 | Castle nowhere |  |
WILHELMINA.
“AND so, Mina, you will not marry the baker?”
“No; I waits for Gustav.”
“How long is it since you have seen him?”
“Three year; it was a three-year regi-mènt.”
“Then he will soon be home?”
“I not know,” answered the girl, with a wistful
look in her dark eyes, as if asking information from
the superior being who sat in the skiff, — a being from
the outside world where newspapers, the modern Tree
of Knowledge, were not forbidden.
“Perhaps he will re-enlist, and stay three years
longer,” I said.
“Ah, lady, — six year! It breaks the heart,” answered
Wilhelmina.
She was the gardener's daughter, a member of the
Community of German Separatists who live secluded
in one of Ohio's rich valleys, separated by their own
broad acres and orchard-covered hills from the busy
world outside; down the valley flows the tranquil
Tuscarawas on its way to the Muskingum, its slow
stone dikes, and utilized to the utmost extent of carefulness
by the thrifty brothers, now working a sawmill
on the bank, now sending a tributary to the
flour-mill across the canal, and now branching off in
a sparkling race across the valley to turn wheels for
two or three factories, watering the great grass-meadow
on the way. We were floating on this river in a
skiff named by myself Der Fliegende Holländer,
much to the slow wonder of the Zoarites, who did
not understand how a Dutchman could, nor why he
should, fly. Wilhelmina sat before me, her oars idly
trailing in the water. She showed a Nubian head
above her white kerchief: large-lidded soft brown
eyes, heavy braids of dark hair, a creamy skin with
purple tints in the lips and brown shadows under
the eyes, and a far-off dreamy expression which even
the steady, monotonous toil of Community life had
not been able to efface. She wore the blue dress
and white kerchief of the society, the quaint little calico
bonnet lying beside her; she was a small maiden;
her slender form swayed in the stiff, short-waisted
gown, her feet slipped about in the broad shoes, and
her hands, roughened and browned with garden-work,
were yet narrow and graceful. From the first we
felt sure she was grafted, and not a shoot from the
Community stalk. But we could learn nothing of her
origin; the Zoarites are not communicative; they fill
neither forward nor back. “She is a daughter,”
said the old gardener in answer to our questions.
“Adopted?” I suggested; but he vouchsafed no answer.
I liked the little daughter's dreamy face, but
she was pale and undeveloped, like a Southern flower
growing in Northern soil; the rosy-cheeked, flaxenhaired
Rosines, Salomes, and Dorotys, with their broad
shoulders and ponderous tread, thought this brown
changeling ugly, and pitied her in their slow, good-natured
way.
“It breaks the heart,” said Wilhelmina again,
softly, as if to herself.
I repented me of my thoughtlessness. “In any
case he can come back for a few days,” I hastened
to say. “What regiment was it?”
“The One Hundred and Seventh, lady.”
I had a Cleveland paper in my basket, and taking
it out I glanced over the war-news column, carelessly,
as one who does not expect to find what he seeks.
But chance was with us, and gave this item: “The
One Hundred and Seventh Regiment, O. V. I., is
expected home next week. The men will be paid
off at Camp Chase.”
“Ah!” said Wilhelmina, catching her breath with
a half-sob under her tightly drawn kerchief, — “ah,
mein Gustav!”
“Yes, you will soon see him,” I answered, bending
for I was a romantic wife, and my heart went out
to all lovers. But the girl did not notice my words
or my touch; silently she sat, absorbed in her own
emotion, her eyes fixed on the hilltops far away,
as though she saw the regiment marching home
through the blue June sky.
I took the oars and rowed up as far as the island,
letting the skiff float back with the current. Other
boats were out, filled with fresh-faced boys in their
high-crowned hats, long-waisted, wide-flapped vests
of calico, and funny little swallow-tailed coats with
buttons up under the shoulder-blades; they appeared
unaccountably long in front and short behind, these
young Zoar brethren. On the vine-covered dike
were groups of mothers and grave little children, and
up in the hill-orchards were moving figures, young
and old; the whole village was abroad in the lovely
afternoon, according to their Sunday custom, which
gave the morning to chorals and a long sermon in
the little church, and the afternoon to nature, even
old Christian, the pastor, taking his imposing white
fur hat and tasselled cane for a walk through the
Community fields, with the remark, “Thus is cheered
the heart of man, and his countenance refreshed.”
As the sun sank in the warm western sky, homeward
came the villagers from the river, the orchards,
and the meadows, men, women, and children, a hardy,
had taken the long journey from Würtemberg across
the ocean to this distant valley, and made it a garden
of rest in the wilderness. We, too, landed, and
walked up the apple-tree lane towards the hotel.
“The cows come,” said Wilhelmina as we heard a
distant tinkling; “I must go.” But still she lingered.
“Der regi-mènt, it come soon, you say?” she asked
in a low voice, as though she wanted to hear the
good news again and again.
“They will be paid off next week; they cannot be
later than ten days from now.”
“Ten day! Ah, mein Gustav,” murmured the little
maiden; she turned away and tied on her stiff bonnet,
furtively wiping off a tear with her prim handkerchief
folded in a square.
“Why, my child,” I said, following her and stooping
to look in her face, “what is this?”
“It is nothing; it is for glad, — for very glad,” said
Wilhelmina. Away she ran as the first solemn cow
came into view, heading the long procession meandering
slowly towards the stalls. They knew nothing of
haste, these dignified Community cows; from stall to
pasture, from pasture to stall, in a plethora of comfort,
this was their life. The silver-haired shepherd came
last with his staff and scrip, and the nervous shepherd-dog
ran hither and thither in the hope of finding some
cow to bark at; but the comfortable cows moved on in
every now and then, and bark at nothing, to relieve
his feelings. Reaching the paved court-yard each
cow walked into her own stall, and the milking began.
All the girls took part in this work, sitting on little
stools and singing together as the milk frothed up in
the tin pails; the pails were emptied into tubs, and
when the tubs were full the girls bore them on their
heads to the dairy, where the milk was poured into a
huge strainer, a constant procession of girls with tubs
above and the old milk-mother ladling out as fast as
she could below. With the bee-hives near by, it was
a realization of the Scriptural phrase, “A land flowing
with milk and honey.”
The next morning, after breakfast, I strolled up the
still street, leaving the Wirthshaus with its pointed
roof behind me. On the right were some ancient cottages
built of crossed timbers filled in with plaster;
sundials hung on the walls, and each house had its
piazza, where, when the work of the day was over, the
families assembled, often singing folk-songs to the music
of their home-made flutes and pipes. On the left
stood the residence of the first pastor, the reverend
man who had led these sheep to their refuge in the
wilds of the New World. It was a wide-spreading
brick mansion, with a broadside of white-curtained
windows, an enclosed glass porch, iron railings, and
gilded eaves; a building so stately among the surrounding
the name of the King's Palace, although the good man
whose grave remains unmarked in the quiet God's
Acre, according to the Separatist custom, was a father
to his people, not a king.
Beyond the palace began the Community garden, a
large square in the centre of the village filled with
flowers and fruit, adorned with arbors and cedar-trees
clipped in the form of birds, and enriched with an old-style
greenhouse whose sliding glasses were viewed
with admiration by the visitors of thirty years ago,
who sent their choice plants thither from far and near
to be tended through the long, cold lake-country winters.
The garden, the cedars, and the greenhouse were
all antiquated, but to me none the less charming. The
spring that gushed up in one corner, the old-fashioned
flowers in their box-bordered beds, larkspur, lady slippers,
bachelor's buttons, peonies, aromatic pinks, and
all varieties of roses, the arbors with red honeysuckle
overhead and tan bark under foot, were all delightful;
and I knew, also, that I should find the gardener's
daughter at her never-ending task of weeding. This
time it was the strawberry bed. “I have come to sit
in your pleasant garden, Mina,” I said, taking a seat
on a shaded bench near the bending figure.
“So?” said Wilhelmina in long-drawn interrogation,
glancing up shyly with a smile. She was a child
of the sun, this little maiden, and while her blond
hats over their precise caps, Wilhelmina, as
now, constantly discarded these coverings and sat in
the sun basking like a bird of the tropics. In truth,
it did not redden her; she was one of those whose
coloring comes not from without, but within.
“Do you like this work, Mina?”
“O — so. Good as any.”
“Do you like work?”
“Folks must work.” This was said gravely, as
part of the Community creed.
“Would n't you like to go with me to the city?”
“No; I 's better here.”
“But you can see the great world, Mina. You
need not work, I will take care of you. You shall
have pretty dresses; would n't you like that?” I
asked, curious to discover the secret of the Separatist
indifference to everything outside.
“Nein,” answered the little maiden, tranquilly;
“nein, fräulein. Ich bin zufrieden.”
Those three words were the key. “I am contented.”
So were they taught from childhood, and — I was
about to say — they knew no better; but, after all,
is there anything better to know?
We talked on, for Mina understood English, although
many of her mates could chatter only in their Wurtemberg
dialect, whose provincialisms confused my
carefully learned German; I was grounded in Goethe,
who, fortunately, is “der Einzige,” the only; another
such would destroy life. At length a bell sounded,
and forthwith work was laid aside in the fields, the
workshops, and the houses, while all partook of a
light repast, one of the five meals with which the long
summer day of toil is broken. Flagons of beer had
the men afield, with bread and cheese; the women
took bread and apple-butter. But Mina did not care
for the thick slice which the thrifty house-mother had
provided; she had not the steady unfanciful appetite
of the Community which eats the same food day after
day, as the cow eats its grass, desiring no change.
“And the gardener really wishes you to marry Jacob?”
I said as she sat on the grass near me, enjoying
the rest.
“Yes. Jacob is good, — always the same.”
“And Gustav?”
“Ah, mein Gustav! Lady, he is young, tall, — so
tall as tree; he run, he sing, his eyes like veilchen
there, his hair like gold. If I see him not soon, lady,
I die! The year so long, — so long they are. Three
year without Gustav!” The brown eyes grew dim, and
out came the square-folded handkerchief, of colored
calico for week-days.
“But it will not be long now, Mina.”
“Yes; I hope.”
“He writes to you, I suppose?”
“No. Gustav knows not to write, he not like
school. But he speak through the other boys, Ernst
the verliebte of Rosine, and Peter of Doroty.”
“The Zoar soldiers were all young men?”
“Yes; all verliebte. Some are not; they have gone
to the Next Country” (died).
“Killed in battle?”
“Yes; on the berge that looks, — what you call, I
not know —”
“Lookout Mountain?”
“Yes.”
“Were the boys volunteers?” I asked, remembering
the Community theory of non-resistance.
“O yes; they volunteer, Gustav the first. They not
drafted,” said Wilhelmina, proudly. For these two
words, so prominent during the war, had penetrated
even into this quiet valley.
“But did the trustees approve?”
“Apperouve?”
“I mean, did they like it?”
“Ah! they like it not. They talk, they preach in
church, they say `No.' Zoar must give soldiers? So.
Then they take money and pay for der substitute;
but the boys, they must not go.”
“But they went, in spite of the trustees?”
“Yes; Gustav first. They go in night, they walk
in woods, over the hills to Brownville, where is der
recruiter. The morning come, they gone!”
“They have been away three years, you say? They
have seen the world in that time,” I remarked half
to myself, as I thought of the strange mind-opening
and knowledge-gaining of those years to youths
brought up in the strict seclusion of the Community.
“Yes; Gustav have seen the wide world,” answered
Wilhelmina with pride.
“But will they be content to step back into the
dull routine of Zoar of life?” I thought; and a doubt
came that made me scan more closely the face of the
girl at my side. To me it was attractive because of
its possibilities; I was always fancying some excitement
that would bring the color to the cheeks and full
lips, and light up the heavy-lidded eyes with soft brilliancy.
But would this Gustav see these might-be
beauties? And how far would the singularly ugly
costume offend eyes grown accustomed to fanciful
finery and gay colors?
“You fully expect to marry Gustav?” I asked.
“We are verlobt,” answered Mina, not without a
little air of dignity.
“Yes, I know. But that was long ago.”
“Verlobt once, verlobt always,” said the little
maiden, confidently.
“But why, then, does the gardener speak of Jacob,
if you are engaged to this Gustav?”
“O, fader he like the old, and Jacob is old, thirty
is a brother, too; he write his name in the book. But
Gustav he not do so; he is free.”
“You mean that the baker has signed the articles,
and is a member of the Community?”
“Yes; but the baker is old, very old; thirty year!
Gustav not twenty and three yet; he come home, then
he sign.”
“And have you signed these articles, Wilhelmina?”
“Yes; all the womens signs.”
“What does the paper say?”
“Da ich Unterzeichneter,” — began the girl.
“I cannot understand that. Tell me in English.”
“Well; you wants to join the Zoar Community of
Separatists; you writes your name and says, `Give me
house, victual, and clothes for my work and I join;
and I never fernerer Forderung an besagte Gesellschaft
machen kann, oder will.'”
“Will never make further demand upon said society,”
I repeated, translating slowly.
“Yes; that is it.”
“But who takes charge of all the money?”
“The trustees.”
“Don't they give you any?”
“No; for what? It 's no good,” answered Wilhelmina.
I knew that all the necessaries of life were dealt
their need, and, as they never went outside of their
valley, they could scarcely have spent money even if
they had possessed it. But, nevertheless, it was startling
in this nineteenth century to come upon a sincere
belief in the worthlessness of the green-tinted paper
we cherish so fondly. “Gustav will have learned its
value,” I thought, as Mina, having finished the strawberry-bed,
started away towards the dairy to assist
in the butter-making.
I strolled on up the little hill, past the picturesque
bakery, where through the open window I caught a
glimpse of the “old, very old Jacob,” a serious young
man of thirty, drawing out his large loaves of bread
from the brick oven with a long-handled rake. It was
gingerbread-day also, and a spicy odor met me at the
window; so I put in my head and asked for a piece,
receiving a card about a foot square, laid on fresh
grape-leaves.
“But I cannot eat all this,” I said, breaking off a
corner.
“O, dat 's noding!” answered Jacob, beginning to
knead fresh dough in a long white trough, the village
supply for the next day.
“I have been sitting with Wilhelmina,” I remarked,
as I leaned on the casement, impelled by a desire to
see the effect of the name.
“So?” said Jacob, interrogatively.
“Yes; she is a sweet girl.”
“So?” (doubtfully.)
“Don't you think so, Jacob?”
“Ye-es. So-so. A leetle black,” answered this impassive
lover.
“But you wish to marry her?”
“O, ye-es. She young and strong; her fader say
she good to work. I have children five; I must have
some one in the house.”
“O Jacob! Is that the way to talk?” I exclaimed.
“Warum nicht?” replied the baker, pausing in his
kneading, and regarding me with wide-open, candid
eyes.
“Why not, indeed?” I thought, as I turned away
from the window. “He is at least honest, and no
doubt in his way he would be a kind husband to little
Mina. But what a way!”
I walked on up the street, passing the pleasant
house where all the infirm old women of the Community
were lodged together, carefully tended by appointed
nurses. The aged sisters were out on the
piazza sunning themselves, like so many old cats.
They were bent with hard, out-door labor, for they
belonged to the early days when the wild forest covered
the fields now so rich, and only a few log-cabins
stood on the site of the tidy cottages and gardens of
the present village. Some of them had taken the long
journey on foot from Philadelphia westward, four hundred
might they rest from their labors and sit in the sunshine,
poor old souls!
A few days later, my friendly newspaper mentioned
the arrival of the German regiment at Camp Chase.
“They will probably be paid off in a day or two,” I
thought, “and another day may bring them here.”
Eager to be the first to tell the good news to my little
favorite, I hastened up to the garden, and found her
engaged, as usual, in weeding.
“Mina,” I said, “I have something to tell you. The
regiment is at Camp Chase; you will see Gustav soon,
perhaps this week.”
And there, before my eyes, the transformation I had
often fancied took place; the color rushed to the brown
surface, the cheeks and lips glowed in vivid red, and the
heavy eyes opened wide and shone like stars, with a
brilliancy that astonished and even disturbed me. The
statue had a soul at last; the beauty dormant had
awakened. But for the fire of that soul would this
expected Pygmalion suffice? Would the real prince
fill his place in the long-cherished dreams of this
beauty of the wood?
The girl had risen as I spoke, and now she stood
erect, trembling with excitement, her hands clasped on
her breast, breathing quickly and heavily as though an
overweight of joy was pressing down her heart; her
eyes were fixed upon my face, but she saw me not.
sleep. Her sloping shoulders seemed to expand and
chafe against the stuff gown as though they would
burst their bonds; the blood glowed in her face and
throat, and her lips quivered, not as though tears were
coming, but from the fulness of unuttered speech.
Her emotion resembled the intensest fire of fever, and
yet it seemed natural; like noon in the tropics when
the gorgeous flowers flame in the white, shadowless
heat. Thus stood Wilhelmina, looking up into the sky
with eyes that challenged the sun.
“Come here, child,” I said; “come here and sit by
me. We will talk about it.”
But she neither saw nor heard me. I drew her
down on the bench at my side; she yielded unconsciously;
her slender form throbbed, and pulses were
beating under my hands wherever I touched her.
“Mina!” I said again. But she did not answer. Like
an unfolding rose, she revealed her hidden, beautiful
heart, as though a spirit had breathed upon the bud;
silenced in the presence of this great love, I ceased
speaking, and left her to herself. After a time single
words fell from her lips, broken utterances of happiness.
I was as nothing; she was absorbed in the One.
“Gustav! mein Gustav!” It was like the bird's note,
oft repeated, ever the same. So isolated, so intense
was her joy, that, as often happens, my mind took refuge
in the opposite extreme of commonplace, and I
to eat boiled beef and cabbage for dinner, or fill the
soft-soap barrel for the laundry-women, later in the day.
All the morning I sat under the trees with Wilhelmina,
who had forgotten her life-long tasks as
completely as though they had never existed. I hated
to leave her to the leather-colored wife of the old
gardener, and lingered until the sharp voice came
out from the distant house-door, calling, “Veel-hel
meeny,” as the twelve-o'clock bell summoned the
Community to dinner. But as Mina rose and swept
back the heavy braids that had fallen from the little
ivory stick which confined them, I saw that she was
armed cap-à-pie in that full happiness from which
all weapons glance off harmless.
All the rest of the day she was like a thing possessed.
I followed her to the hill-pasture, whither
she had gone to mind the cows, and found her coiled
up on the grass in the blaze of the afternoon sun,
like a little salamander. She was lost in day-dreams,
and the decorous cows had a holiday for once in
their sober lives, wandering beyond bounds at will,
and even tasting the dissipations of the marsh, standing
unheeded in the bog up to their sleek knees.
Wilhelmina had not many words to give me; her
English vocabulary was limited; she had never read
a line of romance nor a verse of poetry. The nearest
approach to either was the Community hymn-book,
lines are a specimen,
Dasz man haben kann,” —
“Rest is the best good
That man can have,” —
Brethren, although they think, apparently, that the
labor of twelve hours each day is necessary to its
enjoyment. The “Ruhe,” however, refers more especially
to their quiet seclusion away from the turmoil
of the wicked world outside.
The second morning after this it was evident that
an unusual excitement was abroad in the phlegmatic
village. All the daily duties were fulfilled as usual
at the Wirthshaus: Pauline went up to the bakery
with her board, and returned with her load of bread
and bretzels balanced on her head; Jacobina served
our coffee with her slow precision; and the broad-shouldered,
young-faced Lydia patted and puffed up
our mountain-high feather-beds with due care. The
men went afield at the blast of the horn, the workshops
were full and the mills running. But, nevertheless,
all was not the same; the air seemed full
of mystery; there were whisperings when two met,
furtive signals, and an inward excitement glowing
in the faces of men, women, and children, hitherto
news,” I said, after watching the tailor's Gretchen
and the blacksmith's Barbara stop to exchange a
whisper behind the wood-house. Later in the day
we learned that several letters from the absent soldier-boys
had been received that morning, announcing
their arrival on the evening train. The news had
flown from one end of the village to the other; and
although the well-drilled hands were all at work,
hearts were stirring with the greatest excitement of
a lifetime, since there was hardly a house where
there was not one expected. Each large house often
held a number of families, stowed away in little sets
of chambers, with one dining-room in common.
Several times during the day we saw the three
trustees conferring apart with anxious faces. The war
had been a sore trouble to them, owing to their conscientious
scruples against rendering military service.
They had hoped to remain non-combatants. But the
country was on fire with patriotism, and nothing less
than a bona fide Separatist in United States uniform
would quiet the surrounding towns, long jealous of
the wealth of this foreign community, misunderstanding
its tenets, and glowing with that zeal against “sympathizers”
which kept star-spangled banners flying
over every suspected house. “Hang out the flag!” was
their cry, and they demanded that Zoar should hang
out its soldiers, giving them to understand that if not
hung up! A draft was ordered, and then the young
men of the society, who had long chafed against their
bonds, broke loose, volunteered, and marched away,
principles or no principles, trustees or no trustees.
These bold hearts once gone, the village sank into quietude
again. Their letters, however, were a source of
anxiety, coming as they did from the vain outside
world; and the old postmaster, autocrat though he
was, hardly dared to suppress them. But he said,
shaking his head, that they “had fallen upon troublous
times,” and handed each dangerous envelope out with
a groan. But the soldiers were not skilled penmen;
their letters, few and far between, at length stopped
entirely. Time passed, and the very existence of the
runaways had become a far-off problem to the wise
men of the Community, absorbed in their slow calculations
and cautious agriculture, when now, suddenly, it
forced itself upon them face to face, and they were
required to solve it in the twinkling of an eye. The
bold hearts were coming back, full of knowledge of the
outside world; almost every house would hold one,
and the bands of law and order would be broken.
Before this prospect the trustees quailed. Twenty
years before they would have forbidden the entrance
of these unruly sons within their borders; but now
they dared not, since even into Zoar had penetrated
the knowledge that America was a free country. The
objections had been openly made to the cut of the
Sunday coats, and the girls had spoken together of
ribbons!
The shadows of twilight seemed very long in falling
that night, but at last there was no further excuse
for delaying the evening bell, and home came
the laborers to their evening meal. There was no
moon, a soft mist obscured the stars, and the night
was darkened with the excess of richness which rose
from the ripening valley-fields and fat bottom-lands
along the river. The Community store opposite the
Wirthshaus was closed early in the evening, the
houses of the trustees were dark, and indeed the village
was almost unlighted, as if to hide its own excitement.
The entire population was abroad in the
night, and one by one the men and boys stole away
down the station road, a lovely, winding track on
the hillside, following the river on its way down
the valley to the little station on the grass-grown
railroad, a branch from the main track. As ten
o'clock came, the women and girls, grown bold with
excitement, gathered in the open space in front of
the Wirthshaus, where the lights from the windows
illumined their faces. There I saw the broad-shouldered
Lydia, Rosine, Doroty, and all the rest, in their
Sunday clothes, flushed, laughing, and chattering;
but no Wilhelmina.
“Where can she be?” I said.
If she was there, the larger girls concealed her
with their buxom breadth; I looked for the slender
little maiden in vain.
“Shu!” cried the girls, “de bugle!”
Far down the station road we heard the bugle and
saw the glimmering of lights among the trees. On
it came, a will-o'-the-wisp procession: first a detachment
of village boys each with a lantern or torch,
next the returned soldiers winding their bugles, — for,
German-like, they all had musical instruments, — then
an excited crowd of brothers and cousins loaded
with knapsacks, guns, and military accountrements of
all kinds; each man had something, were it only a
tin cup, and proudly they marched in the footsteps
of their glorious relatives, bearing the spoils of war.
The girls set up a shrill cry of welcome as the procession
approached, but the ranks continued unbroken
until the open space in front of the Wirthshaus was
reached; then, at a signal, the soldiers gave three
cheers, the villagers joining in with all their hearts
and lungs, but wildly and out of time, like the scattering
fire of an awkward squad. The sound had
never been heard in Zoar before. The soldiers gave
a final “Tiger-r-r!” and then broke ranks, mingling
with the excited crowd, exchanging greetings and
embraces. All talked at once; some wept, some
laughed; and through it all silently stood the three
looking down upon their wild flock, their sober faces
visible in the glare of the torches and lanterns below.
The entire population was present; even the
babies were held up on the outskirts of the crowd,
stolid and staring.
“Where can Wilhelmina be?” I said again.
“Here, under the window; I saw her long ago,”
replied one of the women.
Leaning against a piazza-pillar, close under my
eyes, stood the little maiden, pale and still. I could
not disguise from myself that she looked almost ugly
among those florid, laughing girls, for her color was
gone, and her eyes so fixed that they looked unnaturally
large; her somewhat heavy Egyptian features
stood out in the bright light, but her small form
was lost among the group of broad, white-kerchiefed
shoulders, adorned with breast-knots of gay flowers.
And had Wilhelmina no flower? She, so fond of
blossoms? I looked again; yes, a little white rose,
drooping and pale as herself.
But where was Gustav? The soldiers came and
went in the crowd, and all spoke to Mina; but
where was the One? I caught the landlord's little
son as he passed, and asked the question.
“Gustav? Dat 's him,” he answered, pointing out
a tall, rollicking soldier who seemed to be embracing
the whole population in his gleeful welcome. That
a gay greeting to her each time; but nothing
more.
After half an hour of general rejoicing, the crowd
dispersed, each household bearing off in triumph the
hero that fell to its lot. Then the tiled domiciles,
where usually all were asleep an hour after twilight,
blazed forth with unaccustomed light from every little
window; and within we could see the circles, with
flagons of beer and various dainties manufactured in
secret during the day, sitting and talking together in
a manner which, for Zoar, was a wild revel, since it
was nearly eleven o'clock! We were not the only
outside spectators of this unwonted gayety; several
times we met the three trustees stealing along in
the shadow from house to house, like anxious spectres
in broad-brimmed hats. No doubt they said to
each other, “How, how will this end!”
The merry Gustav had gone off by Mina's side,
which gave me some comfort; but when in our
rounds we came to the gardener's house and gazed
through the open door, the little maiden sat apart,
and the soldier, in the centre of an admiring circle,
was telling stories of the war.
I felt a foreboding of sorrow as I gazed out
through the little window before climbing up into
my high bed. Lights still twinkled in some of the
houses, but a white mist was rising from the river,
night invited me to dreamless sleep.
The next morning I could not resist questioning
Jacobina, who also had her lover among the soldiers,
if all was well.
“O yes. They stay, — all but two. We 's married
next mont.”
“And the two?”
“Karl and Gustav.”
“And Wilhelmina!” I exclaimed.
“O, she let him go,” answered Jacobina, bringing
fresh coffee.
“Poor child! How does she bear it?”
“O, so. She cannot help. She say noding.”
“But the trustees, will they allow these young men
to leave the Community?”
“They cannot help,” said Jacobina. “Gustav and
Karl write not in the book; they free to go. Wilhelmina
marry Jacob; it 's joost the same; all
r-r-ight,” added Jacobina, who prided herself upon
her English, caught from visitors at the Wirthshaus
table.
“Ah! but it is not just the same,” I thought as I
went up to the garden to find my little maiden. She
was not there; the leathery mother said she was
out on the hills with the cows.
“So Gustav is going to leave the Community,” I
said in German.
“Yes, better so. He is an idle, wild boy. Now,
Veelhelmeeny can marry the baker, a good steady
man.”
“But Mina does not like him,” I suggested.
“Das macht nichts,” answered the leathery mother.
Wilhelmina was not in the pasture; I sought for
her everywhere, and called her name. The poor child
had hidden herself, and whether she heard me or not,
she did not respond. All day she kept herself aloof;
I almost feared she would never return; but in the
late twilight a little figure slipped through the garden-gate
and took refuge in the house before I could
speak; for I was watching for the child, apparently
the only one, though a stranger, to care for her sorrow.
“Can I not see her?” I said to the leathery
mother, following to the door.
“Eh, no; she 's foolish; she will not speak a
word; she has gone off to bed,” was the answer.
For three days I did not see Mina, so early did
she flee away to the hills and so late return. I followed
her to the pasture once or twice, but she
would not show herself, and I could not discover
her hiding-place. The fourth day I learned that
Gustav and Karl were to leave the village in the
afternoon, probably forever. The other soldiers had
signed the articles presented by the anxious trustees,
and settled down into the old routine, going afield
were all to be married in August. No doubt the
hardships of their campaigns among the Tennessee
mountains had taught them that the rich valley was
a home not to be despised; nevertheless, it was evident
that the flowers of the flock were those who
were about departing, and that in Gustav and Karl
the Community lost its brightest spirits. Evident to
us; but, possibly, the Community cared not for bright
spirits.
I had made several attempts to speak to Gustav;
this morning I at last succeeded. I found him polishing
his bugle on the garden bench.
“Why are you going away, Gustav?” I asked.
“Zoar is a pleasant little village.”
“Too slow for me, miss.”
“The life is easy, however; you will find the
world a hard place.”
“I don't mind work, ma'am, but I do like to be
free. I feel all cramped up here, with these rules
and bells; and, besides, I could n't stand those trustees;
they never let a fellow alone.”
“And Wilhelmina? If you do go, I hope you
will take her with you, or come for her when you
have found work.”
“O no, miss. All that was long ago. It 's all
over now.”
“But you like her, Gustav?”
“O, so. She 's a good little thing, but too quiet
for me.”
“But she likes you,” I said desperately, for I saw
no other way to loosen this Gordian knot.
“O no, miss. She got used to it, and has thought
of it all these years; that 's all. She 'll forget about
it, and marry the baker.”
“But she does not like the baker.”
“Why not? He 's a good fellow enough. She 'll
like him in time. It 's all the same. I declare it 's
too bad to see all these girls going on in the same
old way, in their ugly gowns and big shoes! Why,
ma'am, I could n't take Mina outside, even if I
wanted to; she 's too old to learn new ways, and
everybody would laugh at her. She could n't get
along a day. Besides,” said the young soldier, coloring
up to his eyes, “I don't mind telling you that
— that there 's some one else. Look here, ma'am.”
And he put into my hand a card photograph representing
a pretty girl, over-dressed, and adorned with
curls and gilt jewelry. “That 's Miss Martin,” said
Gustav with pride; “Miss Emmeline Martin, of Cincinnati.
I 'm going to marry Miss Martin.”
As I held the pretty, flashy picture in my hand, all
my castles fell to the ground. My plan for taking
Mina home with me, accustoming her gradually to
other clothes and ways, teaching her enough of the
world to enable her to hold her place without pain,
Gustav in some of the iron-mills near Cleveland, in
short, all the idyl I had woven, was destroyed. If it
had not been for this red-cheeked Miss Martin in her
gilt beads! “Why is it that men will be such fools?”
I thought. Up sprung a memory of the curls and
ponderous jet necklace I sported at a certain period
of my existence, when John — I was silenced, gave
Gustav his picture, and walked away without a
word.
At noon the villagers, on their way back to work,
paused at the Wirthshaus to say good by; Karl and
Gustav were there, and the old woolly horse had
already gone to the station with their boxes. Among
the others came Christine, Karl's former affianced, heart-whole
and smiling, already betrothed to a new lover;
but no Wilhelmina. Good wishes and farewells were
exchanged, and at last the two soldiers started away,
falling into the marching step, and watched with furtive
satisfaction by the three trustees, who stood together
in the shadow of the smithy, apparently deeply
absorbed in a broken-down cask.
It was a lovely afternoon, and I, too, strolled down
the station road embowered in shade. The two soldiers
were not far in advance. I had passed the flour-mill
on the outskirts of the village and was approaching
the old quarry, when a sound startled me; out
from the rocks in front rushed a little figure, and crying,
It was Wilhelmina.
I ran forward and took her from the young men;
she lay in my arms as if dead. The poor child was
sadly changed; always slender and swaying, she now
looked thin and shrunken, her skin had a strange, dark
pallor, and her lips were drawn in as if from pain. I
could see her eyes through the large-orbed thin lids,
and the brown shadows beneath extended down into
the cheeks.
“Was ist's?” said Gustav, looking bewildered. “Is
she sick?”
I answered “Yes,” but nothing more. I could see
that he had no suspicion of the truth, believing as he
did that the “good fellow” of a baker would do very
well for this “good little thing” who was “too quiet”
for him. The memory of Miss Martin sealed my lips.
But if it had not been for that pretty, flashy picture,
would I not have spoken!
“You must go; you will miss the train,” I said, after
a few minutes. “I will see to Mina.”
But Gustav lingered. Perhaps he was really troubled
to see the little sweetheart of his boyhood in such
desolate plight; perhaps a touch of the old feeling
came back; and perhaps, also, it was nothing of the
kind, and, as usual, my romantic imagination was
carrying me away. At any rate, whatever it was, he
stooped over the fainting girl.
“She looks bad,” he said, “very bad. I wish — But
she 'll get well and marry the baker. Good by, Mina.”
And bending his tall form, he kissed her colorless
cheek, and then hastened away to join the impatient
Karl; a curve in the road soon hid them from view.
Wilhelmina had stirred at his touch; after a moment
her large eyes opened slowly; she looked around as
if dazed, but all at once memory came back, and she
started up with the same cry, “Gustav, mein Gustav!”
I drew her head down on my shoulder to stifle the
sound; it was better the soldier should not hear it,
and its anguish thrilled my own heart also. She had
not the strength to resist me, and in a few minutes I
knew that the young men were out of hearing as they
strode on towards the station and out into the wide
world.
The forest was solitary, we were beyond the village;
all the afternoon I sat under the trees with the
stricken girl. Again, as in her joy, her words were
few; again, as in her joy, her whole being was involved.
Her little rough hands were cold, a film had
gathered over her eyes; she did not weep, but moaned
to herself, and all her senses seemed blunted. At
nightfall I took her home, and the leathery mother
received her with a frown; but the child was beyond
caring, and crept away, dumbly, to her room.
The next morning she was off to the hills again,
nor could I find her for several days. Evidently, in
I should have been to a wounded fawn. She was
a mixture of the wild, shy creature of the woods
and the deep-loving woman of the tropics; in either
case I could be but small comfort. When at last I
did see her, she was apathetic and dull; her feelings,
her senses, and her intelligence seemed to have gone
within, as if preying upon her heart. She scarcely
listened to my proposal to take her with me; for, in
my pity, I had suggested it, in spite of its difficulties.
“No,” she said, mechanically, “I 's better here”;
and fell into silence again.
A month later a friend went down to spend a
few days in the valley, and upon her return described
to us the weddings of the whilom soldiers. “It was
really a pretty sight,” she said, “the quaint peasant
dresses and the flowers. Afterwards, the band went
round the village playing their odd tunes, and all
had a holiday. There were two civilians married
also; I mean two young men who had not been to
the war. It seems that two of the soldiers turned
their backs upon the Community and their allotted
brides, and marched away; but the Zoar maidens are
not romantic, I fancy, for these two deserted ones
were betrothed again and married, all in the short
space of four weeks.”
“Was not one Wilhelmina, the gardener's daughter,
a short, dark girl?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And she married Jacob the baker?”
“Yes.”
The next year, weary of the cold lake-winds, we left
the icy shore and went down to the valley to meet the
coming spring, finding her already there, decked with
vines and flowers. A new waitress brought us our
coffee.
“How is Wilhelmina?” I asked.
“Eh, — Wilhelmina? O, she not here now; she
gone to the Next Country,” answered the girl in a
matter-of-fact way. “She die last October, and Jacob
he haf anoder wife now.”
In the late afternoon I asked a little girl to show me
Wilhelmina's grave in the quiet God's Acre on the hill.
Innovation was creeping in, even here; the later graves
had mounds raised over them, and one had a little headboard
with an inscription in ink.
Wilhelmina lay apart, and some one, probably the
old gardener, who had loved the little maiden in his
silent way, had planted a rose-bush at the head of the
mound. I dismissed my guide and sat there alone in
the sunset, thinking of many things, but chiefly of this:
“Why should this great wealth of love have been
allowed to waste itself? Why is it that the greatest
often seem a useless gift?”
No answer came from the sunset clouds, and as twilight
sank down on the earth I rose to go. “I fully
believe,” I said, as though repeating a creed, “that this
poor, loving heart, whose earthly body lies under this
mound, is happy now in its own loving way. It has
not been changed, but the happiness it longed for has
come. How, we know not; but the God who made
Wilhelmina understands her. He has given unto her
not rest, not peace, but an active, living joy.”
I walked away through the wild meadow, under
whose turf, unmarked by stone or mound, lay the first
pioneers of the Community, and out into the forest road,
untravelled save when the dead passed over it to their
last earthly home. The evening was still and breathless,
and the shadows lay thick on the grass as I looked
back. But I could still distinguish the little mound
with the rose-bush at its head, and, not without tears,
I said, “Farewell, poor Wilhelmina; farewell.”
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