Kitabı oku: «Black Forest Village Stories», sayfa 2

He never stopped till he got to Boeblingen. Here he ordered a pint of wine at the "Waldburg;" but he could not sit quiet in his chair, and walked away without emptying the glass.

At Nufringen he met Long Hartz's Jake, – the same who had teased him so. They shook hands, and Aloys heard much news of home, but not a word of Mary Ann; and he could not make up his mind to inquire after her.

At Bohndorf he forced himself to rest: it was high time to do so; for his heart was beating furiously. Stretched upon a bench, he reflected how they all would open their eyes on his arrival: then he stood before the looking-glass, fixed the shako over his left ear, twisted the curl at the right side of his forehead, and encouraged himself by a nod of approbation.

It was dusk when he found himself on the heights of Bildechingen and once more beheld his native village. He shouted no longer, but stood calm and firm, laid his hand upon his shako, and greeted his home with a military salute.

He walked slower and slower, wishing to arrive at night, so as to astonish them all in the morning. His house was one of the first in the village: there was a light in the room; and he tapped at the window, saying, -

"Isn't Aloys here?"

"Lord a'-mercy!" cried his mother: "a gens-d'armes!"

"No: it's me, mother," said Aloys, taking off his shako as he entered, and clasping her hand.

After the first words of welcome were spoken, his mother expressed her regret that there was no supper left for him; nevertheless, she went into the kitchen and fried him some eggs. Aloys stood by her near the hearth, and told his story. He asked about Mary Ann, and why his picture was still hanging in the room. His mother answered, "Don't think any thing more of Mary Ann, I beg and beg of you: she is good for nothing, – she is indeed!"

"Don't talk anymore about it, mother," said Aloys; "I know what I know." His face, tinted by the ruddy glow of the hearth-fire, had a strange decision and ferocity. His mother was silent until they had returned to the room, and then she saw with rapture what a fine fellow her son had become. Every mouthful he swallowed seemed a titbit to her own palate. Lifting up the shako, she complacently bewailed its enormous weight.

Aloys rose early in the morning, brushed up his shako, burnished the plating of his sword, and the buckler and buttons, more than if he had been ordered on guard before the staff. At the first sound of the church-bell he was completely dressed, and at the second bell he walked into the village.

Two little boys were talking as they passed him.

"Why, that's the gawk, a'n't it?" said one.

"No, it a'n't," said the other.

"Yes, it is," rejoined the first.

Aloys looked at them grimly, and they ran away with their hymn-books. Amid the friendly greetings of the villagers he approached the church. He passed Mary Ann's house; but no one looked out: he looked behind him again and again as he walked up the hill. The third bell rang, and he entered the church; Mary Ann was not there: he stood at the door; but she was not among the late-comers. The singing began, but Mary Ann's voice was not heard: he would have known it among a thousand. What was the universal admiration to him now? she did not see him, for whom he had travelled the long road, and for whom he now stood firm and straight as a statue. He heard little of the sermon; but, when the minister pronounced the bans of Mary Ann Bomiller, of Nordstetten, and George Melzer, of Wiesenstetten, poor Aloys no longer stood like a statue. His knees knocked under him, and his teeth chattered. He was the first who left the church. He ran home like a crazy man, threw his sword and his shako on the floor, hid himself in the hay-loft, and wept. More than once he thought of hanging himself, but he could not rise for dejection: all his limbs were palsied. Then he would remember his poor mother, and sob and cry aloud.

At last his mother came and found him in the hay-loft, cried with him, and tried to comfort him. "It was high time they were married," was the burden of her tale of Mary Ann. He wept long and loud; but at last he followed his mother like a lamb into the room. Seeing his picture, he tore it from the wall and dashed it to pieces on the floor. For hours he sat behind the table and covered his face with his hands. Then suddenly he rose, whistled a merry tune, and asked for his dinner. He could not eat, however, but dressed himself, and went into the village. From the Adler he heard the sound of music and dancing. In passing Jacob's house, he cast down his eyes, as if he had reason to be ashamed; but when it was behind him he looked as proud as ever. Having reported himself and left his passport in the squire's hands, he went to the ball-room. He looked everywhere for Mary Ann, though he dreaded nothing more than to meet her. George was there, however. He came up to Aloys and stretched out his hand, saying, "Comrade, how are you?" Aloys looked at him as if he would have poisoned him with his eyes, then turned on his heel without a word of answer. It occurred to him that he ought to have said, "Comrade! the devil is your comrade, not I;" but it was too late now.

All the boys and girls now made him drink out of their glasses; but the wine tasted of wormwood. He sat down at a table and called for a "bottle of the best," and drank glass after glass, although it gave him no pleasure. Mechtilde, the daughter of his cousin Matthew of the Hill, stood near him, and he asked her to drink with him. She complied very readily, and remained at his side. Nobody was attentive to her: she had no sweetheart, and had not danced a round that day, as every one was constantly dancing with his or her sweetheart, or changing partners with some other.

"Mechtilde, wouldn't you like to dance?" said Aloys.

"Yes: come, let's try."

She took Aloys by the hand. He rose, put on his gloves, looked around the floor as if he had lost something, and then danced to the amazement of all the company. From politeness he took Mechtilde to a seat after the dance: by this he imposed a burden on himself, for she did not budge from his side all the evening. He cared but little for her conversation, and only pushed the glass toward her occasionally by way of invitation. His eyes were fixed fiercely on George, who sat not far from him. When some one asked the latter where Mary Ann was, he said, laughing, "She is poorly." Aloys bit his pipe till the mouthpiece broke off, and then spat it out with a "Pah!" which made George look at him furiously, thinking the exclamation addressed to him. Seeing that Aloys was quiet, he shrugged his shoulders in derision and began singing bad songs, which all had pretty much the same burden: -

 
"A bright boy will run through
Many a shoe;
An old fool will tear
Never a pair."
 

At midnight Aloys took his sword from the wall to go. George and his party now began to sing the "teaser," keeping time with their fists on the table: -

 
"Hey, Bob, 'ye goin' home?
'Ye gettin' scared? 'Ye gettin' sick?
Got no money, and can't get tick?
Hey, Bob, 'ye goin' home?"
 

Aloys turned back with some of his friends and called for two bottles more. They now sang songs of their own, while George and his gang were singing at the other table. George got up and cried, "Gawk, shut up!" Then Aloys seized a full bottle and hurled it at his head, sprang over the table, and caught him by the throat. The tables fell down, the glasses chinked on the floor, the music stopped. For a while all was still, as if the two were to throttle each other in silence: then suddenly the room was filled with shouting, whistling, scolding, and quarrelling. The bystanders interfered; but, according to custom, each party only restrained the adversary of the party he sided with, so as to give the latter a chance of drubbing his opponent undisturbed. Mechtilde held George by the head until his hair came out by handfuls. The legs of chairs were now broken off, and all hands whacked each other to their hearts' content. Aloys and George remained as if fastened together by their teeth. At length Aloys gained his feet, and threw George down with such violence that he seemed to have broken his neck, and then kneeled down on him, and would have throttled him had not the watchman entered and put an end to the row. The musicians were sent home and the two chief combatants taken to the lock-up.

With his face black and blue, pale and haggard, Aloys left the village next day. His furlough had another day to run; but what should he do at home? He was glad enough to go soldiering again; and nothing would have pleased him better than a war. The squire had endorsed the story of the fracas on his passport, and a severe punishment awaited him on his return. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, but walked away almost without knowing it, and hoping never to return. At Horb, on seeing the signpost to Freudenstadt, which is on the way to Strasbourg, he stopped a long time and thought of deserting to France. Unexpectedly he found himself addressed by Mechtilde, who asked, "Why, Aloys, are you going back to Stuttgart already?"

"Yes," he answered, and went on his way. Mechtilde had come like an angel from heaven. With a friendly good-bye, they parted.

As he walked, he found himself ever and anon humming the song he had heard George sing so long ago, and which now, indeed, suited poor Mary Ann's case: -

 
"In a day, in a day,
Pride and beauty fade away.
Do thy checks with gladness tingle
Where the snows and roses mingle?
Oh, the roses all decay!"
 

At Stuttgart he never said a word to the sentry at the Tuebingen gate nor to the one at the barrack-gate. Like a criminal, he hardly raised his eyes. For eight days he did penance in a dark cell, – the "third degree" of punishment. At times he became so impatient that he could have dashed his head against the wall; and then again he would lie for days and nights half asleep.

When released from prison, he was attached for six weeks to the class of culprits who are never permitted to leave the barracks, but are bound to answer the call at every moment. He now cursed his resolution to become a soldier, which bound him for six years to the land of his birth. He would have gone away, far as could be.

One morning his mother Maria came with a letter from Matthew, in America. He had sent four hundred florins for Aloys to buy a field with, or, if he wished to join him, to buy himself clear of the army.

Aloys and Matthew of the Hill, with his wife and eight children, – Mechtilde among them, – left for America that same autumn.

While at sea he often hummed the curious but well-known old song, which he had never understood before: -

 
"Here, here, here, and here,
The ship is on her way;
There, there, there, and there,
The skipper goes to stay;
When the winds do rave and roar
As though the ship could swim no more,
My thoughts begin to ponder
And wander."
 

In his last letter from Ohio Aloys writes to his mother: -

"… My heart seems to ache at the thought that I must enjoy all these good things alone. I often wish all Nordstetten was here, – old Zahn, blind Conrad, Shacker of the stone quarry, Soges, Bat of the sour well, and Maurice of the hungry spring: they ought to be here, all of them, to eat their fill until they couldn't budge from their seats. What good does it do me while I am alone here? And then you might all see the gawk with his four horses in the stable and his ten colts in the field. If Mary Ann has any trouble, let me know about it, and I will send her something; but don't let her know from whom it comes. Oh, how I pity her! Matthew of the Hill lives two miles away. His Mechtilde is a good worker; but she is no Mary Ann, after all. I do hope she is doing well. Has she any children? On the way across there was a learned man with us on the ship, – Dr. Staeberle, of Ulm: he had a globe with him, and he showed me that when it is day in America it is night in Nordstetten, and so on. I never thought much about it till now. But when I am in the field and think, 'What are they doing now in Nordstetten?' I remember all at once that you are all fast asleep, and Shackerle's John, the watchman, is singing out, 'Two o'clock, and a cloudy morning.' On Sunday I can't bear to think that it is Saturday night in Nordstetten. All ought to have one day at once. Last Sunday was harvest-home in Nordstetten: I should never forget that, if I were to live a hundred years. I should like to be in Nordstetten for one hour, just to let the squire see what a free citizen of America looks like."

THE PIPE OF WAR

It is a singular story, and yet intimately connected with the great events of modern history, or, what is almost the same thing, with the history of Napoleon. Those were memorable times. Every farmer could see the whole array of history manœuvre and pass in review beneath his dormer-window: kings and emperors behaved like play-actors, and, sometimes assumed a different dress and a different character in every scene. And all this gorgeous spectacle was at the farmer's service, costing him nothing but his house and home, and occasionally, perhaps, his life. My neighbor Hansgeorge was not quite so unlucky, – as the story will show.

It was in the year 1796. We who live in these piping times of peace have no idea of the state of things which then existed: mankind seemed to have lost their fixed habitations and to be driving each other here and there at random. The Black Forest saw the Austrians, with their white coats, in one month, and in the next the French, with their laughing faces; then the Russians came, with their long beards; and mixed and mingled with them all were the Bavarians, Wurtembergers, and Hessians, in every possible uniform. The Black Forest was the open gate of Germany for the French to enter; it is only ten years since that Rastatt was placed as a bolt before it.

The marches and counter-marches, retreats and advances, cannonades and drum-calls, were enough at times to turn the head of a bear in winter; and many a head did indeed refuse to remain upon its shoulders. In a field not far from Baisingen is a hillock as high as a house, which, they say, contains nothing but dead soldiers, – French and Germans mixed.

But my neighbor Hansgeorge escaped being a soldier, although a fine sturdy fellow, well fit to stand before the king, and the people too, and just entering his nineteenth year. It happened in this wise. Wendel, the mason, married a wife from Empfingen, and on the day before the wedding the bride was packed on a wagon with all her household goods, her blue chest, her distaff, and her bran-new cradle. Thus she was conveyed to the village, while the groom's friends rode on horseback behind, cracking off their pistols from time to time to show how glad they were. Hansgeorge was among them, and always shot more than all the others. When the cavalcade had reached the brick-yard, where the pond is at your right hand and the kiln at your left, Hansgeorge fired again; but, almost before the pistol went off, Hansgeorge was heard to shriek with pain. The pistol dropped from his hand, and he would have fallen from his horse but for Fidele, his friend, who caught him in his arms. He had shot off the forefinger of his right hand, just at the middle joint. Every one came up, eager to lend assistance; and even Kitty of the brick-kiln came up, and almost fainted on seeing Hansgeorge's finger just hanging by the skin. Hansgeorge clenched his teeth and looked steadily at Kitty. He was carried into the brickmaker's house. Old Jake, the farrier, who knew how to stop the blood, was sent for in all haste; while another ran to town for Dr. Erath, the favorite surgeon.

When Old Jake came into the room, all were suddenly silent, and stepped back, so as to form a sort of avenue, through which he walked toward the wounded man, who was lying on the bench behind the table. Kitty alone came forward, and said, "Jake, for God's sake, help Hansgeorge!" The latter opened his eyes and turned his head toward the speaker, and when Jake stood before him, mumbling as he touched his hand, the blood ceased running.

This time, however, it was not Jake's witchcraft which produced the result, but another kind of magic. Hansgeorge no sooner heard Kitty's words than he felt all the blood rush to his heart, and of course the hemorrhage ceased.

Dr. Erath came and amputated the finger. Hansgeorge bore the cruel pain like a hero. As he lay in a fever for hours after, he seemed to see an angel hovering over him and fanning him. He did not know that Kitty was driving the flies away, often bringing her hand very near his face: such neighborhood of a loving hand, even though there be no actual touch, has marvellous effects, and may well have fashioned the dream in his wandering brain. Then again he saw a veiled figure: he could never recall exactly how she looked; but-so curious are our dreams-it had a finger in its mouth, and smoked tobacco with it, as if it were a pipe: the blue whiffs rose up from rings of fire.

Kitty observed that the closed lips of Hansgeorge moved in his sleep. When he awoke, the first thing he called for was his pipe. He had the finest pipe in the village; and we must regard it more closely, as it is destined to play an important part in this history. The head was of Ulm manufacture, marbleized so that you might fancy the strangest figures by looking at it. The lid was of silver, shaped like a helmet, and so bright that you could see your face in it, and that twice over, – once upside-down and once right side up. At the lower edge also, as well as at the stock, the head was tipped with silver. A double silver chain served as the cord, and secured the short stem as well as the long, crooked, many-jointed mouthpiece. Was not that a splendid pipe?

 
"And who shall dare
To chide him for loving his pipe so fair,"
 

even as an ancient hero loved his shield?

What vexed Hansgeorge most in the loss of his finger was, that he could not fill his pipe without difficulty. Kitty laughed, and scolded him for his bad taste; but she filled his pipe nevertheless, took a coal from the fire to light it, and even drew a puff or two herself. She shook herself, and made a face, as if she was dreadfully disgusted. Hansgeorge had never liked a pipe better than that which Kitty started for him.

Although it was the middle of summer, Hansgeorge could not be taken home with his wound, and was compelled to stay at the brickmaker's house. With this the patient was very well content; for, although his parents came to nurse him, he knew very well that times would come when he would be alone with Kitty.

The next day was Wendel's wedding; and when the church-bell rang and the inevitable wedding-march was played in the village, Hansgeorge whistled an accompaniment in his bed. After church the band paraded through the village where the prettiest girls were, or where their sweethearts lived. The boys and girls joined the procession, which swelled as it went on: they came to the brickmaker's house also. Fidele, as George's particular friend, came in with his sweetheart to take Kitty off to the dance; but she thanked them, pleaded household duties, and remained at home. Hansgeorge rejoiced greatly at this, and when they ware alone he said, -

"Kitty, never mind: there'll be another wedding soon, and then you and I will dance our best."

"A wedding?" said Kitty, sadly: "who is going to be married?"

"Come here, please," said Hansgeorge, smiling. Kitty approached, and he continued: – "I may as well confess it: I shot my finger off on purpose, because I don't want to be a soldier."

Kitty started back, screaming, and covered her face with her apron.

"What makes you scream?" said Hansgeorge. "A'n't you glad of it? You ought to be, for you are the cause."

"Jesus! Maria! Joseph! No, no! surely I am innocent! Oh, Hansgeorge, what a sinful thing you have done! Why, you might have killed yourself! You are a wild, bad man! I never could live with you; I am afraid of you."

She would have fled; but Hansgeorge held her with his left hand. She tried to tear herself away, turned her back, and gnawed the end of her apron: Hansgeorge would have given the world for a look, but all his entreaties were in vain. He let her go, and waited a while to see whether she would turn round; but, as she did not, he said, with a faltering voice, -

"Will you be so kind as to fetch my father? I want to go home."

"No; you know you can't go home: you might get the lockjaw: Dr. Erath said you might," returned Kitty, – still without looking at him.

"If you won't fetch anybody, I'll go alone," said Hansgeorge.

Kitty turned and looked on him with tearful eyes, eloquent with entreaty and tender solicitude. George took her offered hand, and gazed long and earnestly into the face of his beloved. It was by no means a face of regular beauty: it was round, full, and plump; the whole head formed almost a perfect sphere; the forehead was high and strongly protruding, the eyes lay deep in their sockets, and the little pug nose, which had a mocking and bantering expression, and the swelling cheeks, all proclaimed health and strength, but not delicacy or refinement. George regarded her in her burning blushes as if she had been the queen of beauty.

They remained silent for a long time. At last Kitty said, "Shall I fill your pipe for you?"

"Yes," said George, and let go her hand.

This proposal of Kitty's was the best offer of reconciliation. Both felt it as such, and never exchanged another word on the subject of their dispute.

In the evening many boys and girls, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, came to take Kitty to the dance; but she refused to go. Hansgeorge smiled. When he asked Kitty to go as a favor to him, she skipped joyfully away, and soon came back in her holiday gown. Another difficulty arose, however. With all their good nature, none of the comers cared to give up their dance and stay with Hansgeorge; and Kitty had just announced her intention, when, fortunately, old Jake came in. For a good stoup of wine, – which they promised to send him from the inn, – he agreed to sit up all night, if necessary.

Hansgeorge had got Dr. Erath to preserve his finger in alcohol, and intended to make Kitty a present of it; but, with all her strength of nerve, the girl dreaded it like a spectre, and could hardly be induced to touch the phial. As soon as Hansgeorge was able to leave the house, they went into the garden and buried the finger. Hansgeorge stood by, lost in thought, while Kitty shovelled the earth upon it. The wrong he had done his country by making himself unfit to serve it never occurred to him; but he remembered that a part of the life which was given him lay there never to rise again. It seemed as if, while full of life, he were attending his own funeral; and the firm resolve grew in him to atone for the waste committed of a part of himself by the more conscientiously husbanding what yet remained. A thought of death flitted across his mind, and he looked up with mingled sadness and pleasure to find himself yet spared and the girl of his heart beside him. Such reflections glimmered somewhat dimly in his soul, and he said, "Kitty, you are quite right: I committed a great sin. I hope it will be forgiven me." She embraced and kissed him, and he seemed to have a foretaste of the absolution yet to come.

One would expect to find in a man a peculiar fondness for the spot where a part of his bodily self is buried. As our native country is doubly dear to us because the bodies of those we love are resting there, – as the whole earth is revealed in all its holiness when we call to mind that it is the sepulchre of ages past, that so must a man who has already surrendered a part of his dust to become dust again be attracted by the sacred claims of earth, and often turn to the resting-place of his unfettered portion.

 
"all who tread
The earth are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom," -
 

Thoughts like these, though vaguely conceived, cannot be supposed to have taken clear form and shape in such a mind as that of our friend Hansgeorge. He went to the brickmaker's house every day; but it was in obedience to the attraction, not of something dead, but of a living being. But, joyfully as he went, he sometimes came away quite sad and downhearted; for Kitty seemed intent upon teasing and worrying him. The first thing she required, and never ceased requiring, was that he should give up smoking. She never allowed him to kiss her when he had smoked, and before she would sit near him he was always obliged to hide his darling pipe. In the brickmaker's room he could not smoke on any account; and, much as he liked to be there, he always took his way home again before long. Kitty was not mistaken in often rallying him about this.

Hansgeorge was greatly vexed at Kitty's pertinacity, and always came back to his favorite enjoyment with redoubled zest. It appeared to him unmanly to submit to a woman's dictation: woman ought to yield, he thought; and then it must be confessed that it was quite out of his power to renounce his habit. He tried it once in haying-time for two days; but he seemed to be fasting all the time: something was missing constantly. He soon drew forth his pipe again; and, while he held it complacently between his teeth and struck his flint, he muttered to himself, "Kitty and all the women in the world may go to the devil before I'll stop smoking." Here he struck his finger with the steel, and, shaking the smarting hand, "This is a judgment," thought he; "for it isn't exactly true, after all."

At last autumn came on, and George was pronounced unfit for military service. Some other farmers' boys had imitated his trick by pulling out their front teeth, so as to make themselves unable to bite open the cartridges; but the military commission regarded this as intentional self-mutilation, while that of George, from its serious character, was pronounced a misfortune. The toothless ones were taken into the carting and hauling service, and so compelled to go to the wars, after all. With defective teeth they had to munch the hard rations of the soldiers' mess; and at last they were made to bite the dust, – which, indeed, they could have done as well without any teeth at all.

In the beginning of October, the French general Moreau made good his famous retreat across the Black Forest. A part of his army passed through Nordstetten: it was spoken of for several days before. There was fear and trembling in all the village, and none knew which way to turn. A hole was dug in every cellar, and every thing valuable concealed. The girls took off their strings of garnets with the silver medallions, and drew their silver rings from their fingers, to bury them. All went unadorned, as if in mourning. The cattle were driven into a secluded ravine near Eglesthal. The boys and girls looked at each other sadly when the approaching foe was mentioned: many a young fellow sought the handle of his knife, which peeped out of his side-pocket.

The Jews were more unfortunate than any others. Rob a farmer of every thing you can carry away, and you must still leave him his field and his plough; but all the possessions of the Jews are movables, – money and goods: they, therefore, trembled doubly and trebly. The Jewish Rabbi-a shrewd and adroit man-hit upon a lucky expedient. He placed a large barrel of red wine, well inspirited with brandy, before his house, and a table with bottles and glasses beside it, for the unbidden guests to regale themselves. The device succeeded to perfection, – the more so as the French were rather in a hurry.

In fact, the storm passed over, doing much less damage than was expected. The villagers collected in large groups to view the passing troops. The cavalry came first, then a long column of infantry.

Hansgeorge had gone to the brick-yard with his comrades Xavier and Fidele: he wished to be near Kitty in case of emergency. The three stood in the garden before the house, leaning upon the fence, Hansgeorge calmly smoking his pipe. Kitty looked out of the window and said, "George, if you'll stop smoking you may come into the house with your friends."

"Wo are quite comfortable here, thank you," replied Hansgeorge, sending up three or four whiffs in quick succession.

On came the cavalry. They rode in entire disorder, each apparently occupied with himself alone; and nothing showed that they belonged together save the common interest manifested in any deviltry undertaken by any one of them. Several impudently kissed their hands to Kitty, – at which Hansgeorge grasped his jack-knife and Kitty quickly closed the sash. The infantry were followed by the forage-wagons and the pitiable cavalcade of the wounded and dying. This was a wretched sight. One of them stretched forth a hand which had but four fingers. This curdled Hansgeorge's blood in his veins: it seemed to him as if he himself were lying there. The poor sufferer had nothing but a kerchief round his head, and seemed to shiver with cold. Hansgeorge jumped over the fence, pulled off his fur cap, and set it on the poor man's head; then he gave him his leathern purse with all the money in it. The poor fellow made some signs with his mouth, as if he wished to smoke, and looked beseechingly at Hansgeorge's pipe; but the latter shook his head. Kitty brought some bread and some linen, and laid them on the cart. The maimed warriors looked with pleasure on the blooming lass, and some made her a military salute and garbled some broken German. No one asked whether they were friends or foes: the unfortunate and helpless have a claim on every one.

Another troop of cavalry brought up the rear. Kitty stood at the window again, while Hansgeorge and his comrades had returned to their post at the garden-gate. Suddenly Fidele exclaimed, "Look out: the marauders are coming."

Two ragged fellows in half-uniform, without saddle or stirrup, came galloping up. While yet a few yards off, they stopped and whispered something to each other, at which one of them was heard to laugh. They then rode up slowly, the one coming very near the fence. Quick as a flash he tore the pipe out of Hansgeorge's mouth, and galloped off at the top of his horse's speed. Putting the still-burning pipe into his mouth, he puffed away merrily in derision. Hansgeorge held his chin with both his hands: every tooth seemed to have been torn out of his jaw. Kitty laughed heartily, crying, "Go get your pipe, Hansgeorge: I'll let you smoke now."