The Emigrant Boy
’Tis lone on the waters,
When eve’s mournful bell,
Sends forth to the sunset
A note of farewell.
When, borne with the shadows
And winds, as they sweep,
There comes a fond memory
Of home o’er the deep.
Hemans.
In the old town of Rüdesheim, on the Rhine, is one of those dilapidated castles, which impart such picturesque beauty to the scenery of Germany. Among the ruins, Karl Schelling, a poor hard-working peasant, made for himself a home. With him dwelt his good wife Liesbet, and two blue-eyed children, named Fritz and Gretchen. A few cooking utensils, and wooden stools, constituted all their furniture; and one brown-and-white goat, was all they had to remind them of flocks and herds. But these poor children led a happier life, than those small imitations of humanity, who are bred up in city palaces, and drilled to walk through existence in languid drawing-room paces. From moss-grown arches in the old ruins, they could watch boats and vessels gliding over the sparkling Rhine, and see broad meadows golden with sunshine. On the terrace of the castle, the wind had planted many flowers. It was richly carpeted with various kinds of moss, tufts of grass, blue-bells, and little pinks. Here Karl often carried his goat to feed, and left the children to tend upon him. There had been a stork’s nest on the roof, from time immemorial; and the little ones were early taught to reverence the birds, as omens of blessing. Their simple young souls were quite unconscious of poverty. The splendid Rhine, with all its islands—the broad pasture-lands, with herds peacefully grazing—houses nestling among woody hills—all seemed to belong to them; and in reality, they possessed them more truly than many a rich man, who
“One moment gazes on his flowers,
The next they are forgot;
And eateth of his rarest fruits,
As though he ate them not.”
On their little heaps of straw, brother and sister slept soundly in each other’s arms; and if the hooting of an owl chanced to wake them, some bright star looked in with friendly eye, through chinks in the walls, and said, “Go to sleep, little ones; for all little children are dear to the good God.”
Thus, with scanty food and coarse clothes, plenty of pure air and blue sky, Fritz and his sister went hand in hand over their rugged but flower-strewn path of life, till he was nearly seven years old. Then came Uncle Heinrich, his mother’s brother, and said the boy could be useful to him at the mill, where he worked; and if the parents were willing to bind him to his service, he would supply him with food and clothing, and give him an outfit when he came of age. Tears were in Liesbet’s eyes; for she thought how lonely it would seem to her and little Gretchen, when they should no longer hear Fritz mocking the birds, or singing aloud to the high heaven. But they were very poor, and the child must earn his bread. So, with much sorrow to part with father and mother, and Gretchen, the goat and the stork, and with some gladness to go to new scenes, Fritz departed from the old nest that had served him for a home. Mounted with Uncle Heinrich, on the miller’s donkey, he ambled along through rocky paths, by deep ravines and castle-crowned hills, with here and there glimpses of the noble river, flowing on, bright and strong, reflecting images of spires, cottages, and vine-covered slopes. When he arrived at his new home, the good grandmother gave him right friendly welcome, and promised to set up on her knitting-needles a striped blue cap for him to wear. Uncle Heinrich was kind, in his rough way; but he thought it an excellent plan for boys to eat little and work hard. Fritz, remembering the blossom-carpet of the old castle, was always delighted to spy a clump of flowers. His uncle told him they looked well enough, but he wondered anybody should ever plant them, since they were not useful either to eat or wear; and that when he grew older, he would doubtless think more of pence than posies. Thus the child began to be ashamed, as of something wrong, when he was caught digging a flower. But his laborious and economical relative taught him many orderly and thrifty ways, which afterward had great influence on his success in life; and fortunately a love for the beautiful could not be pressed out of him. Kind, all-embracing Nature took him in her arms, and whispered many things to preserve him from becoming a mere animal. All day long he was hard at work; but the blossoming tree was his friend, and the bright little mill-stream chatted cozily, and smiled when the good grandmother gave it his clothes to wash. The miller’s donkey, ambling along through sun-lighted paths over the hills, was a picture to him. From his small garret window he could see the mill-wheel scattering bright drops in the moonlight; and he fell asleep to the gentle lullaby of ever-flowing water. Other education than this he had not.
“His only teachers had been woods and rills;
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.”
An aged neighbour, cotemporary with the grandmother, took a great liking to Fritz; and on Sundays, when no work could be done, he was often allowed to go and take dinner or supper there. The old man had traversed nearly all Germany as a peddler, and had come to die in the old homestead near the mill, where he had worked when a boy. He knew by heart all the wild fairy legends of the country, and, in his character of peddler-guest, had acquired a talent for relating them in a manner peculiarly amusing and exciting to children. In the course of his travels, he had likewise collected many things which seemed very remarkable to the inexperienced eye of Fritz; such as curious smoking-pipes and drinking-cups, and images in all the various costumes of Germany. But what most attracted his attention was an ancient clock, brought from Copenhagen when the peddler’s father was a young man. When this clock was in its right mind, it could play twelve tunes, about as simple as “Molly put the kettle on.” But the friction of many years had so worn the cogs of the wheels, that it was frightfully out of tune. This did not trouble the boy’s strong nerves, and he was prodigiously amused with the sputtering, seething, jumping, jabbering sounds it made, when set in motion. To each of the crazy old tunes he gave some droll name. “There goes the Spitting Cat,” he would say; “now let us hear the Old Hen.”
Father Rudolph called the rickety old machine his Blacking Box; because he had bought it with the proceeds of a peculiar kind of blacking, of his own manufacture. He was always praising this blacking; and one day he said, “I have never told any one the secret of making it; but if you are a good boy, Fritz, I will show you how it is done.” The child could not otherwise than respect what had procured such a wonderful clock; and when he fell asleep that night, there floated through his mind undefined visions of being able, some time or other, to purchase such a comical machine for himself. This seemed a very unimportant incident of his childhood; but it was the introduction of a thread, that reappeared again in his web of life.
Fritz passed at the old mill four years of health, happiness, and hard labor. For three years, Father Rudolph was an unfailing source of entertainment. Alternately with his comic old songs, and wild legends of fairies and goblins, he imparted much of a traveller’s discursive observation, and thorough practical knowledge concerning the glossy jet blacking. At last he fell asleep, and the boy heard that pleasant old voice no more, except in the echoing caves of memory. The good grandmother survived the companion of her youth only a few months. The ancient ballads she used to croon at her spinning-wheel, had caught something of the monotonous flow of the water, which forever accompanied them; and Fritz, as he passed up and down from the mill to the brook, missed the quaint old melodies, as he would have missed the rustling of the leaves, the chirping of crickets, or any other dear old familiar sound. He missed, too, her kind motherly ways, and the little comforts with which her care supplied him. With the exception of his rough, but really kind-hearted uncle, he was now alone in the world. He had visited Rüdesheim but once, and had then greatly amused Gretchen with his imitations of the crazy clock. But his parents had since removed to a remote district, and he knew not when he should see dear Gretchen again. As none of them could read or write, there came no tidings to cheer the long years of separation. How his heart yearned at times for the good mother and the joyous little sister!
But when Uncle Heinrich announced his intention of removing to America, the prospect of new adventures, and the youthful tendency to look on the bright side of things, overbalanced the pain of parting from father-land. It is true the last night he slept at the old mill, the moonlight had a farewell sadness in its glance, and the little stream murmured more plaintively as it flowed. Fritz thought perhaps they knew he was going away. They certainly seemed to sigh forth, “We shall see thee no more, thou bright, strong child! We remain, but thou art passing away!”
When the emigrants came to the sea-port, every thing was new and exciting to the juvenile imagination of Fritz. The ships out in the harbor looked like great white birds, sailing through the air. How pleasant it must be thus to glide over the wide waters! But between a ship in the distance, and the ship we are in, there exists the usual difference between the ideal and the actual. There was little romance in the crowded cabin, with hundreds of poor emigrants eating, drinking, and smoking, amid the odour of bilge-water, and the dreadful nausea of the sea. Poor Fritz longed for the pure atmosphere and fresh-flowing brook, at the mill. However, there was always America in prospect, painted to his imagination like Islands of the Blest. Uncle Heinrich said he should grow rich there; and a fairy whispered in his ear that he himself might one day possess a Copenhagen clock, bright and new, that would play its tunes decently and in order. “No, no,” said Fritz to the fairy, “I had rather buy Father Rudolph’s clock; it was such a funny old thing.” “Very well,” replied the fairy, “be diligent and saving, and perhaps I will one day bring Father Rudolph’s clock to crow and sputter to thee in the New World.”
But these golden dreams of the future received a sad check. One day, there was a cry of “A man overboard!” It occasioned the more terror, because a shark had been following in the wake of the vessel for several days. Boats were lowered instantly; but a crimson tinge on the surface of the water showed that their efforts were useless. It was not till some minutes after the confusion subsided, that Fritz perceived his Uncle Heinrich was missing. Terrible had been that crimson stain on the water; but now, when he knew it was the life-blood of his last and only friend, it made him faint and dizzy, as if it were flowing from his own veins.
Uncle Heinrich’s hard-earned savings were fastened within the belt he wore; and a bundle of coarse clothes, with a few tools, were all that remained of his worldly possessions. The captain had compassion on the desolate child, and charged nothing for his passage, or his food. When the vessel came within sight of port, the passengers, though most of them poor, raised a small fund for him by contribution. But who can describe the utter loneliness of the emigrant boy, when he parted from his ship-companions, and wandered through the crowded streets of New York, without meeting a single face he had ever seen before? Lights shone in cheerful basements, where families supped together; but his good-hearted mother, and his dear little blue-eyed Gretchen—where were they? Oh, it was very sad to be so entirely alone, in such a wide, wide world! Sometimes he saw a boy turn round to stare at his queer little cap, and outlandish frock; but he could not understand what he said, when he sung out, “There goes what they call a Flying Dutchman.” Day after day he tried for work, but could obtain none. His funds were running very low, and his heart was extremely heavy. As he stood leaning against a post, one day, a goat walked slowly towards him from a neighboring court. How his heart leaped up to greet her! With her came back images of the castle on the Rhine, the blooming terrace, his kind father, his blessed mother, and his darling little sister. He patted the goat’s head, and kissed her, and looked deep into her eyes, as he had done with the companion of his boyhood. A stranger came to lead the animal away; and when she was gone, poor Fritz sobbed as if his heart would break. “I have not even a goat for a friend now,” thought he. “I wish I could get back to the old mill again. I am afraid I shall starve here in this foreign land, where there is nobody to bury me.”
In the midst of these gloomy cogitations, there was an alarm of fire; and the watchmen sprung their rattles. Instantly a ray of hope darted through his soul! The sound reminded him of Father Rudolph’s Blacking Box; for one of its tipsy tunes began with a flourish exactly like it. “I will save every cent I can, and buy materials to make blacking,” thought he. “I will sleep under the planks on the wharves, and live on two pence a day. I can speak a few words of English. I will learn more from some of my countrymen, who have been here longer than I. Then, perhaps, I can sell blacking enough to buy bread and clothes.”
And thus he did. At first, it went very hard with him. Some days he earned nothing; and a week of patient waiting brought but one shilling. But his broad face was so clean and honest, his manners so respectful, and his blacking so uncommonly good, that his customers gradually increased. One day, a gentleman who traded with him made a mistake, and gave him a shilling instead of a ten-cent piece. Fritz did not observe it at the moment; but the next day, when the gentleman passed to his counting-house, he followed him, and touched him on the arm. The merchant inquired what he wanted. Fritz showed the coin, saying, “Dat not mine.” “Neither is it mine,” rejoined the merchant; “what do you show it to me for?” The boy replied, in his imperfect English, “Dat too mooch.” A friend, who was with the merchant, addressed him in German; and the poor emigrant’s countenance lighted up, as if it had become suddenly transparent, and a lamp placed within it. Heaving a sigh, and blushing at his own emotion, he explained, in his native tongue, that he had accidently taken too much for his blacking, the day before. They looked at him with right friendly glances, and inquired into his history. He told them his name and parentage, and how Uncle Heinrich had attempted to bring him to America, and had been devoured by a shark on the way. He said he had not a single friend in this foreign land, but he meant to be honest and industrious, and he hoped he should do well. The gentlemen assured him that they should always remember him as Fritz Shilling, and that they would certainly speak of him to their friends. He did not understand the joke of his name, but he did understand that they bought all his blacking, and that customers increased more rapidly after that interview.
It would be tedious to follow the emigrant through all the process of his gradually-improving fortune. As soon as he could spare anything from necessary food and clothing, he went to an evening school, where he learned to read, write, and cipher. He became first a shop-boy, then a clerk, and finally established a neat grocery-store for himself. Through all these changes, he continued to sell the blacking, which arrived at the honour of poetical advertisements in the newspapers, under the name of Schelling’s Best Boot Polisher.
But the prosperity thus produced was not the only result of his acquaintance with Father Rudolph. The dropped stitches of our life are sometimes taken up again strangely, through many intervening loops. One day, as Fritz was passing through the streets, when he was about sixteen years old, he stopped and listened intently; for he heard far off the sounds of a popular German ballad, which his grandmother and the peddler often used to sing together. Through all the din and rattle of the streets, he could plainly distinguish the monotonous minor cadence, which had often brought tears to his eyes when a boy. He followed the tones, and soon came in sight of an old man and his wife singing the familiar melody. A maiden, apparently somewhat younger than himself, played a tamborin at intervals. When he spoke to her in German, her face kindled, as his own had done, at the first sound of his native tongue in a strange land. “They call me Röschen,” she replied; “these are my father and mother. We came from the ship last night, and we sing for bread, till we can get work to do.” The soul looked simply and kindly through her blue eyes, and reminded him of sister Gretchen. Her wooden shoes, short blue petticoat, and little crimson jacket might seem vulgar to the fashionable, and picturesque to the artist; but to him it was merely the beloved costume of his native land. It warmed his heart with childish recollections; and when they sang again the quaint, sad melody, he seemed to hear the old brook flow plaintively by, and see the farewell moonlight on the mill. Thus began his acquaintance with the maiden, who was afterwards his wife, and the mother of his little Gretchen.
Of these, and all other groups of emigrants, for many years, he inquired concerning his parents and his sister; but could obtain no tidings. At last, a priest in Germany, to whom he wrote, replied that Gretchen had died in childhood; and that the father and mother had also recently died. It was a great disappointment to the affectionate heart of Fritz Schelling; for through all his expanding fortunes he had cherished the hope of returning to them, or bringing them to share his comfortable home in the New World. But when he received the mournful news, he had Röschen to love, and her parents to care for, and a little one that twined herself round his heart with fresh flower-garlands every day.
At thirty-five, he was a happy and a prosperous man. So prosperous, that he could afford to live well in the city, and yet build for himself a snug cottage in the country. “We can go out every Saturday and return on Monday,” said he to Röschen. “We can have fresh cream, and our own sweet butter. It will do the children good to roll on the grass, and they shall have a goat to play with.”
“And, perhaps, by-and-by, we can go there to live all the time,” rejoined Röschen. “It is so quiet and pleasant in the country; and what’s the use of being richer than enough?”
The site chosen for the cottage overlooked the broad, bright river, where high palisades of rock seemed almost like the ruins of an old castle. Fritz said he would make a flower-carpet on the rocks, for the goat to browse upon; and if a stork would only come and build a nest on his thatched roof, he could almost fancy himself in Germany. At times, the idea of importing storks crossed his mind; but his good sense immediately rejected the plan. It is difficult to imagine how those venerable birds, with their love of the antique and the unchangeable, could possibly live in America. One might as well try to import loyal subjects, or an ancient nobility.
When house and barn were completed, the first object was to secure honest, industrious German tenants to till the soil. Fritz heard of a company of emigrants, who wished to sell themselves for a specified time, in order to pay their passage; and he went on board the ship to see them. A hale man, who said he was about sixty years old, with a wife some five or six years younger, attracted his attention by their extreme cleanliness and good expression of countenance. He soon agreed to purchase them; and in order to prepare the necessary papers, he inquired their names.
“Karl Schelling and Liesbet Schelling,” replied the old man.
Fritz started, and his face flushed, as he asked, “Did you ever live in the old castle at Rüdesheim?”
“That we did for several summers,” rejoined Karl.
“Ah, can you tell us any thing of our son Fritz?” exclaimed Liesbet, eyeing him eagerly. “God bless him wherever he is! We came to America to find him.”
“Mother! Mother! do you not know me?” he said; and threw himself into her open arms, and kissed the honest, weather-beaten face.
“I see it has gone well with you, my son. Now, thanks be to God, and blessed be His holy name,” said Karl, reverently uncovering his head.
“And where is Gretchen?” inquired Fritz, earnestly.
“The All-Father took her home, to Himself, soon after you came to see us at Rüdesheim,” replied Liesbet. “She was always mourning for the brother, poor little one! It troubled us to go away and leave you behind us, without saying farewell; and I feared no blessing would follow it. But we were very poor, and we thought then we should come to you in two or three years.”
“Don’t speak of that,” said Fritz. “You were always good parents to me, and did the best you could. Blessings have followed me; and to meet you thus is the crowning blessing of all. Come, let us hasten home. I want to show you my good Röschen, and our Gretchen, and Karl, and Liesbet, and Rudolph, and baby Röschen. My small farm overlooks a river broad and beautiful as the Rhine. The rocks look like castles, and I have bought a goat for the children to play with. The roof of our cottage is thatched, and if a stork would only come and build her nest there, then dear father and mother might almost imagine themselves again at Rüdesheim, with plenty to eat, drink, and wear. If Father Rudolph’s Blacking Box were only here,” added he, laughing, “I should have all but one of my boyish dreams fulfilled. Ah, if dear Gretchen were only here!”
The fairy who whispered to Fritz when he was crossing the Atlantic, told him if he were diligent and saving, she would perhaps bring him the old clock; and she kept her promise better than fairies sometimes do; for it chanced that the heir of Father Rudolph came to America, and brought it with him. The price Fritz offered for it was too tempting, and it now stands in his thatched cottage. Its carved black case, inlaid with grotesque figures of birds and beasts in pearl, is more wonderful than a picture-book to the children. When any of them are out of health, or out of humour, their father sets the old bewildered tunes agoing, and they soon join in a merry mocking chorus, with “Cluck, cluck, cluck! Whirr, whirr, whirr! Rik a rik a ree!”
Note.—The accidental purchase of his parents by a German emigrant actually occurred a few years since; and this story was suggested by the fact.