The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08. Коллектив авторов

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СКАЧАТЬ up the notion that he had sailed across the seas. Crappy Zachy had indeed told her, that the reason she could not cry any more was because the ocean, the great salty deep, absorbed the tears which one might be disposed to shed for one who was on the other shore.

      Barefoot received permission from her employers to accompany her brother when he went to town to conclude the arrangement for his passage with the agent. Greatly were both of them astonished when they learned, on arriving at the office, that this had already been done. The Village Council had already taken the necessary steps, and Damie was to have his rights and corresponding obligations as one of the village poor. On board the ship, before it sailed out into the wide ocean, he would have to sign a paper, attesting his embarkation, and not until then would the money be paid.

      The brother and sister returned sorrowfully to the village. Damie had been seized with a fit of his old despondency, because a thing had now to be carried out which he himself had wished. And Barefoot herself felt deeply grieved at the thought that her brother was, in a way, to be expelled from his native land. At the boundary-line Damie said aloud to the sign-post, on which the name of the village and of the district were painted:

      "You there! I don't belong to you any longer, and all the people who live here are no more to me than you are."

      Barefoot started to cry; but she resolved within herself that this should be the last time until her brother's departure, and until he was fairly gone. And she kept her word to herself.

      The people in the village said that Barefoot had no heart, because her eyes were not wet when her brother went away. People like to see tears actually shed—for what do they care about those that are shed in secret? But Barefoot was calm and brave.

      Only during the last days before Damie set out did she for the first time fail in her duty; for she neglected her work by being with Damie all the time. She let Rose upbraid her for it, and merely said: "You are right." But still she ran after her brother everywhere—she did not want to lose a minute of his company as long as he was there. She very likely felt that she might be able to do something special for him at any moment, or say something special that would be of use to him all his life; and she was vexed with herself for finding nothing but quite ordinary things to say, and for even quarreling with him sometimes.

      Oh, these hours of parting! How they oppress the heart! How all the past and all the future seem crowded together into one moment, and one knows not how to set about anything rightly, and only a look or a touch must tell all that is felt!

      Still Amrei found good words to speak. When she counted out her brother's stock of linen she said:

      "These are good, respectable shirts—keep yourself respectable and good in them."

      And when she packed everything into the big sack, on which her father's name was still to be seen, she said:

      "Bring this back full of glittering gold; then you shall see how glad they will be to give you back the right to live here. And Farmer Rodel's Rose, if she's still unmarried, will jump over seven houses to get you."

      And when she laid their father's ax in the large chest, she said:

      "How smooth the handle is! How often it has slipped through our father's hand. I fancy I can still feel his touch upon it! So now I have a motto for you—'Sack and Ax.' Working and gathering in, those are the best things in life—they make one keep cheerful and well and happy. God keep you! And say to yourself very often—'Sack and Ax.' I shall do the same, and that shall be our motto, our remembrance, our call to each other when we are far, far apart, and until you write to me, or come to fetch me, or do what you can, as God shall will it. 'Sack and Ax'—yes it's all included in that; so one can treasure up everything—all thoughts and all that one has earned!"

      And when Damie was sitting up in the wagon, and for the last time gave her his hand, for a long time she would not release it. And when at last he drove away, she called out after him with a loud voice:

      "'Sack and Ax'—don't forget that!"

      He looked back, waved his hand to her, and then—he was gone.

      CHAPTER IX

      AN UNINVITED GUEST

      "Glory to America!" the village watchman, to the amusement of all, cried several nights when he called out the hours, in place of the usual thanksgiving to God. Crappy Zachy, being a man of no consideration himself, was fond of speaking evil of the poor when he found himself among what he called "respectable people," and on Sunday when he came out of church, or on an afternoon when he sat on the long bench outside the "Heathcock," he would say:

      "Columbus was a real benefactor. From what did he not deliver us? Yes, America is the pig-trough of the Old World, and into it everything that can't be used in the kitchen is dumped—cabbage and turnips and all sorts of things. And for the piggies who live in the castle behind the house, and understand French—'Oui! Oui!'—there's very good feeding there."

      In the general dearth of interesting subjects, Damie and his emigrating naturally formed the main topic of conversation for a considerable time, and the members of the Council praised their own wisdom in having rid the place of a person who would certainly have come to be a burden on the community. For a man who goes driving about from one trade to another is sure to drive himself into ruin eventually.

      Of course, there were plenty of good-natured people who reported to Barefoot all that was said of her brother, and told her how he was made a laughing-stock. But Barefoot merely smiled. When Damie's first letter came from Bremen—nobody had ever thought that he could write so properly—then she exulted before the eyes of men, and read the letter aloud several times; but in secret she was sorry to have lost such a brother, probably forever. She reproached herself for not having put him forward enough, for it was now evident what a sharp lad Damie was, and so good too! He wanted to take leave of the whole village as he had taken leave of the post at the boundary-line, and he now filled almost a whole page with remembrances to different people, calling each one "the dear" or "the good" or "the worthy." Barefoot reaped a great deal of praise everywhere she delivered these greetings, and each time pointed to the precise place, and said:

      "See—there it stands!"

      For a time Barefoot was silent and abstracted; she seemed to repent of having let her brother go, or of having refused to go with him. Formerly she had always been heard singing in the stable and barn, in the kitchen and chamber, and when she went out with the scythe over her shoulder and the grass-cloth under her arm; but now she was silent. She seemed to be making an effort to restrain herself. Still there was one time when she allowed people to hear her voice again; in the evening, when she put Farmer Rodel's children to bed, she sang incessantly, even long after the children were asleep. Then she would hurry over to Black Marianne's and supply her with wood and water and whatever else the old woman wanted.

      On Sunday afternoons, when everybody was out for a good time, Barefoot often used to stand quiet and motionless at the door of her house, looking out into the world and at the sky in dreamy, far-off meditation, wondering where Damie was now and how he was getting on. And then she would stand and gaze for a long time at an overturned plow, or watch a fowl clawing in the sand. When a vehicle passed through the village, she would look up and say, almost aloud:

      "They are driving to somebody. On all the roads of the world there is nobody coming to me, and no one thinking of me. And do I not belong here too?"

      And then she would make believe to herself that she was expecting something, and her heart would beat faster, as if for somebody who was coming. And involuntarily the old song rose to her lips:

      All the brooklets in the wide world,

      They СКАЧАТЬ