Читать книгу A Tar-Heel Baron - Mabell S. C. Smith - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Friedrich von Rittenheim

The incongruity of his manner of life was patent to all who saw. The mountaineers around him recognized it, but they attributed it to the fact of his being a foreigner. The more cultivated folk realized that a man of the world who bore every mark of good birth and breeding was indeed out of place in the gray jeans of the North Carolina farmer, guiding the plough with his own hand.

At first no one knew just how to take him, even to the calling of his name. Baron Friedrich Johann Ludwig—and a half-dozen more—von Rittenheim was a good deal to compass. The farmers and the negroes finally settled upon "Mr. Baron."

As to "taking him," it was he who took them, and by storm. He was as poor as his poorest neighbors, that was evident, so they felt no jealousy, and laid aside the mistrust which is the countryman's shield and buckler. He asked agricultural instruction from the men, was courteously respectful to the women, and played with the children. Among those of more gentle birth there was little question of their reception of him after once he had ridden to their doors, making the first visit, as in the old country. To be sure, he had appeared astride a mule, but neither his mount nor his dress could conceal a soldierly bearing that made him the envy of every man who saw him. And he had but to click his heels together and make his queer foreign bow that displayed the top of his fair head, and to kiss the fingers of the "gnädige Frau," to win the hearts of all the women. His English, in itself, was no small charm, for, though he had conquered his w's and th's, his use of idiom was ever new.

It was of the Baron that Dr. Morgan and his wife were talking as they drove towards home at sunset of a late March day.

"Hanged if Ah know how the fellow gets on," said the Doctor. "It was fall when he came here, and that farm he bought from Ben Frady hadn't any crop on it but a mahty little corn. He did his winter ploughing and killed the pig he took with the place, but how he's pulling through Ah don't know."

The Doctor spat in a practised and far-reaching manner into the red clay mud, and shook the reins over the backs of the horse and mule, which plodded on unheeding.

"This is 'starvation time,' too. Ah noticed yesterday our bacon was getting low," returned Mrs. Morgan, with the application to self that a country life induces. "The Baron never did tell any one about his money affairs, did he, Henry?"

It would be hard to say why she asked, unless for the sake of continuing the conversation, for, had there been any such bit of gossip, it would have been the Doctor's exclusive property only so long as it took him to drive from the place where he had heard it to his own house.

"Not a word," he replied. "Hi, Pete, what are you doing?"

Always a careless driver, the Doctor was more than ever so when the state of the roads precluded travelling faster than a walk. He had not noticed the mud-hole which the mule had tried to jump. In his harnesses, twine, rope, and wire played as prominent a part as leather. In fact, most of the points of responsibility were guarded by those materials rather than by the original. Pete's jump and his mate's consequent shy proved too much for long-worn traces, and two of them snapped.

"Hang those things! That outside one popped just yesterday, Sophy," said the Doctor, in a tone of grievance, as if the fact of its having broken yesterday ought to have rendered him free from the liability of a similar annoyance to-day.

"Ah reckon you-all 'll have to get a new harness some time," returned Sophy, placidly, holding the reins which her husband transferred to her as, with no great relish, he lowered his long, lean person into the red sea of mud below.

"Rather juicy down here. Got any string, wife?"

"Not a bit. You'll have to take a piece out of the lines," suggested Mrs. Morgan, with resource born of long experience.

"Ah 'low Ah will, though they're pretty short now from doing the same thing befo'."

He examined them gravely.

"They ain't very strong, either," he added. "Let's see, where are we at?" He looked about him for landmarks. "Oh, there's the road that leads to the Baron's over yonder. Give me yo' handkerchief fo' this other trace now, and we'll try and get there befo' it pops again."

Friedrich von Rittenheim was standing on the porch in front of his cabin, gazing at the western sky. A royal mantle of purple enwrapped the shoulders of mighty Pisgah against a background of lucent gold. The expression of anxiety and of spiritless longing left the man's face as he watched the melting glory.

"Wunderschön!" he murmured. "I wonder if she, too, is seeing it, also."

The Doctor's buggy came laboring into sight around the corner of the house.

"Ach, here are my so good friends, who are ever welcome. I kiss your hand, gr-racious Madam," he cried, as he went to the side of the carriage, and unshrinkingly saluted an old fur glove, from which the gracious madam's every finger was protruding.

"Ah've broken mah traces, Baron. Can you-all let me have some wire or string?"

"With delight, my dear Doctor. And will you not do me the honor to enter herein, dear lady, while the Herr Doctor and I r-repair the har-rness?"

He helped her from the buggy with a courtesy that induced a responsive manner in her, and she sailed ponderously into the cabin, displaying an elegance that caused her husband to chuckle and say to himself—

"He certainly does fetch the women!"

The Baron stirred the fire, whose light fell on a scar, the mark of a student duel, that crept out from under his hair. He left Mrs. Morgan stretching her plump feet and puffy hands to enjoy the flames' warmth, while her keen eyes examined every corner of the bare room, its tidily swept hearth, and the bunch of galax leaves on the table.

"You-all keep pretty neat fo' a bachelor," she said, when the two men came in after their task was done. "Ah always tell the Doctor it's lucky he's married and has some one to look after him. You see he's no great shakes at keeping clean now;" she looked him over with an eye made critical by his proximity to the German, who was a model of soldierly neatness; "and if he wasn't married, Ah don't know what he'd be!"

Von Rittenheim didn't know, either, so he said, "That is one advantage of an ar-rmy tr-raining, Mrs. Mor-rgan."

"Well, Ah don't know as Ah agree with you there, Baron," she replied. "Henry was in the army all through the Civil War, and Ah don't think his habits were a bit improved at the end of it."

Henry grinned appreciatively, but the Baron's features betrayed only such interest as incited Mrs. Morgan to further conversation.

"Where's the rocking-chair you had when Ah was here befo'? That was Ben Frady's mother's chair. Ah've seen the old woman sitting out on the po'ch in it many a time."

She waited for an answer, and Friedrich colored to the roots of his hair. It was on his tongue's tip to say that it was in the next room, but Mrs. Morgan was quite capable of penetrating there; and, besides, telling the truth was another result of army training. He stammered something about having disposed of it, and hastened to ask if Madam would not like a cup of coffee.

It was a natural pride that deterred von Rittenheim from confessing to these friends of not many months' standing that he had sold the chair, the only thing in the house worth selling, and had sold it from necessity. The Doctor was right in his suspicions that the Baron was not getting on comfortably. Ten days ago he had spent his very last cent, and he was learning the true meaning of the word "poverty." The crop of corn that he had bought with the farm had served him until now as feed for the mule, as meal and hominy, and, by the alchemy of the alembic, as whisky. The end of the bacon from Ben Frady's pig was on the shelf in the cupboard before which he was standing, and he had just offered to his guest the last of the coffee with which the sale of old Mrs. Frady's chair had provided him. It was this anxiety that had clouded his brow as he looked at the sunset. He had nothing to send to market, not even wood, for his bit of forest yielded only enough for his own use. He had sold his cow, and had let a man have his mule for its keep.

It had not hurt his pride to live on this little mountain farm. He was as independent there as at home; more so, because the social demands upon him were as nothing. But no money and no food meant that he must work for a wage, and that galled him. Then, at this season of the year, what work was there to be done? No one needed extra laborers.

It looked very much as if he were brought face to face with starvation, and a man of thirty-five does not encounter such a prospect as gayly as a youth.

Fortunately for his further catechism, the idea of coffee appealed to Mrs. Morgan, and von Rittenheim set about making it, secretly wondering what his breakfast would be like without it, but preparing it none the less cheerfully.

"I gr-rieve, dear Frau Mor-rgan," he said, as he offered her the cup, "that I have not cr-ream for you—or sugar, either," he added, peering into a bowl that he knew to be empty. He brightened as he picked up a little pitcher. "But molasses; may I give to you molasses?"

"Yes, indeed," returned Mrs. Morgan, cordially. "Ah like them just as well as sugar. Just a few, now," as she held out her cup.

"Shall it be coffee for you, Herr Doctor, or whisky? See, I have a jug of corn whisky which I myself made."

"No need to ask me, sir. Whisky, of course," and the Doctor's eyes twinkled under their shaggy brows. "Not bad fo' new whisky," he commented, as he swallowed the fiery stuff. "How do you make it, Baron? Ah didn't know you had a still."

"Nor have I, except a little affair in a bucket, with a bit of r-rubber hose for a worm. It makes enough for me. It is not a pleasant drink," he added, quaintly.

"But better than nothing, eh?" returned the Doctor, jovially, and then was sorry that he had said it, for his glance had fallen within the cupboard, and had spied out the emptiness of the larder. To cover his mistake, he added—

"Mind you-all don't sell any. It's against the law, you know."

"A very str-range law. If I from my corn make meal or hominy, or what you call 'r-roughness,' for the cattle to eat, I may sell them. But if I make whisky, I must dr-rink it all myself, eh?"

"Yes, or give it to me! You see they must tax us on something, and while they class whisky as a luxury—"

"Cor-rn whisky?" interrupted Friedrich, incredulous.

"—they know it's enough of a necessity with us North Carolina mountaineers, at any rate, to return some revenue."

"My sympathy is with the moonshiners, I confess, Herr Doctor; though it is also with men who think such a bever-rage good to dr-rink! You go? Ah, dear lady, I hope it will be soon again that you honor my house."

The Baron looked after the buggy as it disappeared in the dusk, and then turned back into the cabin, once more to face the harsh reality of his thoughts.

It grew clear to him that he must seek work in Asheville, the nearest large town, a dozen miles away. He must walk there and beg for employment like any tramp. Such straits as this he had not anticipated when he had made the sacrifice that had forced him to leave the Fatherland, though he did not for a moment regret that sacrifice.

What he could not formulate was just how he had been brought to his present pass. It was with stinging honesty that he owned it to be through some lack of foresight or of energy. But how should he have energy when he had no purpose in life?

To be sure, there was Sydney Carroll, who might supply purpose to any man who loved her, if that man were not a broken-spirited craven. The hopeless longing that had been in his eyes while he gazed at the sunset filled them once more. What had he to offer her but devotion—the one capacity that was mighty within him? No, not even Love could endow him with Purpose.

Always he completed the circle of his thoughts. He must work for somebody else. That would be, indeed, a new experience and a bitter.

He was fighting with his pride when a call outside summoned him. It was the cry that has brought many a man to his door to be shot to death; but von Rittenheim had no feuds, and went forward without hesitation.

"Can you-all give me some supper?" asked a man who loomed big in the darkness as he sat on his horse. "Ah must have taken the wrong turn back yonder and wandered off the county road."

"This r-road goes only by my house like a bow of which the county r-road is the str-ring," explained the Baron. "Dismount, I beg, and with much pleasure will I give you what I can."

It was little enough, though to the bit of bacon was added a couple of apples roasted in the ashes. It was to the credit of the visitor's powers of perception that he did not ask for other than was set before him, and compel his host to disclose his poverty. He was a man of middle age, with a shrewd face whose expression was spoiled by an occasional look of slyness or glance of suspicion.

"Very fair whisky," approved the stranger. "Do you get it round here?"

"I make it."

"You do?" with a sudden contraction of the eyelids.

Von Rittenheim saw nothing but his own regret at his necessarily meagre hospitality, for which he tried to make amends by being increasingly agreeable.

"You will like to see my little affair?" he asked, after describing the primitive manufacture of his still.

"Ah'm afraid Ah must be going on; Ah'm obliged to get to Asheville to-night. But if you'd sell me a quart of yo' whisky to keep me warm on the way, Ah'd like it."

He opened the door and looked out.

"It's right smart cold," he added.

Friedrich made no reply. He had checked his first impulse, which was to offer to give the fellow all the whisky he wanted, and he looked with a sort of fascination at the coin which the other drew from his pocket and tossed on to the table. Undoubtedly he was hungrier than ever he had been in his life, and not only had he seen his supper devoured before his eyes, but there would be nothing to eat in the morning before his long walk to town. With this money he could buy something at the store which he must pass on his way.

His recent conversation with Dr. Morgan went through his mind. He glanced at his guest, who was buttoning his coat and tightening a spur preparatory to starting.

"I think he will not tell," thought von Rittenheim, and he found an empty bottle and filled it from the jug. Then he helped the stranger with his horse, and after his departure returned to look ruefully into the fire.

"Never before," he mused, "did one of my race commit so petty a wrong."