The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 | Page 6

sch?ner Schatz!" caught up Tony to her shrivelled breast in a sudden surprise, and, going back to the door, called "Fredrika!" Another old woman, dried, withered, with pale blue eyes, appeared, and the two, hastily shoving us chairs, took Tony between them, chattering in delighted undertones, patting his fat cheeks, his hands, feeling his clothes, straightening his leg, and laughing at the miniature muscles.
Knowles stared dumbly.
"You will haf der supper, hein?" said the first old woman, recollecting herself and coming forward, her thin jaws yet reddened. "Der ham? Shickens? It is so long as I haf seen a little shild," apologetically.
I assented to the ham and chicken proposition, answering for myself and Tony at least. As they went down the stairs, they looked wistfully at him. I nodded, and, picking him up, they carried him with them. I could presently distinguish his shrill little tones, and half a dozen women's voices, caressing, laughing with him. Yet it hurt me somehow to notice that these voices were all old, subdued; none of them could ever hold a baby on her lap, and call it hers. Joseph roused himself, came suddenly in with a great pitcher of domestic wine, out again, and back with ginger-cakes and apples,--"Till der supper be cookin'," with an encouraging nod,--and then went back to his chair, and presently snored aloud. In a few minutes, however, we were summoned to the table.
Knowles ate nothing, and looked vaguely over the great smoking dishes, which Tony and I proved to be marvels of cookery. "Doubtless," he said, "some of these people have not yet overcome this grosser taste; we have yet seen but the dregs of the society; many years of Rapp's culture would be needed to spiritualize German boors."
The old women, who moved gently about, listened keenly, trying to understand why he did not eat. It troubled them.
"We haf five meals a day in der society," said Christina, catching a vague notion of his meaning, "Many as finds it not enough puts cheese and cakes on a shelf at der bed-head, if dey gets faint in de night."
"Do you get faint in the night?" I asked.
"Most times I does," simply.
Knowles burst in with a snort of disgust, and left the table. When I joined him on the stoop he had recovered his temper and eagerness, even laughing at Joseph, who was plying him in vain with his wine.
"I was a fool, Humphreys. These are the flesh of the thing; we'll find the brain presently. But it was a sharp disappointment. Stay here an hour, until I find the directors of the society,--pure, great thinkers, I doubt not, on whom Rapp's mantle has fallen. They will welcome our souls, as these good creatures have our bodies. Yonder is Rapp's house, they tell me. Follow me in an hour."
As he struck into one of the narrow paths across the grassy street, I saw groups of the colonists coming in from their field-work through the twilight, the dress of the women looking not unpicturesque, with the tight flannel gown and broad-rimmed straw hat. But they were all old, I saw as they passed; their faces were alike faded and tired; and whether dull or intelligent, each had a curious vacancy in its look. Not one passed without a greeting more or less eager for Tony, whom Christina held on her knees, on the steps of the stoop.
"It is so long as I haf not seen a baby," she said, again turning her thin old face round.
I found her pleased to be questioned about the society.
"I haf one, two, dree kinder when we come mit Father Rapp," she said. "Dey is dead in Harmony; since den I just cooken in der tavern. Father Rapp say the world shall end in five years when we come in der society, den I shall see mein shilds again. But I wait, and it haf not yet end."
I thought she stifled a quick sigh.
"And your husband?"
She hesitated. "John Volz was my man, in Germany. He lives in yonder house, mit ein ander family. We are in families of seven."
"Husbands and wives were separated, then?"
"Father Rapp said it must to be. He knows."
There was a long pause, and then, lowering her voice, and glancing cautiously around, she added hurriedly, "Frederick Rapp was his brother: he would not leave his wife."
"Well, and then?"
The two old women looked at each other, warningly, but Christina, being on the full tide of confidence, answered at last in a whisper, "Father Rapp did hold a counsel mit five others."
"And his brother?"
"He was killed. He did never see his child."
"But," I resumed, breaking the long silence that followed, "your women do not care to go back to their husbands? They dwell in purer thoughts than earthly love?"
"Hein?" said the woman with a vacant face.
"Were