How astonished, then, was his father, when one fine sunny spring morning his son stood before him, with knapsack and staff, in order to bid him farewell before setting out on his travels. Who would ever have thought he would want to travel! The father rejoiced in the belief that the son would seek work according to the custom of journeymen workmen, and gave him his blessing, and much good advice besides. But he hardly even heard the words and advice of his father; there was a singing in his ears and a mist before his eyes, so that he felt like one intoxicated. Yes, he was a fool! Nor did he see the tears his mother and Liesel were shedding at his departure: he only thought of that far-off land, of the dream of his childhood. What mattered to him their tears! He wanted only to travel to find his Eden. And he travelled. With each rising sun he arose and thought, "To-day you will find what you seek;" and when he laid himself down tired at night, he thought, "To-morrow I shall reach my goal;" and, happy in this thought, he would fall asleep. No mountain was too steep for him, no path too stony, no forest too dense; he thought of his Eden, and minded not the thorns that tore his flesh. Yes, he was a fool!
Far behind him, forgotten, lay his home in the dim distance!
No living creature could tell him where his Paradise lay! The birds of the forest went on with their song; the deer gazed at him astonished; the brooks babbled on monotonously and sought the way to the ocean.
People he asked only laughed, and they looked back at the strange lad, shaking their heads.
Quickly the time flew by; the spring faded, summer and autumn pa.s.sed, and still he wandered on. His path, that once lay before him green and fair, was now covered with snow. He, however, heeded it not, and journeyed on. It must come at last, the long-sought goal! At last he reached a mighty snow-covered mountain range, so mighty that he said to himself, "Beyond this it must surely lie," and in glad hope pa.s.sed forward. A whole day he ascended over snow and ice: his feet were sore and bruised, and he was shivering from the cold, and yet no hut was to be seen that might offer him shelter. The sun went down in crimson behind the ice-armored mountains, leaving behind a bitter coldness, so great that the stars in the heavens shivered with frost.
Then it occurred to tired Hans that it was Christmas, and for the first time on his journey he thought for a long while of home, where the Christmas-tree was now lighting up the warm room, and the dear ones were a.s.sembling around it. But what mattered the Christmas-tree to him; he was seeking Paradise!
Suddenly he saw on the roadside an old man. He was sitting on his bundle, and leaning his head on his hands. He must have been very old, for his face was furrowed like the bark of an oak, and his snowy beard hung nearly to the ground.
Then tired Hans rejoiced, greeted him, and asked how far it might be to the nearest habitation of man.
"To-day you can no longer reach it," replied the old man. "Whither are you journeying?"
"I seek Paradise," answered Hans: "nearly a year have I wandered over the earth, and yet have not found it."
Thereupon the old man arose, laid his hands upon Hans"s shoulder, and said, "Turn back and go home! I have wandered for more than a thousand years on earth, and sought Paradise, and have not found it. Know, then, I am Ahasuerus, doomed to everlasting wandering as a penance. Wherever I go I am persecuted; where I knock the gate is locked; and nowhere have I a home. Stones are my bed, and my bundle is my pillow. Go, poor fool!
return to the place of your birth. There, some day, they will dig a grave for you, wherein you may sleep peacefully. Go back to your home, where a Christmas-tree is lit up for you, and where you are loved, and leave to me all wandering and seeking: to me, the poor, old, accursed man!"
Then Hans was very sad: he threw down his bundle, sat down in the snow, and wept bitterly. However, he was so tired from the long journey that he soon forgot all his misery, and fell into a deep slumber. The old man spread his cloak over him to protect him from the cold, and then listened to the deep-drawn breathing of precious sleep, that drowns all cares. The youth lying there could sleep, and die, and forget! but he himself must keep awake, and live, and wander!
Upon the face of Hans a smile was playing; he was dreaming! Did he see the long-sought Paradise? He saw in his dream a house with snow-covered gable and little windows; a small house, closely encircled by other houses, a garden in front. In a room inside sat his parents round a cheerful fire. The spinning-wheel whizzed, and the cat purred in comfort in front of the fire. Softly there fell, now and again, a needle from the Christmas-tree. A resinous, pine-tree odor filled the room. From the next house a clear, maiden"s voice was singing the old, old Christmas carol,--
"A rose has bloomed From a tender root, Our fathers have sung: Out of Jesse it came."
And the crackling of the fire, the whizzing of the spinning-wheel, and the maiden"s song seemed to the dreamer fairer than a thousand Edens. An indescribable homesickness overcame him.
When he awoke, the east was radiant with the blush of morning. He sprang up and seized his staff. Scales seemed to fall from his eyes. "Home, home!" a thousand voices seemed to echo within him.
But up the mountains, outlined by the red of the morn, he saw the old man wandering on his comfortless path.
_A Yarn Spun by a Yankee._
"A white-haired, thin-visaged, weather-worn old gentleman in a blue, Quaker-cut coat."
_Hawthorne._
A TALE OF A TURKEY.
I.
The shutters of a little spur of warehouses which breaks out into mountainous stores and open valleys of streets around the corner, but which itself overlooks no fairer view than a narrow, muddy alley of a thoroughfare scarcely broad enough to admit two drays abreast, and, by actual measurement,--taken with persistent diligence by the adjacent office boys,--just two running-jumps from gutter to gutter; the shutters of this, in its own eyes, important little trade centre, were up, and a great clattering they had made in getting up on a clear, tingling night before Christmas, eighteen hundred and--no matter what.
The porters had come out in their faded greatcoats, bandaged right and left in woolly m.u.f.flers, and more than usually clumsy in padded gloves, and had been bitten and tossed about by the wind with such unbecoming violence that even a porter felt it necessary to hurry and bustle.
Taking the shutters by a.s.sault from the foe"s embraces, they had thumped, and banged, and hammered, and scolded them into place, and, in undignified haste, had betaken themselves, steaming warm breath through their fingers, into their proper and respective places by the counting-house fire.
The magic--so it seemed in its effects--tolling of a deep-toned bell in the neighborhood would not allow them to doze long in their warm nooks, but, like the jealous monster in the fairy-tale, kept its captives always going, going, going, for its sixth stroke had not died away before they began to appear again, this time with the addition of fur hats and little dinner-baskets, and with no perceptible noses--unless the existence of watery eyes above their m.u.f.flers argued the missing features to be in their proper places below--and with an accelerated gait--also an act of enchantment.
William, of No. 6, bawled as loud as his worsted gag would permit across the street (so termed by a figure of rhetoric) to James, of No. 7:
"h.e.l.lo, Jim! Cold as blazes, ain"t it?"
James, of No. 7, a.s.senting, Thomas, of No. 4, would like to know "How blazes can be cold, now?"
William, of No. 6, would say "as thunder," if that would suit him any better; and as it appeared to do so they, with half a dozen others, breasted the wind and trudged out into the bl.u.s.tery streets beyond.
The merchants, too, had locked their doors, and tried their k.n.o.bs, and looked up at the faces of their stores as if to say, "Merry Christmas to you, and I wish you a pleasant day to-morrow!" but in reality to see that all was fast, and perchance to indulge in a comfortable survey of their snug little properties--and the complacent tread with which they followed the porters gives color to the suspicion--and draw from it momentum for the enjoyment of the morrow"s holiday.
The shutters, then, were up--stop, not all up! One, as you may see by the shaft of gas-light that has just fallen across the pavement near the top of the court, is still down.
The little square window through which the light eddies on the bricks is supported on either side by a heavy door, and all three, the two doors and the window, are in turn crowned and anointed on the head, as it were, by a very bold sign containing very brazen--in every sense of the word--letters which announced pompously, like some servants of similar metallic qualities, the name of their master.
Emanuel Griffin--the tongue uncontrollably adds Esquire--was the name, and there, if you had looked through the window, in a deep funnel of a room, at a desk near the fire, head behind the open leaves of a ledger, and feet beneath the warm recesses of the stove, sat its possessor.
Outside the railing which formed a barrier between Emanuel Griffin, Esq., and the business world, and encompa.s.sed with a less elaborate railing, sat, on a high stool in a cold corner, the little, blackish-green (perhaps the color gas-light imparts to faded black) clerk of Emanuel Griffin, Esq. Whether David Dubbs, such was he called, derived the power of writing from his mouth; or whether the gentle excitation of moving his lips over toothless gums a.s.sisted thought; or whether, as some said, he chewed tobacco, a position which n.o.body ever held long, as n.o.body ever proved him to have expectorated during his whole life; his mouth--always closed--moved up and down, up and down, with the motion of his pen. Hair he had none, that is, none to speak of; there were some few isolated white locks behind his ears and at the back of his head, but he made no pretensions to have any, and openly acknowledged himself bald--and very candid of him it was to do so.
Chroniclers have told us how, after fierce battles that have raged from dawn till nightfall, the moon has come calmly up from the horizon and shone peacefully and serenely over the field of strife and death. So arose a beneficent smile ever and anon over the wrinkled and careworn face of the old clerk; but still he wrote on, Faithful Dave! and if pleasant thoughts swept through him they avoided the business that occupied his hands and did not interrupt it.
They had long sat in quietness, only broken by the noise of turning leaves and crackling coals,--but, in truth, if David Dubbs"s eye, in its course to and from the clock, had not, like the world, worked silently on its axis, there must have been continual creaking--when a noise like the name of David emanated from the ledger, and following it--for it was near-sighted--the head of Emanuel Griffin, Esq., lifted itself to an erect posture and repeated in a less m.u.f.fled tone, "David!"
"Yes, sir," answered the old clerk, in a weak little voice, and climbing down to the floor from his perch.
"You may lock up, David. Ten thousand and odd. Ten thousand"s a good year, David; a very good year. Very--good--indeed! But go and lock up,"
and then Mr. Griffin took a glance at the clock. "Half-past six! Why it"s surprising how time does fly, and Christmas Eve, too. Well, well!
But hurry up with the shutters, David, and we shan"t be long----"
Before Mr. Griffin had fully delivered himself of these remarks the little person of David Dubbs was out in the cold, was in and out among the screws on the door, had put up the shutters, and simultaneously with the last word stood in the half-opened door and, all unseen by his employer, waved his hand to some one at the corner of the court. He then walked as quickly as his little, bent legs--parabolic were they in outline, but, as this is not a geometric treatise, it is of no particular consequence--would permit him up the long aisle in the centre of the room, and sent off timid little echoes of his steps to ramble away among the bales of crockery--for it was crockery that Emanuel Griffin, Esq., dealt in--and rattle among the piles of plates.
Having reached again his little cage of an office, he took down from its accustomed peg an old, threadbare coat, and, with much exertion and outstretching of arms, finally got it on, turned up the collar, tied about his ears a not very robust scarf, and laid thereon, as the copestone of his apparel, a dingy high hat that had undergone, in point of nap, as many reverses as its wearer in point of fortune. Thus attired, he tipped his hat to his employer, all ready, like himself, to depart, and started out.
Before he reached the door, a cry from Mr. Griffin arrested him, and he came hastily back; for, although it would have required a thumbscrew to have made him confess it, yet he had all day long looked forward to the time of parting, when he half expected Emanuel Griffin, Esq., contrary to his custom though it was, would offer him some little gift out of the increased profits of a business he had done no little to advance. But no such design had Mr. Griffin conceived, or if he had it was very soon suppressed as entirely unworthy of a man of purely business habits, and all he had to say was,--
"I know, David, there is something I was to have told you to do. Mrs.
Griffin impressed it on me this morning, but,"--here he stood thinking for a moment,--"no matter," he resumed. "I guess it was nothing very important, so good-by, David, and a--good-by!" He was going to say "and a merry Christmas;" but for a man of purely business habits to unbend so far and become cheerful--why, it"s subversive of all business discipline, and so he thought to himself.
David, doubly disappointed, turned and pa.s.sed out, and his old eyes must have been extremely sensitive to the wind, for they ran with something very like tears that he wiped away with his glove as he muttered,--
"So, no Christmas, after all. Poor girls! Poor girls!" Mr. Griffin was not long behind his faithful old clerk. He extinguished the lights with great care, and then, with the key in his hand, felt his way to the door, banged it after him, and locked it with the satisfaction of a miser over a casket of treasures. His journey home led him to the opposite end of the court from that which David had pa.s.sed through, and he therefore did not overtake him.