learned coopering, will help me, I suppose, and also Conrad, though he does not like mechanical labor. Still he can do anything he pleases, and does it better than one who devotes his life to it."

Catherine was pleased to hear that Lambert was so proud of his younger brother, but did not speak of it. It seemed to her as if a dark shadow had pa.s.sed over her heart, which had but now been as sunny as the surrounding golden, spring landscape.

They left the barn-yard and, ascending by degrees, soon reached the edge of the woods, which here extended back farther from the level ground, so that, as they turned about, the valley lay like a great meadow in the woods, in the midst of which was the blockhouse on the hill. The creek was concealed by the reeds which fringed its sh.o.r.e.

Deep peace rested in happy quietude on the earth in its morning freshness. But up in the air there appeared an unusual spectacle. The eagle which Catherine had before observed had been joined by another.

They sailed directly over the house and wound their circles together swifter and ever swifter until, with loud outcries, they rushed against each other, striking with their mighty wings, whirling round each other, clasping each other, and falling like a stone. Then again they separated, sailed aloft, again rushed together, until at length one flew toward the woods followed by the other.

"A hateful sight," said Catherine. "The angry beasts!"

"We are accustomed to that," said Lambert.

Catherine was greatly disturbed by this battle scene. Involuntarily she had again to think of Conrad.

As they now turned into the woods she asked:

"Do you truly love your brother?"

"And he me," said Lambert.

"He is yet so young," Catherine began again.

"Ten years younger than I. I am thirty-two. Our mother died when he was born. Good Aunt Ditmar, our sainted mother's sister, took him home since my father and I, poor youngster, naturally did not know how to help ourselves. When he was a couple of years old he came again to us, though his aunt would gladly have kept him. But father did not stand any too well with uncle, and was jealous, fearing that his child would become entirely estranged from him. So I waited on and brought up the little orphaned rogue as best I could, and, since he grew so, I thought that any mother would be proud of the boy. Then, when I could no longer carry him, I played with him, and taught him the little I had learned, and so we have been together day and night, and an angry word has never pa.s.sed between us, though he was as wild and intractable as a young bear. Father's position in respect to him was very difficult, being himself a determined man and quite pa.s.sionate. Once, being at variance, father raised his hand against the eleven-year-old boy, who was as brave and proud as a man. He ran away into the woods and did not return, so that we thought that he had either committed suicide, or had been torn in pieces by the bears. Meanwhile my young gentleman stuck among the Indians at Oneida Lake and did not let anything be seen or heard of him for three years, until, a few days after father's death, he suddenly entered the block-house where I sat alone and sad. At first I did not know him, for he had grown a couple of heads taller and was dressed in Indian style. But he fell upon my neck and wept bitterly, and said:

"'I heard by chance that our father was lying on his death-bed. I have been walking three days and three nights to see him again.' In the midst of his weeping he threw back his head and, with sparkling eyes, exclaimed: 'But do not think that I have forgiven him for striking me; but I am sorry that I ran away.' So he came again as he had gone, wild and proud, and at the next moment soft and kind."

Lambert was silent. After a short pause he said: "I wish I had told you all this before; you would then not have been so frightened last evening."

"And this morning," said Catherine to herself.

Lambert continued: "They here call him the Indian, and the name fits him in more than one respect. At least no Indian would undertake to compete with him in those things in which they chiefly excel. In all their arts Conrad beats them; and then he loves the hunt, the forest and rambling ways just as the red-skins do. But his heart is true as pure gold, and in that he is not a red-skin, who are all as false as a jack-o'-lantern in the swamp. For this reason we all here on the Mohawk and on the Schoharie, old and young, love him. Wherever there are German settlers there he comes on his hunting expeditions, and is everywhere welcome. The people sleep without fear when he is there, for they know they are guarded by the best rifle in the colony."

Lambert's eyes brightened as he spoke about his brother. Suddenly his face became beclouded.

"Who knows," continued he, "how different it might have been last year had he been here with us? But when Belletre broke loose with his devilish Indians and his French, who are much worse devils, we were entirely unprepared. We would not believe the Indian who brought us the news. Conrad would have known what there was of it, and would soon have brought it out. But he remained above between the lakes on a hunt; so we missed his arm and rifle. Then took place the remarkable circ.u.mstance that they did not come here to Canada Creek, and that our houses escaped their ravages. This afterward caused bad blood, and one could hear whisperings about treachery, though, at the first alarm, we all hurried forward and did our share. Conrad helped us fight in his own way. He says nothing about it, but I think that many an Indian, who in the morning went hunting, was vainly waited for at his camp-fire in the evening, and has not to this day returned to his wigwam."

A shudder pa.s.sed over Catherine. What had the wild man said this morning? "As far as it concerns me I need not trouble myself about being shot to death." Dreadful! Had she not seen as she came up the Mohawk valley where many houses had been burned which had not been rebuilt, the entire families having been killed by the merciless enemies? And how many plain wooden crosses in green fields, along the road, in the edge of the woods, where a peaceful farmer, a helpless wife, a playful child, had been pitilessly killed. No, no! It was an honorable conflict for house and home, for body and life--the same conflict through which her good father with his whole congregation had been driven out of Germany. They knew not how to resist their shameless and disorderly oppressors except by flight over the sea into this wilderness at the furthest west. Whither shall they yet fly, since the same enemy even here begrudges them life and freedom? Here one cannot say: "Let us forsake our houses and shake the dust from our feet." Here the word is wait, fight, conquer, or die. Not in empty threatening did the farmer as he went to his peaceful labor carry his gun on his shoulder.

"I wish I too knew how to handle the rifle," said Catherine.

"Like my Aunt Ursul," said Lambert laughing. "She shoots as well as any one of us, Conrad naturally being excepted. Nor does she leave her rifle at home. Here we are, at the pinery."

They had reached a tall forest, such as Catherine on her journey, had not hitherto seen. The powerful trunks shot up like the pillars of a dome and intertwined their mighty tops in an arch through whose dark vaults here and there red sun-rays flashed. The morning wind soughed through the wide halls, having now become stronger, and ascending, gently died at the top like the murmur of the sea.

"This seems to have stood so since the first day of creation," said Catherine.

"And yet its days are numbered," said Lambert. "In a couple of years there will be little more to be seen of it. I am sorry for the beautiful trees, and now, since you so admire them, I am doubly sorry.

But there is no longer any remedy. See, here my labor begins."

A slight depression, through which a brooklet purled on its way to the creek, separated this piece of woods from another which had already been prepared the second year for the manufacture of tar. Lambert explained to his companion that each of the large trees was divided into four quarters. "In the spring, as soon as the sap begins to rise, the north quarter, where the sun has the least power, is peeled off for two feet in order to draw off the turpentine. In the fall, before the sap begins to slacken, the southern quarter is treated in the same way.

The following spring the eastern side, and in the fall the western side, is in like manner peeled. Then the upper part of the tree, filled with turpentine, is cut down and split up and roasted in an oven so prepared as to secure the tar. This I will show you later. This indeed is not a pleasing sight," said Lambert, "nor will I take you farther, where the poor naked stumps stand and decay. It cannot well be otherwise. One must live, and we here on Canada Creek have nothing else, or scarcely anything else, since our small cultivated acreage must be devoted to our most urgent necessities. So must also our live stock, though we have plenty of fertile plow-land and rich meadow-land.

But what can one do when he is every instant in danger, and his crops are destroyed, and his herds are driven off? They must leave us our pine trees, and our ovens can soon be rebuilt. To replace the burnt casks and utensils we make new ones. Hence it was for us a question of life or death when, last winter, Mr. Albert Livingston wished to confine us to the valley, and claimed the woods on the hills for himself, notwithstanding that we had first bought both valley and forest from the Indians, and again after that from the Government. But all this I told you often enough on the journey, and you have listened patiently, and rejoice that the business has been arranged in our favor. G.o.d be praised--"

"And your faithful care," said Catherine. "You had it hard enough on the long, tiresome journey, from which you did not return unenc.u.mbered.

After you had been relieved of the old care you were laden with a new one in me, a poor, helpless girl."

"Shall I deny it?" replied Lambert. "Yes, Catherine, with you there came a new care to me. You know what I mean. I feared I had done wrong to bring you here, where everybody's life is in daily, yes, hourly danger. This indeed I did not conceal from you, though I felt that you would not on this account be frightened back. But--"

"Then don't distress yourself further about it," said Catherine. "Or do you think you have been deceived in me?"