Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1868-08-27
BREAD---A TRUE STORY.
by GRACE GREENWOOD.

food. 1t is as though we, like children, took
the prayer of our Lord, "Give us this day
our daily bread, in particular and limited
sense It is as though we remembered
always that He blessed and brake bread
that He was Himself called the g Bread of
Life" No wastefulness shocks us like the
waste Of "the staff of life." In Germany,
Sweden and Denmark this sentiment has
grown to a popular superstition. Hans
Christian Anderson has a story of proud
girl who irod upon bread, and thereby came
to grief; and the German peasants always
phophesy terrible misfortunes to the man,
woman, or child who mocks at or filings
away this good gift of Heaven, even in the
form of tho stalest and coarsest of their
"black loaves," which, indeed, are of too
heavy and substantial character, to he
made light of. The great Thirty Years War,
with its famines and dire distrcsses, prob
ably gave rise to this superstition. 1t has the
strongest hold on the minds of the peasant
ry, the descendants of the people who suffer-
ed most bitterly in that dreadful period, but
all classes entertain it, to degree,-few are
| SO reckless or profane as to see without fear,
or displeasure, u slight put upon bread and
that brings me TO my little story.
When Napoleon's great army was on the
march toward Russia in the summer of the
year 1912, n portion of it passed through
Saxon, "a proud exultant, insolent set of
| fighters and spoilers, making free with all
that came in their way, and often insulting
the unoflending people. Among other quiet
towns, that of Oschatz was visited with this
mighty swarm of imperial locusts, and the
inhabitants were called upon TO pay tribute
in the way of food and comfortable quarters
1t happened that company of infantry halt
ed before the house of Protestant minister,
and there demanded food, and the minister's
son, handsome little lad, with great, dark
eyes, deep, and grave, and thoughtful, ran
in to his mother for some bread. The good
woman gave him o large brown loaf such as
they themselves had just been eating. 1t
lad took out and courteously offered, with a
knife, to a gallant looking young officer,
who, in his establishment and horror, flung
It contemptuously on the ground. saying,
How dare yon offer us miserable black
bread, fit only for swlnish German peasants
Bring us white bread, you young rascal!'
The soldiers hungry as they were, in the
spirit of their officer, kicked the offending
brown loaf about, like football, until they
quite demolished it, and then shouted for
white bread But little Constantine who
was rightly named, replied hravely, "We
have no white bread, I've gave you the best
we had, and you are very wicked to treat
that good brown loaf so. My mother made
IL and flnd puniehao nap,ta xxrbp Atpfr hraa
on the ground"
The rude French soldiers might have
made him suffer for his plain speaking had
not the officer, looking little ashamed,
marched them on to other houses, in search
of white bread, better suited to their dainty
appetites.
The incident had been witnessed by a
| crowd of people, who, shocked and indig-
nant, all prophesed humiliation and misfor-
tune to the discourtoous strangers. After a
few hours, the French troops marched of,
and the old town whose inhabitants they
had bullied and robbed, returned to its quiet,
steady-going ways. They marched on with
splendid visions and magnificent plans of
conquest, glory, dominion, spoils and revels
TO disaster, defeat-to unutterable horrors
of tempest, cold and death. The dread ele-
ments, the awful forces of nature were ar
rayed against them-the blind avenging
furies of Frost and Fire and Flood. In the
cold bosom of strange land, unseen graves
like icy pitfalls, awaited them and in the
clouds of an alien sky were even then be-
ing prepared for them, slowly and silently,
from the soft exhalations of the summer
earth, vast winding-sheets of snow. Many
q green valley, in which they gaily bivou-
acked, on the daisied turf, with murmurous
leaves and sweet hird-chirpings over head,
was but few months later, to receive them
| in white slence-to invite them to beds of
| treacherous softness and fatal repose, over
| hung by leafiess branches, sheathed in ice
spot seemingly abandoned by nature, for
saken of Life, a ghostly Valley of the
Shadow Of Death.
When the people of Oschatz heard Of the
fearful reyerses of that grand army, they
said: sit is little wonder, if they all flung
good bread on the ground, and kicked It
about, after the manner of those Heaven
defylng soldiers who marched through our
town."
| AT last, the remnants of that proud invad-
ing host came struggling back through Ger
many. A miserable set OF men were they
sickly ragged, MANNED, bitten, ,-hu-
initiated and amazed to find the world slip
ping from the grasp of their deity, the great
Emperor, that the laws of Nature did not
come under the ''Code of Napoleon. that
in his magnificent plans of conquest, he had
left out the mighty disturbing elemental for
ces, had left out chances, accidents, provi-
dences, God.
So it happened that the town Of Oschatz
was again visited by the French, and strange
ly enoughit happened that to that very town
came the sad remains of that very company
that had called down upon their heads the
bread curse. Again they halted before the
minister's house, and again little Constantine
ran to his mother for bread. This time there
was white bread, and he took out a large loaf
and offered II to that very young officer he
remembered well, though now be saw him
] pale and emaciated, his brave uniform soil
\ ed and dilapidated, and one sleeve of his
braided coat hanging empty. To the lads
surprise the officer recognized him at once |;
to his greater surprise he burst into tears,
and refused to take that tempting white
loaf, saying: "Ne my good little friend, |
cannot take this, though am very hungry,
as are my men. Bring us black bread, such
as we trampled under foot in the summer
that is better than we deserve. God has
indeed punished us for our arrogance. -
Then little Constantine went into the house
and got brown loaf from his mother, and
all the charitable neighbors contributed from
their stores, far more willingly than they
once had done, feeding the poor, crest-fallen
fellows, and refreshing them with good beer,
without addressing to them one reproachful,
or taunting, word without as much saying to
them, "We told you so-you profane frog
caters and bread-despisers This was the
way in which the good people Of Oschatz
obeyed the command of their Lord, elf
thine enemy hunger, feed him If he thirst,
give him drink"
One honest farmer who had actually come
to town that day to purchase farm wagon
and horses, to replace those of which these
same French soldiers had robbed him, now
filled the new vehicle with sick and wound
ed men, and SO conveyed them several miles
on their homeward way, walking most OF
the distance himself,t to make room for poor
straggler That unlettered German boor
had probably never heard of a triumphial
chariot, yet his rude wagon was one, ,-only
that the conquerer walked while the cap.
tives rode. He had all unconsciously achiev
ed a Christian victory.
As for little Constantine H--,he grew UP
to be profound scholar and great physf
clan, and what is better still, good, brave
true-hearted man, and what is best Of all, be
is living yet,-and though keeping pace
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