AN IDYL OF THE EAST SIDE

By Thomas A. Janvier

Copyright, 1891, by Harper & Brothers

In the matter of raising canary-birds--at once strong of body and ofnote, tamed to associate with humanity on rarely friendly terms, andtaught to sing with a sweetness nothing short of heavenly--AndreasStoffel was second to none. And this was not by any means surprising, for he had been born (and for its saintly patron had been christened)close by the small old town of Andreasberg: which stands barelywithin the verge of the Black Forest, on the southern declivity of theHarz--and which, while famous for its mines, is renowned above allother cities for the excellence of the bird songsters which there andthereabouts are raised. 

Canary-birds had been the close companions of this good Andreas throughall the fifty years of his lifetime. They had sung their sweet song ofrejoicing at his birth--when the storks had brought him one day, whilehis father was far underground at work in the mines, and was vastly wellpleased, when he came home all grimy at night, to find what a braveboy God had sent him by these winged messengers. They had sung over hiscradle as his mother, knitting, rocked it in the midst of the longpatch of sunlight that came through the low, wide window of the_bauernhaus_--the comfortable home with high-peaked roof, partlythatched and partly shingled, and with great drooping eaves, that wasnooked snugly on the warm southern slope of the Andreasberg beside alittle stream. 

[Illustration: High-peaked roof, partly thatched 258]

They had sung him awake many and many a bright summer morning; and oneof his tenderest memories of the time when he was a very little boy--andwas put to bed, as little boys should be, at sundown--was of theirfaint, irregular, sleepy-headed chirpings and twitterings as theysettled themselves to slumber on their perches for the night. 

And when the time came that Andreas, grown to man's estate, beingone-and-twenty years old, but not to man's strength, for he was small ofstature and frail, was left lonely in the world--the good father killedby a rock-fall in the mines, and the dear mother thereafter pining awayfrom earth, and so to the heaven that gave her husband back to her--itwas his house-mates the birds who did their best to cheer him with theirsongs. And presently, as it seemed to him, these songs began to tell ofnew happiness in a new home far away across the mountains and beyond thesea--in that distant America where already his father's brother dwelt, and whereof he had heard wonderful stories of splendors and of richesincalculable all his life long. Indeed, the adventurous uncle hadprospered amazingly in the twenty years of his American exile: rising, in due course, from the position of a young man of most promiscuous allwork in a delicatessen shop in New York to the position of owner of thebusiness, shop and all. 

To go to a land where such things as this were possible seemed toAndreas most wise; and to be near his uncle, and the aunt and cousinswhom he had never seen, his sole remaining kin, held out to him apleasant promise of cheer and comfort in his loneliness. 

But, in very truth, the sweet burden of the song of his birds was notborn of thoughts of mere commonplace family affection and commonplaceworldly wealth. Far more precious than these was the motive of themusic that Andreas listened to and understood, and yet scarcely wouldacknowledge, even to himself; for in America it was that Christine nowhad her home--and that which set his heartstrings a-thrilling, as helistened to the song of his birds, was the deep, pure melody of love. 

They had been children together, he and Christine, their homes side byside on the flanks of the Andreasberg; and when, three years before, she had gone with her father and her mother on the long journeywestward, the heart of Andreas Stoffel had gone with her, and only hisbody was left behind among the mountains of the Harz. And Christine haddulled to him a little the keen edge of the sorrow of their parting byadmitting that she left her own heart in the place of the heart that shebore away. 

More than once had the rich uncle, owner of the delicatessen shop in NewYork, written to urge that his nephew--whose frailty of body made himunfit to enter upon the hard life of a worker in the mines--shouldcome to America; and with his large knowledge of affairs the uncle hadexplained that the best bill of exchange in which money could be carriedfrom Andreasberg to New York was canary-birds, that could be bought forcomparatively little in the German town, and that would be worth in theAmerican city a very great sum. And now on this shrewd advice Andreasacted. The dear old _bauernhaus_ was sold, and its furnishing withit; and all the money thus gained, together with the greater sum that, little by little, his father had added to the store in the old leatherbag (saving only what the journey would cost) was spent in buying thefinest canary-birds which money could buy; so that for a long whileafter that time Andreasberg was desolate, for all of its sweetestsingers were gone. 

Thus it fell out that even in the time of his long journey his birdsstill sang to him; and his fellow-travellers by land and sea regardedcuriously this slim, pale youth, who shyly kept apart from humanconverse and communed with his companions the birds. And so lovinglywell did Andreas care for his little feathered friends that not one diedthroughout the whole long passage; and as the ship came up the beautifulbay of New York on a sunny May morning, while Andreas stood on the deckwith his cages about him, very blithely and sweetly did the birds singtheir hopeful song of greeting to the New World. 

But it was a false song of hope, after all. Hearts were fickle thirtyyears ago, even as hearts are fickle to-day; and the first news thatAndreas heard when he was come to his uncle's home (a very fine home, over a very fine shop, indeed) was that Christine had been a twelvemonthmarried--in very complete forgetfulness of all her fine words about theheart left behind her, and of all her fine promises that she would betrue!

That there be such things as broken hearts is an open question. Yet whenthis news came suddenly to Andreas a keen agony of pain went throughhis heart as though it were really breaking; and with his hands pressedtightly against his breast, and with a face as pale as death itself, hefell to the floor. He would have died then very willingly; and it wasvery unwillingly--the fierce pain leaving him as suddenly as it hadcome--that he returned to life. Whatever may be said for or against theprobability of broken hearts, there can be no question as to the verityof broken lives. That day, assuredly, the life of Andreas Stoffel wasbroken, and it never wholly mended again. For a while even the song ofhis birds lost all its sweetness, and seemed to him but a discordantsound. 

Yet even a broken life, until it be snuffed out entirely, must battle inthe world for standing-room. Luckily for Andreas, there was no need forhim to question how his own particular battle should be made. Theshape in which his little store of worldly wealth was cast obviouslydetermined the lines on which he should seek maintenance. It was plainthat by the rearing and the selling of canary-birds he must gain supportuntil the time should come (and he hoped that it would come soon) whenhe might find release from this earth, where love so soon grows falseand cold. 

The rich uncle, who was a kind-hearted man, gave his help in thematter of finding a shop wherein the canary-bird business might beadvantageously carried on, and gave also the benefit of his commercialwisdom and knowledge of American ways. And so, with no great difficulty, Andreas was soon established in a snug little place of his own on theEast Side; where the friendly German speech sounded almost constantlyin his ears, and where the friendly German customs obtained almost ascompletely as in his own dear German home. But, after all, the changewas a dismal one. As his unaccustomed nose was assailed by the rankoil-vapors blown across from Hunter's Point he longed regretfully forthe fresh, aromatic air that the south winds swept up and over his oldhome from the pines of the Schwarz-wald; and the contrast was a sorryone between a home on the slopes of the Harz Mountains and a home inAvenue B. 

Yet had these been his only sorrows, and had he borne them--as he hadhoped to bear them--with Christine, his lot would have been anythingbut hard. It was the deep heart-wound that he had suffered that made hislife for many a year a very dreary one; too dreary for him to findmuch pleasure even in the singing of his birds. Now and again he metChristine. At their first meeting--in his uncle's fine parlor over thefine delicatessen shop, one Sunday afternoon--she was, as she well mightbe, confused in her speech and very shamefaced in her ways. Her husbandwas with her, quite a prosperous person, so Andreas was told, whohad built up a great business in the pork and sausage line. He was aloud-voiced, merry man; and he aired his wit freely, though evidentlywith no intent to be unkind, upon the lover out of whose lucklessnesshis own luck had come. Even as pretty a girl as Christine could nothave more than one husband at a time, said this big Conrad, with greatgood-humor; and so, since they could not both marry her, Andreas woulddo well to stop crying over spilled milk. They all would be very goodfriends, he added, and Andreas would be godfather to the first child. Heput out his big hand as he made this proffer of friendship; and althoughAndreas could not refuse to clasp it, there was not, in truth, any greatstore of friendliness for Christine's loud-voiced husband in his heart. So soon as this was possible, he was glad to get away from the merrySunday afternoon gathering in his uncle's fine parlor to the moresympathetic society of his birds. Yet there did not seem to him muchmusic in the singing of his birds that day. 

Christine was vastly proud of her big, rosy-faced, noisy husband, whosesausage-making greatly prospered, and to whom the American dollarsrolled in bravely. But even in these days of her good-luck she sometimesfound herself thinking--when Conrad's rough love-making was stillfurther roughened, and his noisiness greatly increased, by too freedraughts of heady German beer--of the gentler ways and constanttenderness of her earlier lover, whose love, with her own promise to betrue to it, she had so lightly cast aside. Thoughts of this sort, it istrue, did not often trouble her, but now and then they gave her a littleheart-pang; and the pang would be intensified, sometimes, as the thoughtalso would come to her that perhaps it was because she had brokenher plighted troth that her many prayers to become a mother remainedunanswered. 

As time went on, Christine's sorrows came to be of a more instant sort. Her too jolly husband's fondness for heady beer grew upon him, and withits increase came a decrease in the success that until then had beenattendent upon his sausage-making. His business fell away from him bydegrees into soberer and steadier hands, which had the effect of makinghim take to stronger drinks than beer in order that he might the moreeffectually forget his troubles. He lost his merriness, and somewhat ofhis loudness, and became sullen; and the wolf always was shrewdly nearthe door. Thus, in a very bad way indeed, things went on for halfa dozen years; then the big Conrad, what with drink and worry, fellill--so ill, that for a long while he lay close to the open jaws ofDeath. 

No one ever knew--though several people quite accurately guessed--whythe wolf did not fairly get into the house during that dismal time. Itis certain that when Conrad arose from his bed at last, a thin remnantof his former bigness, there were few high-priced birds left in AndreasStoffel's little shop, where there had been a score or more whenhis sickness began. And, possibly, it was something more than a merecoincidence that nearly all of the few which remained were sold aboutthe time that Conrad started again, in a very humble way, his businessof sausage-making. 

But if Andreas did thus sacrifice his birds for Christine's good, he didnot grudge the sacrifice; for upon the big Conrad poverty and sicknesshad exercised a chastening and most wholesome influence. He got up outof his bed a changed man; and the change, morally at least, was greatlyfor the better. Physically the result was less salutary; indeed, henever quite recovered from his sharp attack; and three or four yearslater, just as his business was getting into good shape again, hesickened suddenly, and then promptly paid to nature the debt that allmen owe, and that his partial return to health had but a little timedelayed. 

But Christine was not left desolate in the world, for in the last yearof her husband's life the strong yearning that so possessed her had beensatisfied, and she was the mother of a baby girl. Andreas, claiming thefulfilment of the promise made so long before, had stood godfather tothe little Rosa--for so, because of her fresh rosiness, was she named;and there was a strange, sorrowful longing in his heart when, the ritebeing ended, he came again to his lonely home and sat him down to becomforted by the singing of his birds: for while the children of Alicecall Bartram father, there must be ever a weary weight of sadness in theworld. 

Life had not given so much of happiness to Christine--though, possibly, her happiness was equal to her deserts--that her hold upon life was avery firm one; and although she tried, for the little Roschen's sake, toput fresh strength into her grasp, the pressure of poverty and care andsorrow all combined to make her loosen it. Gently, a little at a time, her hold gave way. She knew what was coming, and so did Andreas. Onceor twice they spoke about it; and spoke also of the old days on theAndreasberg, when began the love that in one of their hearts at leastnever had grown cold. And for this old love's sake Andreas promised thatwhen she was gone the little Rosehen should find a home with him andwith his birds. It was not a great while after this promise was madethat the end came. 

Some of the women laughed a little, and cried a little too, when, afterthe funeral, old Andreas--for so already had they begun to call him, because of his silent habit and quaint, old-fashioned ways--asked to beshown how a baby should be carried; and, being in this matter properlyinstructed, bore away with careful tenderness in his arms the littleRosehen to her new home. And when he was come home with her, the birds, as though in welcome--which seemed the more real because certain of thetamer ones among them came forth from their open cages and perched uponhis arm--

[Illustration: Chorus of sweetest song 268]

The good-wives living thereabouts were somewhat shocked at the thoughtof risking a baby's life in the care of a man who was qualified only tominister intelligently to the needs of baby canary-birds; yet were theynot a little touched when they came--in unnecessary numbers, as Andreasthought--to give him the benefit of their superior wisdom in thepremises by finding how well, in a queer, awkward way, he wasdischarging the duties of his office; and such gentleness in a man theyall vowed that they had never seen. Yet it was not surprising that hisquaint effort was crowned with so signal a success; as the birds couldhave explained, had their song-notes been rendered into human speech, Andreas had served an apprenticeship in caring for them which wellfitted him to care with a mother's tenderness for this little girl, who, such was his love for her, seemed to him in all verity to be his ownproper child. Benefiting by the advice which so lavishly was bestowedupon him, he presently became--as even the most critical of the womenwere forced to admit--a much better mother to the little Roschen thanmany a real mother might have been. It was, indeed, a sight worthtravelling far to see, this of Andreas washing and dressing the babyin the sunny room at the back of the shop where hung the cages in whichwere the choicest of his birds. Roschen's first conscious memory wasof laughing and splashing in her little tub in the sunshine, while allaround her was a carolling of song. 

In the course of the years which had drifted by since Andreas came withhis birds to New York that May morning he had not made for himself manyfriends. To be a friend of birds a man must have a quiet habit of body, and great gentleness of nature, and a true tenderness of heart; whichqualities tend also to solitariness, being for the most part harmedrather than fostered by association with mankind. As suited him well, his business was not one that called him much abroad, nor that broughthim greatly into contact with his fellows. In his good care the famousstock of songsters which he had brought with him from the fatherlandhad increased prodigiously; and even the sale of nearly all his best oldbirds, about the time that Conrad was ill, had worked, in the long run, to his benefit; for he had taken these birds to one and another of thegreat dealers, who thus came to know that in the little shop on AvenueB were to be found canaries the like of which for tameness and forrare beauty of note could not be bought elsewhere in all New York. Thereafter, as his young birds grew up, learning from Andreas himselfthe lesson of gentleness, and from his teaching-birds the lesson ofsweetness of note, he had no lack of high-paying customers; so that fromhis business he derived an income far in excess of his modestneeds. What went with the overplus was known only to certain of hiscountry-folk, whose ill venture after greater fortune in America hadproved to be but a fiercer struggle with still greater poverty than theyhad struggled with at home; and no doubt the angels also kept track ofhis modest benefactions, for such is reputed to be their way. 

Many a wounded life was healed by these hidden ministrations on the partof Andreas; and, as rightly followed, great love there was for himin many a humble heart. But love of this sort is not friendship, for friendship requires some one plane at least of equality, and alsoassociation and converse, which conditions were lacking in the case ofAndreas and those to whom he gave his aid; for the shyness of his natureled him to keep himself apart--save when the demand upon his charity wasfor that comfort and sympathy which can only be given in person--fromthose whose burdens he lightened; so that, for the most part, while theneeded help was given the hand that gave it remained concealed. 

Yet with a few of his country-folk in New York Andreas had established, in course of time, relations of warm friendliness. Of his kin only twocousins were left; for the rich, good uncle, from overmuch eating of hisown delicatessen, had come to a bilious ending; and his uncle's widow, wise in her generation, had returned to her native town in Saxony, whereshe was enabled, by reason of the fortune that the delicatessen-shop hadbrought to her, to outshine the local baroness, and presently to attainthe summit of her highest hopes and happiness by wedding an impoverishedlocal baron, and so becoming a baroness herself. Her two sons were wellpleased with this marriage. They were carrying on a great businessin hog products, and had purchased for themselves fine estates in thecountry and fine houses in town. To be able to speak of their mother as"the baroness" suited them very well. Andreas saw but little of thesegilded relatives--who yet were good-hearted men, and very kindlydisposed towards him--for their magnificent surroundings were appallingto his simple mind. His few friends were more nearly in his own walkin life, and his friendship with them had been built up, as substantialfriendship should be, by slow degrees. 

At the Café Nürnberger, near by his own little shop--a bakery celebratedfor the excellence of its bread, and for the great variety of itstoothsome. German cakes--it was his custom to make daily purchases. Withthe plump, rosy Aunt Hedwig, who presided over the bakery, he passed thegood word of the day shyly; he responded shyly to the friendly nod ofthe baker, Gottlieb Brekel, when that worthy chanced to be in the shop;and he shyly greeted a certain jolly Herr Sohnstein, a German lawyer ofdistinction, who was about the bakery a great deal and who popularly wasbelieved to be a suitor for the plump Hedwig's plump hand. And these shygreetings might have gone on day after day for all eternity--or at leastfor so much of it as these several persons were entitled to live out onearth--without increasing one particle in cordiality, had there notbeen one other dweller in the bakery to act as a solvent upon thebird-dealer's reserve. This was the baker's daughter Minna, a child ayear or two older than Roschen and cast in a sturdier mould. 

There was that about Andreas which drew all children to him, even as hisbirds were drawn to him; and a part of the spell certainly was the lovefor children that always was in his heart. The small Minna was disposednot a little to caprice--for she was a motherless child, and Aunt Hedwighumored her waywardness a trifle more than was good for her--and shemanifested, usually, a certain haughtiness towards those who sought tomake friends with her. Yet of her own accord one day, when Andreas hadceased to be a stranger to her, she went up to him and offered him akiss. Aunt Hedwig volubly explained to Andreas the honor that had beendone him, and from that moment was disposed herself to be most friendlywith him--as was also the baker, and as was also Herr Sohnstein, whenthe story of this extraordinary performance duly was related to them. And thus there began a real friendship between Andreas and thesekindly souls that ever grew riper as the years went on. Sometimes of anevening, when his birds were all asleep and he was left lonely, Andreaswould step around to the bakery; and would sit for an hour or so inthe little room back of the shop, listening pleasantly to the talk ofGottlieb and Herr Sohnstein, as they smoked their long pipes, andeven laughing in a quiet way at the merry sallies thrown into theconversation by Aunt Hedwig as she sat knitting beside the fire. Andreas himself rarely spoke--it was not his way; but there was such asympathetic quality in his silence that his lack of words passed almostunobserved. Much more attention was attracted by the fact that he didnot smoke--a fact that was looked upon as most extraordinary. Butthis also went unheeded after a while, as it well might in a small roomwherein Gottlieb and Herr Sohnstein were smoking with such vigor thatthe air was a deep, heavy blue. It was because his birds did not likesmoke that he had given up his pipe, he explained, simply; and only toMinna did it occur to say, after she had turned the matter over inher small mind for a while, that the Herr Stoffel must be avery kind-hearted man to go without smoking because the smell oftobacco-smoke wasn't nice for his birds. 

When Andreas took the little Roschen to his home, that sad day after thefuneral, the good Hedwig was among the first of the womenkind to go tohim with tenders of instruction and advice; for while Hedwig was only, as it were, a matron by brevet, she was deeply impressed by the extentof her own knowledge in the matter of how motherless children should beraised; and it is but just to add that this self-confidence was fullywarranted by the good results that had attended upon her care of herbrother's child. Something of the story of Andreas and Christine, andsomething of what he had done for her and for her husband, was knownin the bakery; and enough more was guessed to make these friends of hisfeel towards him, because of it all, a still stronger and more earnestfriendship. Herr Sohnstein, who, being a lawyer with an extensivepractice in the criminal courts, was not by any means in the habit ofpraising his fellow-men indiscriminately, even went so far as to saythat Andréas was "better than any of the saints already. " And when AuntHedwig, somewhat shocked at this comparison to the disfavor at a singlethrust of the whole body of saints put together, reproved Herr Sohnsteinfor his irreverence, he stoutly declared that while his knowledge ofsaints was comparatively limited--since they did not come within thejurisdiction of the courts--he certainly never had read of one whohad shown a finer quality of charity, both in forgiveness and inself-sacrifice, than that which Andreas had displayed. 

"Don't you make believe, Hedwig, " Herr Sohnstein continued, "that ifyou go off after promising yourself to me and marry another fellow, thatI'll take care of him when he's sick, and set him up in business whenhe gets well, and wind up by giving him a first-class funeral; and don'tyou get it into your head that I'm going to adopt any of your childrenthat are not mine too--for I'm not a saint already, even if Andreas is. "

To which general declaration Aunt Hedwig replied, with much spirit, thatin the first place Herr Sohnstein had better wait until she promisedto marry him--or to marry anybody, for that matter--before he took topreaching to her; that in the second place it was unnecessary for himto declare that he was not a saint, since only a deaf blind man would belikely to take him for one; and that in the third place he would do wellto save his breath to cool his broth: at which lively sally they alllaughed together very comfortably. 

With these good friends Andreas consulted in all important mattersrelating to Roschen's well-being. Aunt Hedwig's practical advice inregard to clothing and food and general care-taking was of high valuein the early years; and it was Gottlieb's suggestion, when the timecame for beginning the sowing of seeds of wisdom in her small mind, thatRoschen should go with his own Minna to the school where the Sisterstaught; and of a Sunday the children went also together to be instructedby the Redemptorist Fathers in the way of godliness. So these littleones grew in years and in knowledge and in grace together, and towardseach other they felt a sisterly love. 

[Illustration: Instructed by the Redemptorist Fathers 278]

Insensibly, too, as Roschen grew out of childhood into girlhood, herattitude towards her adoptive father changed. In the great mattersof her life he still cared for her, planning always for her good, andwithholding from her nothing suited to her station in life that moneycould buy. In the matter of her music, Aunt Hedwig declared that hewas positively extravagant; yet accepted in good part his excuse thata voice so beautiful deserved to be well trained. It was her mother'svoice alive again, he said; and as he spoke, Aunt Hedwig saw that therewere tears in his eyes. But while Andreas still continued the largerof his parental duties, in the smaller matters of every-day life hisadopted daughter now cared for him; so beginning to pay the debt (thoughto neither of them, such was their love for each other, did any thoughtof debt or of payment ever occur) that she owed him for all his goodnessto her and to her dead father and mother in the past. 

In truth, it was a pretty sight to see Roschen first beginning to playat keeping house for her father--for so she always called him--andthen, in a little while, keeping house for him most excellently in realearnest. Here, again, the good qualities of Aunt Hedwig came to thefront, for to her intelligent direction was due the rather surprisingsuccess that attended Roschen's ambitious attempt to become so early a_hausfrau_. Time and again was a great culinary disaster averted by arapid dash on Roschen's part from her imperilled home to the bakery, where Aunt Hedwig's advice was quickly obtained and then was promptlyacted upon. And if sometimes the advice came too late to avert thecatastrophe--as on that memorable and dreadful day when Roschen boiledher sausage-dumplings without tying them in a bag--the lessons taughtby calamitous experience caused only passing trouble, and tended, in thelong-run, to good. 

Indeed, by the time that Roschen was sixteen years old, and had so farpassed through her apprenticeship that she no longer was compelledto make sudden and frantic appeals to Aunt Hedwig for aid, the littlehousehold over which she presided so blithely was very admirablymanaged; and it certainly was as quaint and as pretty an establishmentas could be found anywhere upon the whole round globe. Whoever enteredthe little shop was greeted with such a thrilling and warbling of sweetnotes that all the air seemed quivering with music, and the leader ofthe bird choir was a certain wonderful songster that Andreas had namedthe Kronprinz, and for which he repeatedly had refused quite fabuloussums. Andreas himself had bred the Kronprinz, and had given him theeducation that now made him such a wonder among birds, and that madehim also of such great value as an instructor of the young birds whosemusical education was still to be gained. After his adopted daughter, Andreas held this bird, and justly, to be the most precious thing thathe owned. 

But far sweeter than the singing of the prized Kronprinz--at least, toany but a bird-fancier's ears--was the singing that usually was to beheard above the trilling of the canaries, and that came from the roomat the back of the shop where Roschen was engaged in her housewifelyduties. It was such music as the angels made, Andreas declared, yetthinking most of all of one angel voice, the memory of which while stillon earth was very dear to him; and even in the case of those who weremoved by no tender association of the sweet tones of the living and thedead this estimate of Roschen's singing did not seem unduly high. GustavStrauss, the son of the great bird-dealer over in the rich part of thetown, vowed that Andreas was entirely right in his angelic comparison;and Ludwig Bauer, the young shoemaker, who lived next door but one, wenteven further, and said that Hoschen's voice was as much sweeter than anymere angel's voice as Roschen herself was sweeter and better than allthe angels in Paradise combined. There was nothing halting nor half-wayin Ludwig Bauer's opinion in this matter, it will be observed. 

The little room wherein Roschen sang so sweetly while at her work wastheir kitchen and dining-room and parlor all in one. As noon-time drewnear there would come out into the shop from this room, through the opendoor-way, such succulent and enticing odors of roasting pork and stewingonions and boiling cabbages, that even Bielfrak--as the Spitz dog, who was chained as a guard close beneath the cage of the Kronprinz, appropriately was named--would fall to licking his chops as he hungrilysniffed these smells delectable; and Andreas suddenly would discoverhow hungry he was, and would make occasion to go to the door-way that hemight see if the setting of the table was begun. 

"Patience, father! Presently! You are as bad as Bielfrak himself!"Roschen would say; and as this attribution of gluttony to her fatherwas a time-honored joke between them, they always would laugh over itpleasantly. And then Andreas would stand and watch his little _hausfrau_with a far-away look in his gentle blue eyes as she bustled about herwork in the sunny room, her pretty dimpled arms bared to above theelbow, her lovely cheeks (because of much stooping over the fire)brighter even than the roses after which she had been named, her goldenhair done up in a trig, tight knot (as Aunt Hedwig had taught her wasthe proper way for hair to be arranged while cooking was going on), andover her tidy print gown a great white apron, fashioned in an ancientGerman shape, as guard against the splash-ings and spillings which eventhe most careful of cooks cannot always control. In the sunny windows, opening to the south, flowers were growing; the Dutch clock, withpendulous weights made in the similitude of pine-cones, ticked againstthe wall merrily; Mädchen, the cat--who, being most prolific of kittens, notoriously belied her name--sat bunched up in exceeding comfort ona space expressly left for her upon the sunny window-ledge among theplants; steam arose in light clouds from the various pots upon thestove, and in the middle of the little room the table stood ready forthe dinner to be served. 

It was a very cheerful, home-like picture this; and yet many a time, asAndreas stood in the doorway and contemplated it, there would be tearsin his eyes, and a strange feeling, half of glad thankfulness, half ofvery sorrowful longing, in his heart. She was so like her dead mother!In look, in speech, in motions of the body, in turns of the head, andin gestures of the hands she was Christine over again. Sometimes Andreaswould forget his fifty years and all the sorrows of hope destroyed andirrevocable death-parting which his fifty years had brought him, andwould fancy for a moment that he was young again, and that the dearestwish of his life was here fulfilled. And then she would call him"Father!" and his moment's dream of happiness would die coldly in hisheart. Yet would there come to him always an after-glow of solacingwarmth, as comforting thoughts would steal in upon him of the happinessnot a dream--different from that which he had hoped for in his youth, but most sweet and real--that God's goodness had given him in these hislater years. 

Andreas truly was old Andreas now. As men's lives go, his age was notgreat; but sorrow had made him, as it had made many another man, farolder than the mere number of years which he had lived. No, great storeof strength had been his at the beginning, and the heart-break that hehad suffered that day of his landing in the New World, when faith andlove and hope all died together at a single blow, was less a sentimentalfigure than a physical reality. A like pang, yet not so keen, hadwrenched him when he first came to know of Christine's sharp trial ofpoverty, and another seized him in the night-time following that sad daywhen she passed away from earth. And now of late, without any cause atall, these pangs had come again. Andreas was glad that they had comealways when he was alone; for the pain was too searching to be whollyhidden, and his strong desire was that Roschen should be spared allknowledge of his suffering. In his own mind he perceived quite clearlywhat before long must come to pass. And it was a good happening, hethought, that in Gottlieb Brekel and Aunt Hedwig, and the excellent HerrSohnstein, who, being a lawyer, could care well for the little store inthe bank and for the little house that Andreas now owned, Roschen hadsuch stanch and worthy friends. The only signs of these thoughts whichRoschen perceived was that her father grew much keener in the matter ofselling his birds at high prices; and that she was somewhat seriouslyreproved when, in her housekeeping or in her occasional expeditionsto the fine shops in Grand Street, she ventured upon any smallextravagance. But Roschen would laugh when thus reproved, and woulddeclare that her father, who long had been a glutton, was become a miseralready in his old age; whereat Andreas also would laugh, yet not quiteso heartily as Roschen liked to hear him laugh when she cracked herlittle jokes upon him, and would say that sometimes a miser was notthought by his heirs so bad a fellow when they found what a snug littlefortune he had left behind him all safe in the bank. 

It was because of these thoughts, which he kept hidden from her, thatAndreas began to take a much more active interest in what Roschen had tosay from time to time about certain young men of her acquaintance. The young man of whom she spoke most frequently, and with a frankfriendliness, was the handsome young assistant baker at the CaféNürnberger; a very capable young fellow, Hans Kuhn by name, who of latehad brought that excellent bakery into great vogue because of the almostmiraculously good lebkuchen which he baked there. But Andreas was not atall alarmed by this open friendship; for Hans and the stout Minna Brekelwere to be married presently, and Roschen's feeling obviously was nomore than hearty good-will towards the lover of her dear sister-friend. Fine chatterings she and Minna had, as Andreas inferred from heroccasional brief reports of them, about the prodigious matrimonial eventthat was so near at hand. As Andreas also inferred, these chatteringsput various notions of an exciting and somewhat disturbing sort intoRoschen's little head. If one young girl might get married, so mightanother, no doubt she thought; and it is conceivable that from thismental statement of a rational abstract possibility her thoughts mayhave passed on to consideration of the concrete possibilities involvedin her own relations with the good-looking Gustav Strauss, son of therich bird-dealer, or with the good-looking young shoemaker, LudwigBauer, who lived next door but one. 

It is certain that when Roschen had arrived at the dignity of eighteenyears, and her hitherto slim figure had taken on quite a plump, pleasingwomanly roundness, the business visits of the young Herr Strauss to thelittle bird shop on the East Side became, as it struck Andreas, rathercuriously frequent. And about this time, also, their neighbor Ludwigdeveloped a very extraordinary interest in the business of raisingcanary-birds. It was a business that he long had thought of engaging in, he explained; and he truly did exhibit an aptitude in comprehendingand in practising its mysteries that greatly exalted him in the littlebird-dealer's esteem. The birds all seemed to recognize a friend in him;and even those which were but partially tamed, and were gentle only withAndreas himself, would perch willingly upon his hand. With Andreasit long had been a maxim that canary-birds were rare judges of humancharacter, and the testimonial thus given to Lud-wig's worth countedwith him for a great deal--as did also the quite converse opinion of thebirds in regard to the young Herr Strauss: from whom, notwithstandinghis training in the care of their kind, they always flew away, and whosemere presence in the shop sufficed to make every bird ruffle himself andto chirp angrily in his cage. Yet Herr Strauss was most agreeable in hismanners, and was a very personable young man. As for his riches, theyspoke for themselves in his fine attire and in his fine gold watch andchain; and he also spoke for them, making frequent allusions to hiscomfortable present position in the world as his father's partner, andto his still more comfortable prospective position as his father's soleheir. 

Ludwig, on the other hand, could not boast of any great amount ofgilding upon, as Andreas believed it to be, the sterling metal of whichhe was made. But he was by no means what would be considered by thedwellers on the East Side a poor man. He was a steady and a goodmaster-workman, with three or four apprentices under him; and all daylong there was to be heard in his shop the cheerful, business-like soundof the thumping of short hammers on lap-stones, together with the loudclicking of the sewing-machine on which the delicate stitching ofuppers was done. In the window, screened with a green curtain of growingvines--as is the pretty custom with most of the German shoemakers on theEast Side--there always might be seen a pair or two of well-made stoutshoes drying in the sunshine on their lasts; and with these a half-dozenor more pairs of shoes newly soled and heeled in a substantial, workmanlike fashion that would have done credit to Hans Sachs himself. Making and mending together, it was a very good business that Ludwigwas doing; each year a better balance was lodged to his credit in thesavings-bank, and the great golden boot that hung above his door-waytold no more than the truth of the good work that was done and of thegood money that was well earned within. From the stand-point of publicopinion on the East Side, this thriving young shoemaker already was aman of substance, whose still more substantial future was assured. 

There was in the nature of Ludwig much the same simplicity andgentleness that characterized Andreas--which common qualities, no doubt, had much to do with the strong friendship that there was between them;and all his neighbors, remembering how good a son he had been, andknowing also how deeply he still sorrowed for the dear mother lost tohim in death, were more than ready to vouch for the goodness of hisheart. Indeed, it was while trying to comfort him a little after thisgreat sorrow fell upon him that Roschen first felt towards him somethingmore than the passing interest that every maiden reasonably feels inevery seemly young man. Her disposition towards him, to be sure, evenwhen thus stimulated by a sympathetic melancholy, was only that offriendliness; but it evidently was a friendliness so cordial and sosincere that it made quite a tolerable foundation upon which Ludwigfreely built fine air-castles of hope. For his disposition towardsRoschen was altogether that of a lover--as anybody might have knownafter hearing that decided expression of his opinion to the effect thatall the angels singing together could not make music so sweet as themusic of her voice. 

In due time, in accordance with the decorous German custom, both ofthese young men made formal application to Andreas for permission tobe ranked formally as Roschen's suitors; and, as it chanced, they bothpreferred their requests upon the same day. The young Herr Straussundeniably had some strong points to make in his own favor; and he madethem, to do him justice, without any hesitation or false modesty. As hetruly said--speaking with an easy assurance, and airily fingering hisgold watch-chain as he spoke--in marrying him Roschen would make anexcellent match. In rather marked contrast with this justifiable yet notwholly pleasing assumption of self-importance, was the modest tone inwhich Ludwig urged his suit; yet was Andreas not unfavorably impressedby the fact that he dwelt less upon his deserts than upon his desireto be deserving; and that in connection with the creditable presentmentthat he made of the condition of his worldly affairs he did not insist, as the Herr Strauss had insisted, upon a minute examination of Roschen'sdowry. As bearing indirectly yet forcibly upon a general considerationof the cases of these young men, the statement may be added that one ofthem had made for his proposed father-in-law several excellent pairsof shoes, while the other had made for--or, rather, against--him only aseries of uncommonly sharp bargains. 

To neither of the lovers did Andreas give an immediate answer. He mustthink a little, he said. The self-esteem of the Herr Strauss was atrifle ruffled by the suggestion that in such a case waiting of any sortwas necessary; it seemed to him that an offer so desirable as thatwhich he had made was entitled to instant acceptance. But Ludwig noteda certain trembling in the voice that bade him wait, and was not socompletely engrossed with his own hopes of happiness but that he couldperceive its cause and could feel sorrow for it. All these years hadAndreas cared for this sweet Roschen, and had cherished her as hisdearest treasure; and now, when the best time of her life had come, hewas asked to give her up to a love that rested its claim for recognitionupon nothing more substantial than promises of care taking whichthe future might or might not make good. That Andreas, under suchcircumstances, even should consider his request, touched Ludwig's goodheart with gratitude; and the love that he had for a long while felttowards the old man led him now to pat an arm around his shoulder, asa son might have done, and to tell him that the home which he had readyfor Roschen was ready for Roschen's father too. And Lud wig's voice alsotrembled a little. Andreas did not speak, but he put his thin hand intothe big brown hand--much stained with the dark wax which shoemakers useand with long handling of leather--that Ludwig held out to him; andwhen they had stood together thus affectionately for a little time theyparted, silently. 

In truth, Andreas was more deeply moved than even Ludwig, for all hisaffectionate sympathy, had divined. His love for Roschen was a doublelove. With the love of a father he had watched over her these manyyears; yet even stronger had come to be his love for her as her motherborn again. Sometimes, for whole days together, confusing the past withthe present, he would call her Christine; and in his heart he evergave greater room to the fancy that the life which he had hoped for wasrealized, and that the life which he was living was a dream. No wonder, then, that he asked for a little time in which to school himself to meetthe fate that at a single blow brought destruction to his dear home onearth and to his dearer castle in the air. 

Roschen was abroad that afternoon, and as Andreas, alone with his birds, turned over in his mind the answers which he must give to these youngmen--who sought to take to themselves, for the greater pleasure of theiryoung lives, the single happiness which his old life had left to it--agreat bitterness possessed his soul. When they had so much and he solittle, it was cruel of them to seek to rob him thus, he thought. Andtheir love, after all, was but the growth of a day, while his love hadbeen growing steadily for forty years. Roschen was to him at once thesweetheart of his youth and the dear daughter of his age. How couldthese young fellows have the effrontery to place their own light lovefancies in rivalry with this profound love of his that was rooted in allthe years of a lifetime? His thoughts went back to those long-past dayswhen he and Christine first had known each other as little children onthe sunny slopes of the Andreas-berg, and when began the love that stillwas a living reality. And then he followed downward through the yearshis own love-story from this its beginning--the promise made in thetwilight, while the south wind, laden with the sweet smell of thepine-trees of the Schwarzwald, played about them; the hard parting; hisjoyous journey with his birds westward across the sea; the black daywhen that journey ended; the years of sorrow which closed in stillkeener sorrow when his Christine was lost to him utterly in death; andthen through the later years, which ever grew brighter and happier ashis love for Christine was born anew and lived its strange, half-reallife in his love for Christine's child, who also was the daughter givenhim by Heaven to cheer and comfort him in his old age. And now at theend of it all he was asked to give to another this sweet flower of lovethat for his happiness, almost by a miracle, as it seemed, a second timehad bloomed. Was not this asking more of him, he thought, than rightlyshould be asked?

So heavy was the load of bitterness that oppressed him that even thesinging of the Kronprinz, who was moved to break forth into song justthen, failed for a time to arouse him. Yet presently the sweet soundpenetrated the thick substance of his sorrow, and slowly turned thecurrent of his sombre thoughts. Andreas loved all music; but becauseof the long train of associations which it invoked, and because of hisskilled knowledge of its quality, there was no music so sweet to him asthe singing of a bird. And when the singer was the Kronprinz, who sangwith a mellow sweetness rare and wonderful, the music never failed tomove his tender nature to its very depths. And so, as he listened to thesinging of his bird, gentler and better thoughts possessed him; and thenhe reproached himself for the selfishness that had so filled hisheart. He had no right, he thought, to stand in the way of Roschen'shappiness--to compel her to take the old love that he had to give inplace of the fresh young love that was offered to her. It was only afoolish fancy, this that he had cherished, that she was his sweetheartof long ago; it was the rational truth that he had to deal with--thatshe was his daughter, who had given him in full measure a daughter'slove and duty, and for whom now, as was a father's duty, he must securea good husband, who would care for her well and loyally when death hadtaken her father from her. This was the right conclusion, but all thestrength of his will was required to bring him to it; and when at lastHe said to himself that what so plainly was right should be firmly done, the color suddenly left his face, and there went through his heart thesharp pang that he had learned to dread because of the agony of it. Sowrenching was the pain that he could not repress a cry; but it was nota loud cry, and the sound of it was lost in the glad carolling of theKronprinz's song. 

When Roschen came home, a little later, she was frightened by findingher father looking so pale and worn; but the sight of her dear face, andher loving looks and words, revived him quickly, and her fear passedby. And she forgot her fear the sooner because of the momentous questionwhich he then opened to her; for this last sharp seizure, keener thanany that had preceded it, had warned Andreas that the duty which he hadto do should not be delayed. 

Very tenderly and lovingly did he speak of this heart matter to hislittle rose, his Roschen, as she sat beside him on a low stool, afterthe childish habit that she never had relinquished, while her head wasnestled against his breast, and while he stroked her fair hair gentlywith his thin, delicate hand. And as he made clear to her all that shewas to know, and explained to her that the decision between these rivallovers, or the rejection of them both, must be made by herself, therosiness of this pretty Roschen became a deep crimson, and her head sankdown upon her father's breast so that her face was hid from him; andas his arms clasped her closely to this loving haven she fell to cryinggently there, as in such cases is a proper maiden's rather unreasonableway. 

"Does the thought of lovers make thee sad, my little one?" Andreasasked; and he could not quite stifle, though he tried hard to stifle, the hope that perhaps Roschen might settle this present matter so thatfor a little time longer she still would be wholly his own. 

"It is not the thought of lovers, dear father, " Roschen answered, andher voice was low and broken, "but the thought that anything should takeme away from thee. "

The hope grew larger in the heart of Andreas, but he said: "The youngHerr Strauss will make thee a fine husband, my daughter. He is a richyoung man already, and--"

But Roschen promptly cut short this eulogy by raising her head abruptlyand saying, with great decision: "He is a horrid young man, and nothingis good about him at all. He tries to cheat thee whenever he comes hereto buy our birds; and--and he has said things to me; and he--andhe tried to kiss me. Ugh! I will have nothing to do with the HerrStrauss--nothing at all!"

As she spoke, Roschen held up her head firmly and looked Andreasstraight in the eyes. Her own eyes quite sparkled with anger, for allthe tears that were in them; and the tone in which she pronounced thename of the Herr Strauss suggested pointedly that he was one of thevarious unpleasant creatures which humanity disposes of with tongs. All this was so emphatic that Andreas suffered his hope to grow yetstronger; for now, certainly, one of these lovers was put safely out ofhis way. 

"And Ludwig, my little one?"

Roschen did not speak, but the angry sparkle that was in her eyes gaveplace to a softer and much pleasanter brightness, and a still deepercrimson showed in the pretty face that she hid again suddenly upon herfather's breast. 

"And Ludwig?" Andreas repeated. 

But still Roschen did not speak. She put her arms around her father'sneck, and nestled her head beneath his chin in a lovingly coaxing waythat she had devised when she was a little child; and then she fellagain to sobbing gently. 

"Hast thou, then, nothing to say of this friend of ours, my daughter?"Andreas spoke eagerly, his hope being very strong within him now; for hewas not versed in the ways of maidens, and the silence that would havebeen so eloquent to another woman or to a wiser man conveyed a veryfalse notion to his mind. 

"Thou hast told me, dear father, that Ludwig makes very good shoes, "Roschen said at last, speaking hesitatingly, and in a voice so low thatit was little more than a whisper. 

"Yes, " Andreas answered, somewhat taken aback by the irrelevant and verymatter-of-fact nature of this remark; "yes, Ludwig makes good shoes. "

"And thou likest those which he has made for thee?"

"Truly. They are good shoes. They have cured my corns. " Andreas spokewith feeling. He was sincerely grateful to Ludwig for having cured hiscorns. "But it is not of Ludwig's shoes that we are talking now, myRoschen, " he went on. "It is of Ludwig himself. Hast thou nothing to sayin answer to what he asks?"

Through her tears Roschen laughed a little, and she pressed her headstill more closely beneath her father's chin. "Thou dear foolish one, "she said, "canst thou not understand?" And then, after a moment ofsilence, she went on: "Hast thou not seen, dear father, how all thebirds love Ludwig, and of their own accord go to him?"

Then a little light broke in upon Andreas, and the hope that he hadcherished began to pale; but he answered stoutly: "Yes, the birds lovehim, for he is a good young man. And thou, my daughter?"

And Roschen answered in a voice so low and tremulous that Andreasdivined rather than heard the words she spoke: "Perhaps it is with mealso, dear father, as it is with the birds!"

[Illustration: Perhaps it is with me also 298]

For a little time there was silence--for Andreas did not trust himselfto speak while his hope was dying in his heart--then he raised thepretty head from its resting-place upon his breast, and as he kissed theforehead that was so like the dead Christine's. 

"'Perhaps it is with me also, dear father, as it is with the bird'" hesaid, reverently and tenderly: "For thy good and happiness, my dear one, may God's will be done. " And as he clasped her again to him closely, theKronprinz once more lifted up his voice in sweetest song. 

When at last Roschen raised her rosy, happy face from her father'sbreast, she was so full of the wonder that had come to pass that she didnot perceive his weary look, nor how pale he was; yet less pale now thana little time before when his face was unseen by her. 

And presently the rosiness of this sweet Roschen grew still deeper asthe shop door opened, with a great tinkling of its little bell, andLudwig entered. Andreas arose from his chair slowly--but neither of themnoticed how feeble and labored were his motions, like those of a weakold man--and clasped in both of his own Ludwig's great brown hand, whilewith a look of love he said: "It is as thou wouldst have it, my son. This dear rose of my growing will bloom in thy garden now"--and heled Ludwig to where Roschen, who indeed was a true rose just then, wasstanding and put her hand in his. 

And then, with a wistful eagerness, he went on: "And thou wilt care forher very tenderly and well, in my place? Thou canst not understand whatmy love has been; part of it, I know, has been foolishness--and thatwhich thou wilt give her, if it be strong and steadfast, will be farbetter than ever was mine. For it is the way of life"--and here thevoice of Andreas trembled and fell a little--"that for young hearts lovealso must be young. "

"With God's help, dear father, I will be true and good to her, " Ludwiganswered, speaking with a stout heartiness that gave the ring of truthto his words; "and I will care well for her and for thee too. "

"For me it will not be long, " Andreas answered; "but give the care whichthou wouldst have given to me to these my birds. "

"Do not make us sad to-day, dear father, by such gloomy words, " saidRoschen, as she put her arms around his neck. "To-day a beautiful timeof happiness has begun for us. "

"Truly a beautiful time of happiness has begun, " Andreas answered; "andI thank God that I have seen its beginning--for when grief comes tothee, and grief must come to us all, my daughter, thou hast now a strongyoung heart to stay and comfort thee. Yes, this is truly the beginningof a happy time. " It was with a very tender smile that Andreas spokethese cheery words; and he added, cheerily: "Now go out into the Square, my children, and say to each other the words which I know are in yourhearts. I will be glad in your happiness as I sit here among my birds. "

And so Andreas, for the second time in his life, was left alone with hisbirds. 

As he sat there, desolate, he buried his face in his hands, and betweenhis thin fingers there was a glistening of tears. It was so hard tobear! They might have waited just a little while, he thought; it wouldnot have been very long. For he forgot, and perhaps it would be unfairto blame him for forgetting, his own desire that before that little timeshould pass his Roschen should have assured to her the good care-takerwhom she surely would need when the season of sorrow came. A littlethrill of pain, a premonition of which he knew the meaning, ran throughhim. 

Then it was that the Kronprinz began to sing. The notes at first werelow and liquid, and they fell soothingly upon the ears, and so intothe heart of this poor Andreas; and as they rose higher and fuller andclearer, light began to show for him where only darkness had been. Theother birds, fired to emulation by these mellow warblings, joined in asweet chorus, above which the strong rich notes of the Kronprinz rosein triumphant waves of harmony. And gladness came then into the heart ofAndreas, and great thankfulness; for as the music of the birds exaltedhim he seemed to see with a strange clearness into the depths of thefuture, and all that he saw there promised well for those whom he loved. Such wonderful music was this that the very air about him seemed to begrowing goldenly radiant; and with a certain awe creeping into his hearthe seemed to hear low echoes of a music even more ravishingly beautifulthat came faintly yet with a bell-like clearness from very far away. 

Truly there was something strange about this music, for even Bielfrak, who was grown to be a deaf, rheumatic old dog now, heard it and wasgreatly moved by it. From his comfortable rug in the corner he raisedhimself painfully upon his haunches, and, pointing his noise upward, uttered a long melancholy howl. Then he came by slow effort across theroom to where his master sat and laid his head upon his master's knee. And there was a puzzled look upon Bielfrak's face, for never before hadhe thus manifested the love that was in his honest heart without findinga quick response to it in the gentle touch of his master's hand. Yet nowthat hand remained most strangely still, and it was strangely white, andBielfrak drew back suddenly from touching it--finding it most strangelycold. 

[Illustration: page 286 303]

The birds had been frightened into silence by Bielfrak's howl, butnow they all burst forth again into the song of strange and wonderfulsweetness that of a sudden they had learned to sing. In waves ofharmony the chorus rose and fell, and above all sounded the notes ofthe Kronprinz, rich, full, clear, so delicately perfect as to seem ablending of sunlight and of sound. And in this song there was a strainthat seemed to tell of restful triumph and eternal joy. And on thegentle, kindly face of Andreas, as he sat there so very quietly whileall the air around him with these sweet sounds was vibrant, there was amost tender smile that told of perfect peace.