Читать книгу The Long Journey - Elsie Singmaster - Страница 4

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On the evening of the twenty-third of June, Conrad Weiser brought home, as was his custom, the Gross Anspach cow. The fact was, in itself, not remarkable, since it was Conrad's chief duty to take the cow to pasture, to guard her all day long, to lead her from one little patch of green grass to another, to see that she drank from one of the springs on the hillside, and to feed her now and then a little of the precious salt which he carried in his pocket. What made this twenty-third of June remarkable was the fact that this was Conrad's final journey from the pastures of Gross Anspach to Gross Anspach village.

Liesel, the property of Conrad's father, John Conrad, was Gross Anspach's only cow. War and the occupation of a brutal soldiery had stripped the village of its property, its household goods, its animals, and, alas! of most of its young men. Gross Anspach had hidden itself in woods and in holes in the ground, had lived like animals in dens. Upon the mountainside wolves had devoured children.

What war had left undone, famine and pestilence and fearful cold had completed. The fruit trees had died, the vines were now merely stiffened and rattling stalks, and, though it was June, the earth was bare in many places. There were no young vines to plant, there was no seed to sow, there were no horses to break the soil with the plough.

Sometimes Conrad had company to the hillside pasture. He was thirteen years old, a short, sturdy, blue-eyed boy, much older than his years, as were most of the children in Gross Anspach. Above him in the family were Catrina, who was married and had two little children of her own, then Margareta, Magdalena, and Sabina, and below him were George Frederick, Christopher, Barbara, and John Frederick. They all had blue eyes and sturdy frames and they were all, except John Frederick, thin. John Frederick was their darling and the only partaker in the family of the bounty of Liesel. The fact that John Frederick had no mother seemed more terrible than the lack of a mother for any of the other eight children.

When Margareta and Magdalena and Sabina and George Frederick and Christopher and Barbara and John Frederick accompanied Conrad to the hillside, they all started soberly, the older girls knitting as they walked, Christopher and Barbara trotting hand in hand, and John Frederick riding upon Conrad's back. They had little to say—there was little to be said. When the prospect broadened, when they were able to look out over the walls of their own valley across the wide landscape, then spirits were lightened and tongues were loosed. Then they could see other valleys and other hills and the desolation of their own no longer filled their tired eyes. The little children ran about, the older ones, still working busily, sat and talked.

Their speech was German, the soft and beautiful German of the south. Sometimes they spoke in whispers and with fearful glances of the past and its terrors, and of the cruel French. Sometimes the older girls whispered together of romantic dreams which could never come true, of true lovers and a happy home for each. But most of all they talked—amazing to relate—these little Germans of two hundred years ago—of Indians!

About Indians it was Conrad who had the most to say. Conrad was the oldest boy; though so much younger than Margareta and Magdalena, he could read easily while they could not read at all. While Conrad talked, their thoughts traveled out of their poor valley, down the great river, through strange cities to a mighty ship upon which they should sail and sail until they reached a Paradise. Sometimes Conrad walked up and down before them, his hands clasped behind his back, sometimes he lay on the ground with his hands under his head. He talked and talked and let himself be questioned in the lordly manner which lads assume with their sisters. He carried with him always, buttoned inside his thin clothes, a little book which he knew by heart.

"Is it cold there?" asked Sabina wistfully. Sabina was the last to recover from the fearful winter.

Conrad leafed his little book.

"I will read. 'The climate is everywhere subtle and penetrating. During the winter'—here, Sabina,—'during the winter the sun has great strength.'"

"I do not know what 'subtle and penetrating' mean. Those great words are beyond me."

"They mean that the climate is good," explained Conrad, who did not know exactly either.

"Will we be hungry?" asked Sabina, still more wistfully.

Conrad could hardly turn the leaves fast enough. His eyes sparkled, his cheeks glowed.

"Now listen, you foolish, frightened Sabina, listen! 'The country produces all kinds of cereals, together with Indian corn of various kinds. Peas, kitchen vegetables, pumpkins, melons, roots, hemp, flax, hops, everything. Peaches and cherries'—Sabina, you have never eaten peaches or cherries, but I have eaten one of each—'peaches and cherries grow like weeds.' Here we have nothing, nothing! Our grandfather was a magistrate, but we are almost beggars. My father talks to me as he does not talk to you, Margareta and Magdalena and Sabina and—"

Margareta lifted her blue eyes from her knitting and tossed back her yellow braids.

"It is not very long since I spanked you well, Conrad," said she.

At this all the children, even Conrad, smiled. Margareta made a little motion as though she meant to rise and pursue her brother about the high tableland, Conrad a little motion as though he dared her to a chase. But the impulse passed, as all playful impulses passed in this time of distress.

"My father talks to me because I am almost a man," went on Conrad. "He says that if we have another winter like the one which is past we will all die as our mother—" Conrad could not complete his sentence. The children did not cry, their hearts only ceased for a moment to beat as Conrad's speech faltered. "He says there will not be enough animals and birds left after that time to establish a new stock. He says that even if the winter is mild, Gross Anspach cannot all live—even we few that are left."

"But I am afraid," said little Sabina.

"Afraid of what?"

"Of the river and the great sea."

"Thousands have sailed down the river and many have crossed the sea, Sabina."

"I am most afraid of these strange red people."

"I am not afraid of them," announced little Christopher. "Not more than I am afraid of Liesel."

Once more Conrad leafed his little book. It was no wonder that it scarcely held together.

"They are not bad people. They fish and hunt and plant crops. They go farther and farther back into the woods as the white people come. I am no more afraid of them than I am of Christopher."

"But how are we to get there, brother?" asked Magdalena, who spoke least among a family who spoke little.

Conrad shut his book and tied it in its place under his coat.

"That I do not know," said he impatiently. "But we will all see yet the river and the great sea and the deep forests and the red people."

"Old Redebach says—" No sooner had John Frederick began to speak than his lips were covered by the hand of his brother.

"Old Redebach cannot tell the truth. It is not in him. And he is afraid of everything. Ten times he has told me that Liesel would be carried off, that he has had a dream and has seen men watching her. Forty times he has told me that Liesel would die of the cattle plague. There stands Liesel fat and hearty. It is the schoolmaster who is to be believed in this matter. He would start to-morrow if he could. I tell you"—Conrad pointed toward the declining sun—"we are going, we are going, we are going."

Now, on the twenty-third of June, as Conrad, alone, guided the obstinate way of Liesel through the dusk, the words of old Redebach came back to him. Liesel had all the trying defects of a spoiled and important character; believing herself to be the Queen of Gross Anspach, she expected her subjects to follow where she led. She proceeded deliberately into all sorts of black and shadowy places from which Conrad did not dare to chase her roughly for fear of affecting the precious store of milk, upon which John Frederick and other Gross Anspach babies depended.

Conrad recalled now, besides the warnings of old Redebach about present dangers, certain fearful things which were printed in his little book. The savages had learned from the whites to be deceitful, they were frequently drunk, they would not be governed, they used their knives and hatchets for hideous purposes. They were enormous creatures, who increased their height by bunches of towering feathers fastened to their topknots. They stole upon their victims with the quietness of cats, they—was that a stealthy footstep which Conrad heard now to the right of his path?—they celebrated their triumph with fearful cries—what was that strange sound which he heard to his left?

In spite of himself, Conrad hastened the steps of the unruly Liesel through the twilight.

The Weiser family lived in one of the few houses left in Gross Anspach. It was not large, but to the villagers who had taken refuge after the burning of their dwellings in stables and sheds, it seemed like a palace. From its doorway shone now a faint light, at sight of which Conrad felt ashamed of his fear. He heard the rattle of Margareta's milk pail, and felt against his leg the warm, comfortable body of old Wolf, the Weiser dog.

"You are late," called Margareta, in an excited tone. "I have been watching and watching and the children have been more than once to the bottom of the hill."

"What is the matter?" asked Conrad.

"You will hear in good time," answered Margareta in a patronizing way.

"Where is father?"

"In the house."

"If anything had happened he would tell me first," said Conrad. "I do not believe he has told you anything."

Behind the broad table in the kitchen sat John Conrad. He was the younger Conrad grown old and gray with anxiety and grief. His clothes were whole, but mended with amazing invention. His body was still powerful and the fire of energy flashed from his eyes. As Conrad entered, he raised a clenched fist and brought it down heavily upon the table, which, solid as it was, shook under the impact. A stranger might have thought that he was reproving the little row of children who sat opposite him on a bench and who watched him with a fixed stare. But John Conrad was a kind father; his excitement did not find its source in anger with his children. Nor were the children frightened. Their stare was one of admiration and awe rather than of fright.

Seeing his father thus, Conrad asked no questions, though a dozen trembled on his lips. He sat quietly down beside the other children and lifted John Frederick to his lap.

When Margareta came in from milking, the family had their supper of black bread and a little weak broth. It was enough to keep life in their bodies, but not very vigorous life. The children scarcely tasted what they ate, so excited were they by their father's appearance, and by the long and solemn prayer with which he prefaced the meal. Presently Elisabeth Albern came for milk for her Eva, Michael Fuhrmann for milk for his Balthasar, and George Reimer, the schoolmaster, for milk for his little sister Salome. For this milk John Conrad took no pay. He was poor, but his neighbors were far poorer; he regarded Liesel neither as the annoying creature which Conrad considered her, nor as the proud princess that she believed herself to be, but as a sacred trust. If it were not for Liesel half of the poor little Gross Anspach babies would not survive the summer. Even John Frederick was beginning to eat the black bread and broth so that younger and more needy babies might have his share of Liesel's milk.

George Reimer spoke to John Conrad in a way which heightened the children's excitement.

"I will be here," said he.

The children nudged one another. Their father was the leader in what poor little affairs Gross Anspach might still be said to have, and he sometimes assembled his neighbors so that they might encourage and console one another.

Such a meeting was now at hand. The older girls washed the bowls and wooden plates and the cooking-pot and put them on the shelf, and carried a sleepy John Frederick and a protesting Barbara from the kitchen and laid them firmly and tenderly in their corner of the family bedroom. When Conrad nodded to little Christopher that he should follow, the older Weiser bade Christopher stay.

"It is important that all my children who can should remember this night."

Before long the village men and a few of the women began to assemble. They came quietly, with only the simplest of greetings, but eye meeting eye said wonderful things.

"John Conrad Weiser, you are our leader and friend."

"Neighbors, you have been my stay in deep affliction."

A woman with a baby in her arms bade John Conrad look and see how his namesake was growing.

"If it were not for you he would be gone like his father."

Presently the children, giving up their places on the bench for places on little stools or on the earthen floor, began to whisper to one another and to point. From under the thin and ragged coat of George Reimer, the schoolmaster, projected a flute. George's own flute had been taken from him by the French soldiers, but in a few days a much finer one had been found by the roadside, dropped, probably, because the army could not carry all its own possessions in addition to those which it had stolen. It might be said that Gross Anspach retained two valuable articles, John Conrad Weiser's cow and George Reimer's flute. Behind his father's back, Conrad pretended to play a tune upon the air. At once the solemn assembly grew a little brighter. Last of all came Catrina and her husband.

At once John Conrad rose to pray. They still had God, these souls who had little else, and upon Him John Conrad called, that He might bless them in a great endeavor. At this, in spite of his better knowledge, Conrad opened his eyes and fixed them upon Margareta until she opened hers. Conrad clasped his hands tightly, scarcely able to breathe.

"Friends,"—John Conrad had closed his prayer,—"I have asked you to come here so that I might tell you of an important matter. It is not necessary that in beginning what I have to say I should remind you of our miseries and our griefs. You know them as well as I. You know that this life cannot go on; that, presently, unless we do something for ourselves, there will be none of us remaining. Our country is desolate. The soldiers have harried us, the great cold has tortured us, famine has almost made an end of us. We should not too bitterly sigh and complain on account of what has come upon us. It may be that thus God seeks to lead us to another and a better land.

"I need not tell you, either, what land I have in mind. We have spoken of it, we have seen it in our dreams, we have longed for it with all our souls. There is fertile soil, there is temperate climate, there is, above all, thank God! freedom and peace. There is no war there. There—" John Conrad halted, tried again to speak and failed.

"But we cannot get to that country!" cried the young woman with the baby in her arms.

There was a long pause. Deep breaths were drawn and a great sigh filled the little room.

"The way has been opened," announced John Conrad at last. "I and my family will go to-morrow. Let those who will come with us lift their hands."

But no hands were lifted. The thought of deliverance was paralyzing.

"Word has come that the gracious Queen of England will send us and our long-suffering brethren to her colonies in the New World. I have had a letter from our old neighbor the magistrate of Oberdorf. He is in London, awaiting the sailing of the ships. He is well cared for; charitable persons exert themselves for the afflicted people. Probably by this time he is already far on his way."

"But to-morrow, father!" cried Catrina. "Why start to-morrow?"

"As well to-morrow as another day," answered John Conrad. "We have few possessions and they are easily gathered together. To those of our friends who will not come with us we could not express our affection and our farewells in a hundred days. We will go on foot to the river and make our way to the lowlands and thence to England. It is a long and perilous journey, but it is not so perilous as to stay. I cannot advise any one what to do. But for all those who come I will care as though they were my own."

"But Liesel!" cried the young woman with the baby in her arms. "We will die without Liesel!"

John Conrad smiled.

"Liesel will stay in Gross Anspach. She will be the perpetual property of the Gross Anspach babies."

George Reimer spoke next. He sat with his arms folded across his breast, within them his precious flute. Tears were in his eyes and in his voice as he said:—

"I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me."

The company broke up without music. There were those who must go home to tell wives or mothers; there were those who wished to talk to John Conrad in private. There was Catrina, with her husband, weeping and distressed, who did not dare to trust her babies to the sea. She must plan with her sisters the bundles which should be packed for each to carry, the food which must be gathered to last as long as possible. To her and her husband John Conrad forgave a large debt, and his kindness and their inability to pay made the parting more heartbreaking. John Conrad still had a little store of German gulden, long hoarded against the coming day.

When all was done and the children were asleep, John Conrad took his oldest son by the hand and led him up the winding street between the ruined houses to the little Lutheran church which had been saved in the great destruction. The moon shone quietly upon it and the little walled-in space behind it. Thither John Conrad led his son, and beside a new-made grave they paused.

"It is not good to dwell on grief when one lives in the world and has still the work of half a lifetime," said he solemnly. "But there are moments when it is right that we should yield ourselves to our sorrow. The others will come here in the morning, but you and I will then have no time for shedding tears. Your mother looked into the future. She begged me to go when the time came, even though I must leave her here."

"My lad,"—John Conrad laid his arm across the boy's shoulders,—"there are many things I would say to you. You were, as you know, her darling. But she knew your faults, that you are strong-headed and strong-willed. As you are of all my children the quickest to learn, so are you the least obedient and steady, the most impatient and impetuous. Your mother prayed for you daily. Will you remember her counsels, lad?"

To the yearning voice Conrad could make no answer. Arm in arm father and son stood for a long time. Then, when the moon had sunk behind the little church, Conrad felt himself led away.

"Now, my son," admonished John Conrad, "weep no more, but set your face forward."