Part 10

As Valentine passed Christian the tailor's house, he held his hand to his cap, prepared to take it off if anybody should look out. But nobody did no: the place was silent as a cloister. Some farmers' wives were going in, carrying bowls covered with their aprons, while others passed out with empty bowls under their arms. They nodded to each other without speaking: they had brought wedding-presents for the young clergyman, who was to be married to his bride the Church.

As the vesper-bell rang, Valentine released the hand of his son, who quickly folded his hands: Valentine also brought his hands together over his heavy tools and said an Ave.

Next morning a clear, bright day rose upon the village. Ivo was dressed by his mother betimes in a new jacket of striped Manchester cloth, with buttons which he took for silver, and a newly-washed pair of leathern breeches. He was to carry the crucifix. Mag, Ivo's eldest sister, took him by the hand and led him into the street, "so as to have room in the house." Having enjoined upon him by no means to go back, she returned hastily. Wherever he came he found the men standing in knots in the road. They were but half dressed for the festival, having no coats on, but displaying their dazzling white shirt-sleeves. Here and there women or girls were to be seen running from house to house without bodices, and with their hair half untied. Ivo thought it cruel in his sister to have pushed him out of the house as she had done. He would have been delighted to have appeared like the grown folks,--first in negligee, and then in full dress amid the tolling of bells and the clang of trumpets; but he did not dare to return, or even to sit down anywhere, for fear of spoiling his clothes. He went through the village almost on tip-toe. Wagon after wagon rumbled in, bringing farmers and farmers' wives from abroad: at the houses people welcomed them and brought chairs to assist them in getting down. All the world looked as exultingly quiet and glad as a community preparing to receive a hero who had gone forth from their midst and was returning after a victory. From the church to the hill-top the road was strewn with flowers and grass, which sent forth aromatic odors. The squire was seen coming out of Christian the tailor's house, and only covered his head when he found himself in the middle of the street. Soges had a new sword, brightly japanned and glittering in the sun.

The squire's wife soon followed, leading her daughter Barbara, who was but six years old, by the hand. Barbara was dressed in bridal array. She wore the veil and the wreath upon her head, and a beautiful gown. As an immaculate virgin, she was intended to represent the bride of the young clergyman, the Church.

At the first sound of the bell the people in shirt-sleeves disappeared as if by magic. They retired to their houses to finish their toilet: Ivo went on to the church.

Amid the ringing of all the bells, the procession at last issued from the church-door. The pennons waved, the band of music brought from Horb struck up, and the audible prayers of the men and women mingled with the sound. Ivo, with the schoolmaster at his side, took the lead, carrying the crucifix. On the hill the altar was finely decorated; the chalices and the lamps and the spangled dresses of the saints flashed in the sun, and the throng of worshippers covered the common and the adjoining fields as far as the eye could reach. Ivo hardly took courage to look at the "gentleman," meaning the young clergyman, who, in his gold-laced robe, and bare head crowned with a golden wreath, ascended the steps of the altar with pale and sober mien, bowing low as the music swelled, and folding his small white hands upon his breast. The squire's Barbara, who carried a burning taper wreathed with rosemary, had gone before him and took her stand at the side of the altar. The mass began; and at the tinkling of the bell all fell upon their faces, and not a sound would have been heard, had not a flight of pigeons passed directly over the altar with that fluttering and chirping noise which always accompanies their motion through the air. For all the world Ivo would not have looked up just then; for he knew that the Holy Ghost was descending, to effect the mysterious transubstantiation of the wine into blood and the bread into flesh, and that no mortal eye can look upon Him without being struck with blindness.

The chaplain of Horb now entered the pulpit, and solemnly addressed the "primitiant."

Then the latter took his place. Ivo sat near by, on a stool: with his right arm resting on his knee, and his chin upon his hand, he listened attentively. He understood little of the sermon; but his eyes hung upon the preacher's lips, and his mind followed his intentions, if not his thoughts.

When the procession returned to the church amid the renewed peal of the bells and triumphant strains of music, Ivo clasped the crucifix firmly with both his hands: he felt as if new strength had been given him to carry his God before him.

As the crowd dispersed, every one spoke in raptures of the "gentleman," and of the happiness of the parents of such a son. Christian the tailor and his wife came down the covered stairs of the church-hill in superior bliss. Ordinarily they attracted little attention in the village; but on this occasion all crowded around them with the greatest reverence, to present their congratulations. The young clergyman's mother returned thanks with tearful eyes: she could scarcely speak for joyous weeping. Ivo heard his cousin, who had come over from Rexingen, say that Gregory's parents were now obliged to address their son with the formal pronoun "they," by which strangers and great personages are spoken to, instead of the simple "thee and thou," by which German villagers converse with each other.

"Is that so, mother?" he asked.

"Of course," was the answer: "he's more than other folks now."

With all their enthusiasm, the good people did not forget the pecuniary advantage gained by Christian the tailor. It was said that he need take no further trouble all his life. Cordele, Gregory's sister, was to be her brother's housekeeper; and her brother was a fortune to his family and an honor to all the village.

Ivo went home, each of his parents holding one of his hands.

"Father," said he, "I wish Gregory was pastor here."

"That won't do: nobody ever becomes pastor where he was born."

"Why not?"

"Confound your why and why not: because it is so," said his father. But his mother said, "He'd have too much bias in the village, and wouldn't be impartial." She either did not know or could not explain to the child that in the case of a native of the village the sanctity of the office and the reverence of the minister's person would suffer, his human origin and growth being so familiarly known.

After some time Valentine said again, "A minister's life is the best, after all. His hands are never sore with ploughing, nor his back with reaping, and yet the grain comes into his barn: he lies on a sofa and studies out his sermon, and makes his whole family happy. Ivo, if you are good you can be a gentleman. Would you like to?"

"Yes!" cried Ivo, looking up at his father with his eyes opened to their full width. "But you mustn't say 'they' to me," he added.

"Plenty of time to see about that," replied Valentine, smiling.

After dinner Ivo stood on the bench behind the table, in the corner by the crucifix, where his father had been sitting. At first he only moved his lips; but gradually he spoke aloud, and made a long, long sermon. With the most solemn mien in the world, he talked the most rambling nonsense, and never stopped until his father laid his hand kindly on his head, and said, "There! that's enough, now."

His mother took Ivo upon her lap, hugged and kissed him, and said, almost with tears, "Mother of God! I would be content to die if our Lord God would let me see the day on which you held your first mass." Then, shaking her head, she added, in a low voice, "God forgive me my sins! I am thinking too much of myself again." She set down the boy, and placed her other hand on his head.

"And Mag shall be my housekeeper, sha'n't she?" said Ivo; "and I'll have city dresses made for her, just as the parson's cook wears."

Madge, Ivo's cousin from Rexingen, rewarded him for his sermon with a creutzer. Then he ran out to Nat the ploughman, who was sitting under the walnut-tree at the door, and told him that he was going to be a gentleman. Nat only shook his head and pushed the glowing tobacco down into his pipe.

The afternoon service was not so well attended as usual: the morning had absorbed all the devotion of the worshippers. Toward sundown the young minister, with the chaplain of Horb and some other clergymen, took a walk through the village. All the people who sat before their houses arose and greeted them: the older women smiled on the pastor, as if to say, "We know you and like you. Do you remember the pear I gave you? and I always said Gregory would be a great man some day." The young men took their pipes out of their lips and their caps from their heads, and the girls retreated into a house and nudged each other and looked out stealthily. The children came up and kissed Gregory's hand.

Ivo came also. Perhaps the young clergyman perceived the boy's tremor and the pious warmth of his kiss; for he held his hand a while, stroked his cheek, and asked, "What's your name, my dear?"

"Ivo."

"And your father's?"

"Valentine the carpenter."

"Give my love to your parents, and be good and pious."

Ivo remained spell-bound long after the men had passed on: it seemed as if a saint had appeared and conversed with him. He looked upon the ground in wonder; then, hastening home in long leaps, he told the whole adventure.

The family were seated on the timbers under the walnut-tree, Nat not far from them, upon a stone by the door. Ivo went to him and told him what had happened; but the ploughman was out of humor that day, and Ivo sat down at his father's feet.

It had grown dark, and little was spoken. Once only Koch the cabinet-maker said, "I'd like to see you get money under five per cent."

Nobody answered. Ivo looked up at his father with a silent light beaming out of his eyes: no one could guess what was stirring in that infant soul.

"Father," said Ivo, "does Christian the tailor's gentleman sleep just like other folks?"

"Yes; but not as long as you do: if you want to be a gentleman you must get up early and mind your prayers and your books. Off with you now to bed."

Ivo's mother went with him; and in his evening prayer he included the name of the minister as well as those of his parents and his sister.

The ceremony was not without immediate results. The next day, our old friend Hansgeorge, of the pipe of war, called, with his son Peter, on the chaplain at Horb; and rich Johnny of the Bridge, sometimes called Mean Johnny, brought his son Constantine, a bright, quick-witted lad. Both of them were admitted to the grammar-school at once: Ivo was yet too young.

We shall probably meet with both of these boys again. For the present we must remain with Ivo and watch the progress of his boyhood as closely as we can.

2. THE TEACHER.

The schoolmaster of the village was a clear-headed man, but of a violent temper. His fancy and his strong point was music. He had but little influence on Ivo,--which is not surprising, as he had a hundred and twenty boys to attend to. The boy's best teacher--though you would not have thought it--was Nat, who could not write, and hardly read.

Even in towns the servants of a household may be called the "lesser Fates" of the family. In a village this is doubly the case, for the whole house is there a community of labor and repose. When in such close contact with their employers, bad servants become insupportable and are not long retained: one, therefore, who is good enough to be a servant of the family is generally good enough to be intrusted with the company and unconscious education of the children. Nat, at all events, was safe enough. In the crib and on the hay-loft he would erect his professional chair, answer the eager questions of his pupil or tell him wonderful stories.

Nat liked to be with the animals on which he waited; yet, though he could speak to them, and though the dun horse at least was as sensible as a man, they could not give a satisfactory answer to what was told them. Ivo, on the contrary, was always able and willing to clap his hands and say, "Oh, my!" So Nat was never tired of Ivo's company. As a colt runs by the side of the horse, bounding and frisking, so did Ivo skip around Nat wherever he went.

Sometimes they would sit quietly together on the straw, Nat telling the story of Firnut Pete, of the juniper-king, or of the charmed lady of Isenberg; while the muffled noise of the feeding horses and cows accompanied the story with a mysterious undertone. Firnut Pete--who wantonly pulled the crests from the young firs while they were still bleeding--is doomed, as a restless ghost, to haunt the heath of Eglesthal; and the juniper-king has one gray and one black eye, which exchange their colors every year. These stories Nat had to tell again and again; for children are not so spoiled as to be always craving for something new.

But these repetitions gave Nat some trouble; for as often as he had forgotten a little of the story, or wished to tell it in a different way, Ivo would say, "Why, that isn't the way it was." Nat would take him on his lap, saying, "You're right: I didn't exactly remember. There's a good many other things in my head, you see." Then Ivo would tell the rest of the story with great interest, so that Nat was delighted at the aptness of his pupil.

Often, also, they would speak of the fortunes of life, and things of which children brought up in towns have little idea or knowledge until they grow older,--of poverty and wealth, honesty and knavery, trade and barter, and so on; for the life of a village is a life in public: the inmost recesses of every house are known to all the inmates of every other.

One day, as Ivo was going home with his father from the place where the latter had been at work, "Father," he asked, "why didn't our Savior make the trees grow square and save all the trouble of chopping?"

"Why? You stupid boy, there wouldn't be any work for carpenters then, and no chips."

Ivo said nothing; and his father reflected that, after all, the boy had a good head, and that it was not right to speak so harshly to him. So he said, after some time, "Ivo, you must ask your teacher in school, or his reverence the parson, about such things: remember that."

This was well done in Valentine. Few parents are sufficiently shrewd and conscienscious to hit upon this only means of escape from their own ignorance.

But Ivo, instead of going to the schoolmaster or the parson, asked Nat, and received for answer, "Because trees are wanted for a great many things besides building."

Ivo was astonished: that, he thought, was an answer worth giving.

A consequence of his intimacy with Nat was that Ivo had no companion of his own age. But then Nat regarded him as his confidant, and would call him, caressingly, a "good old soul." In particularly-favored moments he would tell him of his dog Singout, who had been with him when he had watched the sheep, and who "had more wit than ten doctors." "I tell you," Nat asseverated, "Singout used to understand my secret thoughts: if he only looked at me he knew what I wanted immediately. Did you ever look at a dog right sharp? They often have a face on which grief is poured out, just as if they meant to say, 'I could cry because I can't talk with you.' When I looked at Singout then, he would bark and howl till my heart ached. If I said a single cross word to him, he wouldn't eat a morsel for a whole day. The dumb beast was too good for this world."

"Do dogs go to heaven?" asked Ivo.

"I don't know: there's nothing written about it."

What pleased Nat most of all was Ivo's love for animals; for both old people and children, who do not know exactly what to love, make animals the objects of their affections. These pets make no pretensions, exact no duties; and never contradict us, which is particularly distasteful to young and old children.

"What a poor beast piggy is!" said Ivo at one time: "she isn't in the world for any thing but to be killed: other beasts are of some use while they're alive." Nat nodded complacently. After a while he said, "Perhaps that's the reason a pig squeals worse than any other beast when they kill it."

His merry questions, remarks, and odd speeches gained for Ivo throughout the village the reputation of a "smart, quick-witted boy." Nobody surmised to whom this early activity of his mind was to be ascribed. The schoolmaster was displeased with him because he never went home from school quietly, as the rules prescribed, but always screamed and whooped like an Indian. Poor children! For hours they are compressed into themselves: when released at last, how can they be blamed for shaking themselves and greeting the free air to which they return? That is the reason that eleven o'clock in a village often seems to be the hour for the Wild Huntsman to make his round.

No one doubted that Ivo would be a good parson in time, he was so orderly and well-behaved. Valentine once boasted at the Eagle that his Ivo would go far ahead of George's Peter and John's Constantine.

We shall see.

3. CHILD'S LOVE.

Next door to Valentine lived Mike Shackerle, a poor man, whose sole wealth was in his children, the youngest of whom was called Emmerence: the carpenter's wife was her godmother, and Emmerence spent almost all her time at. Valentine's house, ate and drank there, and only slept at home. She was of Ivo's age exactly, and the two children were inseparable. Although his ungallant schoolfellows called him "girl-runner," he stuck to Emmerence. They had a partnership in a lot of fruit they had buried in the hay-loft. Over this treasure they would often sit with quiet joy. Ivo showed himself as a man in being able to count up to a hundred. Emmerence listened devoutly and spoke the numbers after him. The damaged and the odd pieces were consumed in equal portions. Disputes were not wanting; when the partnership-goods were divided at once. But the separation never lasted longer than a day; for, if they did not "go joints," how could they talk to each other of their fortune?

Great changes took place, however. Ivo received from Nat the present of a whip, and Emmerence learned to knit. In towns children are presented with drums or with toy-shops, to play soldier and trader until life begins in earnest: in the village they begin to play farmer with a whip. Ivo would stand before the empty wagon, smack his whip at the bare pole, and cry, "Whoa! Gee! Get up!" The moment he came home from school, his slate and ruler were laid upon the footstool behind the stove, his whip cracked, and the geese and chickens routed up and down the road. While thus roystering about one day, he saw Emmerence sitting under the walnut-tree with her knitting. Her little kitten lay near her, purring and puffing in the sun. The plump little yellow-haired girl was taking up her stitches with a zeal which kept her eyes riveted to her work; her lips were pressed together with an air of determination, as if she was bound to make a woollen jacket for old Winter himself.

Ivo stood quietly looking at her for a while, and then asked, "Are you knitting stockings for your puss?"

Emmerence took no time to answer, but went on knitting. The spirit of mischief tickled Ivo, and he pulled the needle out of her fingers.

Emmerence got up to throw a stone after him as he ran away; but, girl-like, she never lifted it over her shoulder, but let it fall immediately at her own feet. Having gathered up her needles, she went home crying.

In the afternoon Ivo soon obtained forgiveness for his cruelty by presenting Emmerence with a piece of a broken blue-glass bottle. They looked at the sun through it by turns, exclaiming, "Oh, my! how pretty!" Ivo wrapped the gem in a piece of paper and left it with Emmerence.

From time to time the village was visited by a man who, like the bold Ratcatcher sung by Goethe, always had the children at his heels. It was the "saint-man," who would sell pictures of the saints to the children for broken glass. Ivo always ransacked the house until the glittering coin was found, and then brought Emmerence the prize.

Not in the sunshine alone, but also in the storm, we find the children together.

Old Valentine looked out of the window with a pleased expression in his face,--for it is easy to look pleased during a fine summer shower, even when there is not much to think about: body and soul are played upon as with a gentle dew, and the drops fall from the eaves of the opposite houses like the ripples of a stream: all around us--even the flood of the silent air itself--has acquired a voice and a meaning.

Ivo and Emmerence had taken refuge in the open barn: little Jake, the squire's son, who was but three years old, was there also. The chickens had betaken themselves to the same asylum: they stood beside the children, with drooping tails, often shaking themselves. The black kitten also crept along under the eaves of the house so softly that its coming into the barn was not perceived until the chickens cackled: it dived down into the stable immediately.

At first it dripped so slightly that you could only see the rain by looking at the dark windows opposite; but soon the drops swelled and pattered, and Ivo said, "Ah, this is first-rate for my pinks in the garden." "Pinks in t' garden," repeated little Jake. Again Ivo said, "Ah, that'll be a big puddle." "Big puddle," re-echoed little Jake. Ivo looked at him grimly.

Farmers drove by with empty sacks on their heads, crying out and trying to escape the storm: the children laughed at them and cried out, "Whew!" Emmerence stood with her head a little on one side, and her hands under her apron: just when it rained hardest, Ivo pushed her out under the eaves. Little Jake sprang out of his own accord, as if to challenge the rain, but still he shut his eyes and held down his head, so as not to get the very worst of it. With her apron over her head, Emmerence now did her best to get under cover again; but Ivo was on the look-out, and never let her in till she began to cry.

The rain at last stopped: the sun came forth brightly, and the children rushed out with unspeakable joy. The human plants seemed to derive as much benefit from the freshened air as any others. Yellow torrents poured down along the road: the children launched chips upon them, and waded about in the water, looking for bits of iron. Ivo, who always had extended projects, wished to build a mill; but long before the mill was ready the water had run off. How often do we build up machines to be moved by the stream of our lives, and ere the machinery is half constructed the water-course is empty and dry!