University of Virginia Library

6. THE EMIGRANT BOY.

IN the old town of Rüdesheim, on the Rhine, is
one of those dilapidated castles, which impart such
picturesque beauty to the scenery of Germany.
Among the ruins, Karl Schelling, a poor hardworking
peasant, made for himself a home. With
him dwelt his good wife Liesbet, and two blue-eyed
children, named Fritz and Gretchen. A few
cooking utensils, and wooden stools, constituted all
their furniture; and one brown-and-white goat,
was all they had to remind them of flocks and
herds. But these poor children led a happier life,
than those small imitations of humanity, who are
bred up in city palaces, and drilled to walk through
existence in languid drawing-room paces. From
moss-grown arches in the old ruins, they could

watch boats and vessels gliding over the sparkling
Rhine, and see broad meadows golden with sunshine.
On the terrace of the castle, the wind had
planted many flowers. It was richly carpeted with
various kinds of moss, tufts of grass, blue-bells,
and little pinks. Here Karl often carried his goat
to feed, and left the children to tend upon him.
There had been a stork's nest on the roof, from
time immemorial; and the little ones were early
taught to reverence the birds, as omens of blessing.
Their simple young souls were quite unconscious
of poverty. The splendid Rhine, with all its islands—the
broad pasture-lands, with herds peacefully
grazing—houses nestling among woody hills
—all seemed to belong to them; and in reality,
they possessed them more truly than many a rich
man, who
On their little heaps of straw, brother and sister
slept soundly in each other's arms; and if the
hooting of an owl chanced to wake them, some
bright star looked in with friendly eye, through
chinks in the walls, and said, “Go to sleep, little
ones; for all little children are dear to the good
God.”

Thus, with scanty food and coarse clothes,

plenty of pure air and blue sky, Fritz and his sister
went hand in hand over their rugged but
flower-strewn path of life, till he was nearly seven
years old. Then came Uncle Heinrich, his mother's
brother, and said the boy could be useful to him
at the mill, where he worked; and if the parents
were willing to bind him to his service, he would
supply him with food and clothing, and give him
an outfit when he came of age. Tears were in
Liesbet's eyes; for she thought how lonely it would
seem to her and little Gretchen, when they should
no longer hear Fritz mocking the birds, or singing
aloud to the high heaven. But they were very
poor, and the child must earn his bread. So, with
much sorrow to part with father and mother, and
Gretchen, the goat and the stork, and with some
gladness to go to new scenes, Fritz departed from
the old nest that had served him for a home.
Mounted with Uncle Heinrich, on the miller's donkey,
he ambled along through rocky paths, by deep
ravines and castle-crowned hills, with here and
there glimpses of the noble river, flowing on, bright
and strong, reflecting images of spires, cottages,
and vine-covered slopes. When he arrived at his
new home, the good grandmother gave him right
friendly welcome, and promised to set up on her
knitting-needles a striped blue cap for him to wear.
Uncle Heinrich was kind, in his rough way; but
he thought it an excellent plan for boys to eat little
and work hard. Fritz, remembering the blossom-carpet
of the old castle, was always delighted to
spy a clump of flowers. His uncle told him they
looked well enough, but he wondered anybody
should ever plant them, since they were not useful
either to eat or wear; and that when he grew older,
he would doubtless think more of pence than posies.
Thus the child began to be ashamed, as of something
wrong, when he was caught digging a flower.
But his laborious and economical relative taught
him many orderly and thrifty ways, which afterward
had great influence on his success in life;
and fortunately a love for the beautiful could not
be pressed out of him. Kind, all-embracing Nature
took him in her arms, and whispered many things
to preserve him from becoming a mere animal.
All day long he was hard at work; but the blossoming
tree was his friend, and the bright little
mill-stream chatted cozily, and smiled when the
good grandmother gave it his clothes to wash.
The miller's donkey, ambling along through sun-lighted
paths over the hills, was a picture to him.
From his small garret window he could see the
mill-wheel scattering bright drops in the moonlight;
and he fell asleep to the gentle lullaby of
ever-flowing water. Other education than this he
had not.

An aged neighbour, cotemporary with the grandmother,
took a great liking to Fritz; and on Sundays,
when no work could be done, he was often
allowed to go and take dinner or supper there.
The old man had traversed nearly all Germany as
a peddler, and had come to die in the old homestead
near the mill, where he had worked when a boy.
He knew by heart all the wild fairy legends of the
country, and, in his character of peddler-guest, had
acquired a talent for relating them in a manner
peculiarly amusing and exciting to children. In
the course of his travels, he had likewise collected
many things which seemed very remarkable to the
inexperienced eye of Fritz; such as curious smoking-pipes
and drinking-cups, and images in all the
various costumes of Germany. But what most attracted
his attention was an ancient clock, brought
from Copenhagen when the peddler's father was a
young man. When this clock was in its right
mind, it could play twelve tunes, about as simple
as “Molly put the kettle on.” But the friction of
many years had so worn the cogs of the wheels,
that it was frightfully out of tune. This did not
trouble the boy's strong nerves, and he was prodigiously
amused with the sputtering, seething,
jumping, jabbering sounds it made, when set in
motion. To each of the crazy old tunes he gave
some droll name. “There goes the Spitting Cat,”
he would say; “now let us hear the Old Hen.”

Father Rudolph called the rickety old machine

his Blacking Box; because he had bought it with
the proceeds of a peculiar kind of blacking, of his
own manufacture. He was always praising this
blacking; and one day he said, “I have never
told any one the secret of making it; but if you
are a good boy, Fritz, I will show you how it is
done.” The child could not otherwise than respect
what had procured such a wonderful clock; and
when he fell asleep that night, there floated through
his mind undefined visions of being able, some time
or other, to purchase such a comical machine for
himself. This seemed a very unimportant incident
of his childhood; but it was the introduction of a
thread, that reappeared again in his web of life.

Fritz passed at the old mill four years of health,
happiness, and hard labor. For three years, Father
Rudolph was an unfailing source of entertainment.
Alternately with his comic old songs, and wild
legends of fairies and goblins, he imparted much
of a traveller's discursive observation, and thorough
practical knowledge concerning the glossy jet blacking.
At last he fell asleep, and the boy heard that
pleasant old voice no more, except in the echoing
caves of memory. The good grandmother survived
the companion of her youth only a few months.
The ancient ballads she used to croon at her spinning-wheel,
had caught something of the monotonous
flow of the water, which forever accompanied
them; and Fritz, as he passed up and down from
the mill to the brook, missed the quaint old melodies,

as he would have missed the rustling of the
leaves, the chirping of crickets, or any other dear
old familiar sound. He missed, too, her kind
motherly ways, and the little comforts with which
her care supplied him. With the exception of his
rough, but really kind-hearted uncle, he was now
alone in the world. He had visited Rüdesheim
but once, and had then greatly amused Gretchen
with his imitations of the crazy clock. But his
parents had since removed to a remote district,
and he knew not when he should see dear Gretchen
again. As none of them could read or write, there
came no tidings to cheer the long years of separation.
How his heart yearned at times for the good
mother and the joyous little sister!

But when Uncle Heinrich announced his intention
of removing to America, the prospect of
new adventures, and the youthful tendency to look
on the bright side of things, overbalanced the pain
of parting from father-land. It is true the last night
he slept at the old mill, the moonlight had a farewell
sadness in its glance, and the little stream
murmured more plaintively as it flowed. Fritz
thought perhaps they knew he was going away.
They certainly seemed to sigh forth, “We shall
see thee no more, thou bright, strong child! We
remain, but thou art passing away!”

When the emigrants came to the sea-port, every
thing was new and exciting to the juvenile imagination
of Fritz. The ships out in the harbor

looked like great white birds, sailing through the
air. How pleasant it must be thus to glide over
the wide waters! But between a ship in the
distance, and the ship we are in, there exists the
usual difference between the ideal and the actual.
There was little romance in the crowded cabin,
with hundreds of poor emigrants eating, drinking,
and smoking, amid the odour of bilge-water, and
the dreadful nausea of the sea. Poor Fritz longed
for the pure atmosphere and fresh-flowing brook,
at the mill. However, there was always America
in prospect, painted to his imagination like Islands
of the Blest. Uncle Heinrich said he should grow
rich there; and a fairy whispered in his ear that he
himself might one day possess a Copenhagen clock,
bright and new, that would play its tunes decently
and in order. “No, no,” said Fritz to the fairy,
“I had rather buy Father Rudolph's clock; it was
such a funny old thing.” “Very well,” replied the
fairy, “be diligent and saving, and perhaps I will
one day bring Father Rudolph's clock to crow and
sputter to thee in the New World.”

But these golden dreams of the future received
a sad check. One day, there was a cry of “A man
overboard!” It occasioned the more terror, because
a shark had been following in the wake of the
vessel for several days. Boats were lowered instantly;
but a crimson tinge on the surface of the
water showed that their efforts were useless. It
was not till some minutes after the confusion subsided,

that Fritz perceived his Uncle Heinrich was
missing. Terrible had been that crimson stain on
the water; but now, when he knew it was the
life-blood of his last and only friend, it made him
faint and dizzy, as if it were flowing from his own
veins.

Uncle Heinrich's hard-earned savings were
fastened within the belt he wore; and a bundle of
coarse clothes, with a few tools, were all that remained
of his worldly possessions. The captain
had compassion on the desolate child, and charged
nothing for his passage, or his food. When the
vessel came within sight of port, the passengers;
though most of them poor, raised a small fund for
him by contribution. But who can describe the
utter loneliness of the emigrant boy, when he
parted from his ship-companions, and wandered
through the crowded streets of New York, without
meeting a single face he had ever seen before?
Lights shone in cheerful basements, where families
supped together; but his good-hearted mother, and
his dear little blue-eyed Gretchen—where were
they? Oh, it was very sad to be so entirely alone,
in such a wide, wide world! Sometimes he saw
a boy turn round to stare at his queer little cap,
and outlandish frock; but he could not understand
what he said, when he sung out, “There goes what
they call a Flying Dutchman.” Day after day he
tried for work, but could obtain none. His funds
were running very low, and his heart was extremely

heavy. As he stood leaning against a
post, one day, a goat walked slowly towards him
from a neighboring court. How his heart leaped
up to greet her! With her came back images of
the castle on the Rhine, the blooming terrace, his
kind father, his blessed mother, and his darling
little sister. He patted the goat's head, and kissed
her, and looked deep into her eyes, as he had done
with the companion of his boyhood. A stranger
came to lead the animal away; and when she was
gone, poor Fritz sobbed as if his heart would break.
“I have not even a goat for a friend now,” thought
he. “I wish I could get back to the old mill again.
I am afraid I shall starve here in this foreign land,
where there is nobody to bury me.”

In the midst of these gloomy cogitations, there
was an alarm of fire; and the watchmen sprung
their rattles. Instantly a ray of hope darted
through his soul! The sound reminded him of
Father Rudolph's Blacking Box; for one of its
tipsy tunes began with a flourish exactly like it.
“I will save every cent I can, and buy materials
to make blacking,” thought he. “I will sleep
under the planks on the wharves, and live on two
pence a day. I can speak a few words of English.
I will learn more from some of my countrymen,
who have been here longer than I. Then, perhaps,
I can sell blacking enough to buy bread and
clothes.”

And thus he did. At first, it went very hard

with him. Some days he earned nothing; and a
week of patient waiting brought but one shilling.
But his broad face was so clean and honest, his
manners so respectful, and his blacking so uncommonly
good, that his customers gradually increased.
One day, a gentleman who traded with him made
a mistake, and gave him a shilling instead of a tencent
piece. Fritz did not observe it at the moment;
but the next day, when the gentleman
passed to his counting-house, he followed him, and
touched him on the arm. The merchant inquired
what he wanted. Fritz showed the coin, saying,
“Dat not mine.” “Neither is it mine,” rejoined
the merchant; “what do you show it to me for?”
The boy replied, in his imperfect English, “Dat too
mooch.” A friend, who was with the merchant,
addressed him in German; and the poor emigrant's
countenance lighted up, as if it had become suddenly
transparent, and a lamp placed within it. Heaving
a sigh, and blushing at his own emotion, he explained,
in his native tongue, that he had accidently
taken too much for his blacking, the day before.
They looked at him with right friendly glances,
and inquired into his history. He told them his
name and parentage, and how Uncle Heinrich had
attempted to bring him to America, and had been
devoured by a shark on the way. He said he had
not a single friend in this foreign land, but he
meant to be honest and industrious, and he hoped
he should do well. The gentlemen assured him
that they should always remember him as Fritz
Shilling, and that they would certainly speak of
him to their friends. He did not understand the
joke of his name, but he did understand that they
bought all his blacking, and that customers increased
more rapidly after that interview.

It would be tedious to follow the emigrant
through all the process of his gradually-improving
fortune. As soon as he could spare anything
from necessary food and clothing, he went to an
evening school, where he learned to read, write,
and cipher. He became first a shop-boy, then a
clerk, and finally established a neat grocery-store
for himself. Through all these changes, he continued
to sell the blacking, which arrived at the
honour of poetical advertisements in the newspapers,
under the name of Schelling's Best Boot Polisher.

But the prosperity thus produced was not the
only result of his acquaintance with Father Rudolph.
The dropped stitches of our life are sometimes
taken up again strangely, through many intervening
loops. One day, as Fritz was passing
through the streets, when he was about sixteen
years old, he stopped and listened intently; for he
heard far off the sounds of a popular German ballad,
which his grandmother and the peddler often
used to sing together. Through all the din and
rattle of the streets, he could plainly distinguish
the monotonous minor cadence, which had often
brought tears to his eyes when a boy. He followed

the tones, and soon came in sight of an old
man and his wife singing the familiar melody. A
maiden, apparently somewhat younger than himself,
played a tamborin at intervals. When he
spoke to her in German, her face kindled, as his
own had done, at the first sound of his native
tongue in a strange land. “They call me Röschen,”
she replied; “these are my father and mother.
We came from the ship last night, and we
sing for bread, till we can get work to do.” The
soul looked simply and kindly through her blue
eyes, and reminded him of sister Gretchen. Her
wooden shoes, short blue petticoat, and little crimson
jacket might seem vulgar to the fashionable,
and picturesque to the artist; but to him it was
merely the beloved costume of his native land. It
warmed his heart with childish recollections; and
when they sang again the quaint, sad melody, he
seemed to hear the old brook flow plaintively by,
and see the farewell moonlight on the mill. Thus
began his acquaintance with the maiden, who was
afterwards his wife, and the mother of his little
Gretchen.

Of these, and all other groups of emigrants, for
many years, he inquired concerning his parents
and his sister; but could obtain no tidings. At
last, a priest in Germany, to whom he wrote, replied
that Gretchen had died in childhood; and
that the father and mother had also recently died.
It was a great disappointment to the affectionate

heart of Fritz Schelling; for through all his expanding
fortunes he had cherished the hope of returning
to them, or bringing them to share his
comfortable home in the New World. But when
he received the mournful news, he had Röschen
to love, and her parents to care for, and a little one
that twined herself round his heart with fresh
flower-garlands every day.

At thirty-five, he was a happy and a prosperous
man. So prosperous, that he could afford to live
well in the city, and yet build for himself a snug
cottage in the country. “We can go out every
Saturday and return on Monday,” said he to Röschen.
“We can have fresh cream, and our own
sweet butter. It will do the children good to roll
on the grass, and they shall have a goat to play
with.”

“And, perhaps, by-and-by, we can go there to
live all the time,” rejoined Röschen. “It is so
quiet and pleasant in the country; and what's the
use of being richer than enough?”

The site chosen for the cottage overlooked the
broad, bright river, where high palisades of rock
seemed almost like the ruins of an old castle.
Fritz said he would make a flower-carpet on the
rocks, for the goat to browse upon; and if a stork
would only come and build a nest on his thatched
roof, he could almost fancy himself in Germany.
At times, the idea of importing storks crossed his
mind; but his good sense immediately rejected the

plan. It is difficult to imagine how those venerable
birds, with their love of the antique and the
unchangeable, could possibly live in America. One
might as well try to import loyal subjects, or an
ancient nobility.

When house and barn were completed, the first
object was to secure honest, industrious German
tenants to till the soil. Fritz heard of a company
of emigrants, who wished to sell themselves for a
specified time, in order to pay their passage; and
he went on board the ship to see them. A hale
man, who said he was about sixty years old, with
a wife some five or six years younger, attracted his
attention by their extreme cleanliness and good expression
of countenance. He soon agreed to purchase
them; and in order to prepare the necessary
papers, he inquired their names.

“Karl Schelling and Liesbet Schelling,” replied
the old man.

Fritz started, and his face flushed, as he asked,
“Did you ever live in the old castle at Rüdesheim?”

“That we did for several summers,” rejoined
Karl.

“Ah, can you tell us any thing of our son
Fritz?” exclaimed Liesbet, eyeing him eagerly.
“God bless him wherever he is! We came to
America to find him.”

“Mother! Mother! do you not know me?” he

said; and threw himself into her open arms, and
kissed the honest, weather-beaten face.

“I see it has gone well with you, my son. Now,
thanks be to God, and blessed be His holy name,”
said Karl, reverently uncovering his head.

“And where is Gretchen?” inquired Fritz, earnestly.

“The All-Father took her home, to Himself,
soon after you came to see us at Rüdesheim,” replied
Liesbet. “She was always mourning for the
brother, poor little one! It troubled us to go away
and leave you behind us, without saying farewell;
and I feared no blessing would follow it. But we
were very poor, and we thought then we should
come to you in two or three years.”

“Don't speak of that,” said Fritz. “You were
always good parents to me, and did the best you
could. Blessings have followed me; and to meet
you thus is the crowning blessing of all. Come,
let us hasten home. I want to show you my good
Röschen, and our Gretchen, and Karl, and Liesbet,
and Rudolph, and baby Röschen. My small farm
overlooks a river broad and beautiful as the Rhine.
The rocks look like castles, and I have bought a
goat for the children to play with. The roof of our
cottage is thatched, and if a stork would only come
and build her nest there, then dear father and mother
might almost imagine themselves again at Rüdesheim,
with plenty to eat, drink, and wear. If
Father Rudolph's Blacking Box were only here,”

added he, laughing, I should have all but one of
my boyish dreams fulfilled. “Ah, if dear Gretchen
were only here!”

The fairy who whispered to Fritz when he was
crossing the Atlantic, told him if he were diligent
and saving, she would perhaps bring him the old
clock; and she kept her promise better than fairies
sometimes do; for it chanced that the heir of Father
Rudolph came to America, and brought it with
him. The price Fritz offered for it was too tempting,
and it now stands in his thatched cottage. Its
carved black case, inlaid with grotesque figures of
birds and beasts in pearl, is more wonderful than a
picture-book to the children. When any of them
are out of health, or out of humour, their father
sets the old bewildered tunes agoing, and they soon
join in a merry mocking chorus, with “Cluck,
cluck, cluck! Whirr, whirr, whirr! Rik a rik a
ree!”

Note.—The accidental purchase of his parents by a German
emigrant actually occurred a few years since; and this story
was suggested by the fact.