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CHAPTER XI
WHAT THE OLD SONG SAYS

[The memory of the handsome stranger, and of the dance, and of all the new and wonderful emotions that had filled her heart on that eventful day, to Amrei was a sacred one indeed; for weeks she thought of it by day and dreamed of it by night. The jealous, sneering remarks of Rose, and the half-serious, half-jesting utterances of other people, who had been present at the wedding, meant nothing to her; she went about her work all the more diligently and ignored it all. Black Marianne could offer her no encouragement in her hope that the stranger would some day appear again and claim her; she had waited all her life for her John, and would continue to wait until she died.]

Spring had come again. Amrei was standing beside the flowers in her window when a bee came flying up and began sucking at an open blossom.

"Yes, so it is," thought Barefoot; "a girl is like a plant; she grows up in one place, and cannot go out into the world and seek—she must wait until something comes flying to her."

 
"Were I a little bird,
And had a pair of wings,
I'd fly to thee;
But since I can't do that,
Here must I be.
 
 
Though I am far from thee,
In dreams I am with thee,
Thou art mine own;
But when I wake again,
I am alone.
 
 
No hour at night doth pass,
But that my heart doth wake,
And think of thee,—"
 

Thus sang Amrei. It was wonderful how all songs seemed now to apply to her own life. And how many thousands of people have already sung those songs from the depths of their souls, and how many thousands more are yet to sing them!

Ye who yearn and who at last embrace a heart, ye embrace along with it the love of all those who have ever been, or who ever shall be.

CHAPTER XII
HE IS COME

One Sunday afternoon Barefoot, according to her custom, was leaning against the door-post of the house and gazing dreamily out before her, when Coaly Mathew's grandson came running up the street, beckoning to her from afar and crying:

"He is come, Barefoot! He is come!"

Barefoot felt her knees tremble, and she cried in a broken voice:

"Where is he? Where?"

"At my grandfather's, in Mossbrook Wood!"

"Where? Who? Who sent you?"

"Your Damie—he's down yonder in the woods."

Barefoot was obliged to sit down on the stone bench in front of the house; but only for a minute. Then she pulled herself together and stood up stiffly with the words:

"My brother? My Damie?"

"Yes, Barefoot's Damie," said the boy, bluntly; "and he promised that you would give me a kreutzer if I would run and tell you. So now give me a kreutzer."

"My Damie will give you three."

"Oh, no!" said the boy, "he's been whimpering to my grandfather because he hadn't a kreutzer left."

"I haven't one now either," said Barefoot, "but I'll promise you one."

She went quickly into the house and begged the second maid to milk the cows for her that evening, in case she should not get back, for she had an errand to do immediately. Then, with a heart now full of anger at Damie, now full of sorrow for him and his awkwardness, again full of vexation on account of his coming back, and then again full of self-reproach that she should be going to meet her only brother in such a way, Barefoot wended her way out into the fields and down the valley to Mossbrook Wood.

There was no mistaking the way to Coaly Mathew's, even if one were to wander off from the foot-path. The smell of burning charcoal led one to him infallibly.

How the birds are rejoicing in the trees! And beneath them a sad maiden is passing, thinking how unhappy it must make her brother to see all these things again, and how badly things must have gone with him, if he had no other resource but to come home and live upon her earnings.

"Other sisters are helped by their brothers," she thought to herself, "and I—but I shall show you this time, Damie, that you must stay where I put you, and that you dare not stir!"

Such were Barefoot's thoughts as she hurried along; and at last she arrived at Coaly Mathew's. But there she saw only Coaly Mathew himself, who was sitting by the kiln in front of his log cabin, and holding his wooden pipe with both hands as he smoked it; for a charcoal-burner is like a charcoal kiln, in that he is always smoking.

"Has anybody been playing a trick on me?" Barefoot asked herself. "Oh, that would be shameful! What have I done to people that they should make a fool of me? But I shall soon find out who did it—and he shall pay for it."

With clenched fists and a flaming face she stood before Coaly Mathew, who hardly raised his eyes to her—much less did he speak. As long as the sun was shining he was almost always mute, and only at night, when nobody could look into his eyes, did he like to talk, and then he spoke freely.

Barefoot gazed for a minute at the charcoal-burner's black face, and then asked impatiently:

"Where is my Damie?"

The old man shook his head. Then Barefoot asked again with a stamp of her foot:

"Is my Damie with you?"

The old man unfolded his hands and spread them right and left, implying thereby that he was not there.

"Who was it that sent to me?" asked Barefoot, still more impatiently.

"Can't you speak?"

The charcoal-burner pointed with his right thumb toward the side where a foot-path wound around the mountain.

"For Heaven's sake, do say something!" cried Barefoot, fairly weeping with indignation; "only a single word! Is my Damie here, or where is he?"

At last the old man said:

"He's there—gone to meet you along the path." And then, as if he had said too much, he pressed his lips together and walked off around the kiln.

Barefoot now stood there, laughing scornfully and, at the same time, sadly over her brother's simplicity.

"He sends to me and doesn't stay in the place where I can find him; now if I go up that way, why should he expect me to come by the foot-path? That has doubtless occurred to him now, and he'll be going some other way—so that I shall never find him, and we shall be wandering about each other as in a fog."

Barefoot sat down quietly on the stump of a tree. There was a fire within her as within the kiln, only the flames could not leap forth—the fire could merely smolder within. The birds were singing, the forest rustling—but what is all that when there is no clear, responsive note in the heart? Barefoot now remembered, as in a dream, how she had once cherished thoughts of love. What right had she to let such thoughts rise within her? Had she not misery enough in herself and in her brother? And this thought of love seemed to her now like the remembrance, in winter, of a bright summer's day. One merely remembers how sunny and warm it was—but that is all. Now she had to learn what it meant to "wait,"—to "wait" high up on a crag, where there is hardly a palm's breadth of room. And he who knows what it means, feels all his old misery—and more.

She went into the charcoal-burner's log cabin, and there lay a cloth sack, hardly half full, and on the sack was her father's name.

"Oh, how you have been dragged about!" she said, almost aloud. But she soon got over her excitement in her curiosity to see what Damie had brought back. "He must at least still have the shirts that I made for him out of Black Marianne's linen. And perhaps there is also a present from our uncle in America in it. But if he had anything good, would he have gone first to Coaly Mathew in the forest? Would he not have shown himself in the village at once?"

Barefoot had plenty of time to indulge in these reflections; for the sack had been tied with a cord, which had been knotted in a most complicated way, and it required all her patience and skill to disentangle it. She emptied out everything that was in the sack and said with angry eyes:

"Oh, you good-for-nothing! There's not a decent shirt left! Now you may have your choice whether you'll be called 'Jack in Tatters' or 'Tattered Jack.'"

This was not a happy frame of mind in which to greet her brother for the first time. And Damie seemed to realize this; for he stood at the entrance of the log cabin and looked on, until Barefoot had put everything back into the sack. Then he stepped up to her and said:

"God greet you, Amrei! I bring you nothing but dirty clothes, but you are neat, and will make me—"

"Oh, dear Damie, how you look!" cried Barefoot, and she threw herself on his neck. But she quickly tore herself away from him, exclaiming:

"For Heaven's sake! You smell of whisky! Have you got so far already?"

"No, Coaly Mathew only gave me a little juniper spirit, for I could not stand up any longer. Things have gone badly with me, but I have not taken to drink—you may believe that, though, to be sure, I can't prove it."

"I believe you, for you surely would not wish to deceive the only one you have on earth! But oh, how wild and miserable you look! You have a beard as heavy as a knife-grinder's. I won't allow that—you must shave it off. But you're in good health? There's nothing the matter with you?"

"I am in good health, and intend to be a soldier."

"What you are, and what you are to be, we'll think about in good time.

But now tell me how things have gone with you."

Damie kicked his foot against a half-burnt log of wood—one of the spoilt logs, as they were called—and said:

"Look you—I am just like that, not completely turned to coal, and yet no longer fresh wood."

Barefoot exhorted him to say what he had to say without complaints. And then Damie went off into a long, long story, setting forth how he had not been able to bear the life at his uncle's, and how hard-hearted and selfish that uncle was, and especially how his wife had grudged him every bit he ate in the house, and how he had got work here and there, but how in every place he had only experienced a little more of man's hard-heartedness. "In America," he said, "one can see another person perishing in misery, and never so much as look around at him."

Barefoot could hardly help laughing when there came again and again, as the burden of his story,—"And then they turned me out into the street." She could not help interrupting him with:

"Yes, that's just how you are, and how you used to be, even as a child. When you once stumbled, you let yourself fall like a log of wood; one must convert the stumble into a hop, as the old proverb says. Cheer up. Do you know what one must do, when people try to hurt one?"

"One must keep out of their way."

"No, one must hurt them, if one can—and one hurts them most by standing up and achieving something. But you always stand there and say to the world: 'Do what you like to me, good or bad; kiss me or beat me, just as you will.' That's easy enough; you let people do anything to you, and then pity yourself. I should like it right well myself, if some one would place me here and there, and do everything for me. But you must look out for yourself now. You've let yourself be pushed about quite enough in the world; now you must play the master for awhile."

Reproof and teaching often seem like hardness and injustice in the eyes of the unhappy; and Damie took his sister's words as such. It was dreadful that she did not see that he was the most unhappy creature on earth. She strongly urged him not to believe that, and said that if he did not believe it, it would not be so. But it is the most difficult of all undertakings to inspire a man with confidence in himself; most people acquire it only after they have succeeded.

Damie declared that he would not tell his heartless sister a word more; and it was only after some time that she got from him a detailed account of his travels and fortunes, and of how he had at last come back to the old world as a stoker on a steamboat. While she reproved him for his self-tormenting touchiness, she became conscious that she herself was not entirely free from that fault. For, as a result of her almost exclusive association with Black Marianne, she had fallen into the habit of thinking and talking so much about herself, that she had acquired a desponding way. And now that she was called upon to cheer her brother up, she unconsciously exerted a similar influence upon herself. For herein lies the mysterious power of cooperation among men, that when we help others we are also helping ourselves.

"We have four sound hands," she said in conclusion, "and we'll see if we cannot fight our way through the world together. And to fight your way through is a thousand times better than to beg your way through. And now, Damie, come with me—come home."

Damie did not want to show himself in the village at all; he dreaded the jeering that would be vented upon him from all sides, and preferred to remain concealed for the present. But Barefoot said:

"You go with me now—on this bright Sunday; and you must walk right through the village, and let the people mock at you, let them have their say, let them point and laugh. Then you'll be through with it, then it will be over, and you will have swallowed their bitter draught all at once, and not drop by drop."

Not without long and obstinate resistance, not until Coaly Mathew had interfered and sided with Barefoot, was Damie induced to comply. And there was, indeed, a perfect hailstorm of jeering, sometimes coarse, sometimes satirical, directed at Barefoot's Damie, whom people accused of having taken merely a pleasure-trip to America at the expense of the parish.

Black Marianne alone received him kindly; her first question was:

"Have you heard nothing of my John?" But he could give her no information.

In a double sense Damie was doomed to be scratched that day; for that very evening Barefoot had the barber come and shave off his wild beard, and give him the smooth face that was the fashion of the country.

The next morning Damie was summoned to the Courthouse; and inasmuch as he trembled at the summons, he knew not why, Barefoot promised to accompany him. And that was good, though it was not of much use; for the Council declared to Damie that he was to be sent away from the place, that he had no right to remain there, perhaps to become a burden on the community once more.

All the members were astonished when Barefoot answered "Yes, you can send him away—but do you know when? When you can go out to the churchyard, where our father and mother lie buried, and say to them: 'Up, go away with your child!' Then you can send him away. No one can be sent away from the place where his parents are buried; for he is more than at home there. And if it is written a thousand times in your books there, and a thousand times again,"—and here she pointed to the bound government registers,—"and wherever else it may be written, it cannot be done, and you cannot do it."

One of the councilors whispered to the schoolmaster:

"Barefoot has learned to talk in that way from nobody else but Black Marianne."

And the sexton leaned over to the magistrate and said:

"Why do you allow the Cinderella to make such an outcry? Ring for the gendarme and have him shut her up in the madhouse."

But the magistrate only smiled, and explained that the community had rid itself of all burdens that could ever accrue to it through Damie by paying the greater part of his passage money.

"But where is his home now?" asked Barefoot.

"Wherever they will receive him, but not here—at present nowhere."

"Yes, I have no home," said Damie, who almost enjoyed being made more and more unhappy; for now nobody could deny that he was the most unfortunate person in the world.

Barefoot continued to fight, but she soon saw that nothing could be done; the law was against her. She now declared that she would work her fingers to the bone rather than take anything more from the parish, either for herself or for her brother; and she promised to pay back all that had been received.

"Shall I put that down on the minutes?" asked the clerk of those who sat around. And Barefoot replied:

"Yes, put it down; for with you nothing counts except what's written."

Barefoot then put her signature to the entry. When this was done, it was announced that Damie, as a stranger, had permission to remain in the village for three days, but that if within that time he had not found some means of subsistence, he would be sent away, and in case of necessity, would be removed by force across the frontier.

Without another word Barefoot left the Court-house with Damie, who actually shed tears because she had compelled him to return to the village to no purpose. It would have been better, he declared, if he had remained out in the woods and spared himself the jeering, and the humiliation of hearing himself banished as a stranger from his native place. Barefoot wanted to reply that it was better to know the worst, however bitter it might be; but she restrained herself, realizing that she had need of all her strength to keep up her own courage. She felt as if she had been banished with her brother, and understood that she had to fight with a world that had law and might to fall back upon, while she herself was empty-handed and helpless.

But she bore up more bravely than ever; she did not allow Damie's weaknesses and adversities to weigh upon her. For that is the way with people; if any one has a pain of his own which entirely occupies him, he will bear a second pain—be it ever so severe—more easily than if he had this second pain alone to bear. And thus while Barefoot had a feeling of indescribable sorrow against which she could do nothing, she was able to bear the definite trial against which she could strive, the more willingly and freely. She allowed herself not a minute more for dreaming, and went to and fro with stiff arms and clinched fists, as if to say: "Where is there work to do? Be it ever so hard, I will gladly undertake it, if only I can get myself and my brother out of this state of forsaken dependency."

She now cherished the idea of going with Damie to Alsace, and working in a factory there. It seemed terrible to her that she should have to do this, but she would force herself to it; as soon as the summer was over, she would go. And then, "Farewell home," she said, "for we are strangers even here where we were born."

The one protector the two orphans had had on the Village Council was now powerless to do anything for them; old Farmer Rodel was taken seriously ill, and in the night following the stormy meeting he died. Barefoot and Black Marianne were the two people who wept the most at his burial in the churchyard. On the way home Black Marianne gave as a special reason for this fact that old Farmer Rodel had been the last survivor of those with whom she had danced in her youth. "And now," she said, "my last partner is dead."

But she soon spoke a very different elegy concerning him; for it appeared that Farmer Rodel, who had for years been raising Barefoot's hopes concerning his will, made no mention at all of her in that document—far less did he leave her anything.

When Black Marianne went on with an endless tirade of scolding and complaining, Barefoot said:

"It's all coming at once. The sky is cloudy now, and the hail is beating down upon me from all sides; but the sun will soon be shining again."

The relatives of Farmer Rodel gave Barefoot a few garments that had belonged to the old man; she would have liked to refuse them, but realized that it would not do to show a spirit of obstinacy just now. At first Damie also refused to accept the clothes, but he was finally obliged to give in; he seemed fated to pass his life in the clothes of various dead people.

Coaly Mathew took Damie to work with him at the kiln in the forest, where talebearers kept coming to Damie to tell him that he had only to begin a lawsuit; they declared that he could not be driven away, for he had not yet been received at any other place, and that this was always a tacit condition when any one gave up his right of settlement. These people seemed to derive a certain satisfaction from the reflection that the poor orphans had neither time nor money to begin a legal process.

Damie seemed to like the solitude of the forest; it suited him exactly, the fact that one was not obliged to dress and undress there. And every Sunday afternoon Barefoot experienced great difficulty in getting him to clean himself up a little; then she would sit with him and Coaly Mathew.

Little was said, and Barefoot could not prevent her thoughts from wandering about the world in search of him who had once made her so happy for a whole day, and had lifted her above the earth. Did he know nothing more about her? Did he think of her no more? Could people forget other people with whom they had once been so happy?

It was on a Sunday morning toward the end of May, and everybody was at church. The day before it had rained, and now a strong, refreshing breeze was blowing over the mountains and valleys, and the sun was shining brightly. Barefoot had also intended to go to church, but while the bells were ringing she had sat as if spell-bound beneath her window, until it was too late to go. That was a strange thing for her, and it had never happened before. But now that it was too late, she determined to stay at home by herself and read her hymn-book. She rummaged through her drawers, and was surprised to find all sorts of things that belonged to her. She was sitting on the floor, reading a hymn and humming the tune of it to herself, when something stirred at the window. She glanced up; a white dove was sitting on the ledge and looking at her. When the eyes of the dove and of the girl met, the bird flew away. Barefoot watched it soar out over the fields and alight again.

This incident, which was a very natural one, filled her heart with gladness; and she kept nodding to the mountains in the distance, and to the fields and woods. The rest of that day she was unusually cheerful. She could not explain to herself why, but it seemed to her as if a joyous spirit were singing within her, and she knew not whence it came. And as often as she shook her head, while she leaned against the door-post, wondering at the strange excitement she felt, the feeling did not pass away.

"It must be, it must be that some one has been thinking kindly of me," she said; "and why should it not be possible that the dove was a silent messenger who came to tell me so?—Animals, after all, live in the world, where the thoughts of men are flying about, and who knows if they do not quietly carry those thoughts away?"

The people who passed by Barefoot could have no idea of the strange life that was moving within her.