The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1870-02-26
BreOd.--A True StO2'7y.

There is sort OF SacrednesS about bread which
does not belong to any other form of food.
is as though we remembered always that He wa
Himself called the "Bread of Life" No wasteful
ness shocks US like the waste of the staff of ife
In Germany, Sweden and Denmark, the senti
ment has grown into a popular superstition
Hans Christian Anderson has story of a proud
| girl who trod upon bread, and thereby came t
| grief and the German peasants always prophesJ
terrible msfortunes to the man. woman, or chile
who mocks at or filings away this good gift o
Heaven even in the form Of the stalest and coarses
of their "black loaves," which, indeed, are o
tou heavy and substantial character to be mad,
light of. The great Thirty Years War, with it
famines and dire distresses, probably gave rist
| to this superstition. 1t has the strongest hole
on the minds of the peasantry, the people who
suffered most bitterly in that dreadful period
but all classes entertain it in a degree. Few ART
so reckless or profane as to see without fear oil
displeasure, slight put upon bread and tha
brings me to my little story.
| When Napoeon's great army was on the maref
! toward Russia, in the summer of the year 1872
portion of it passed through Saxony--a proud
exultant, insolont set of fighters and spoilers
making free with everything thai came in theil
way, and often insulting the unoffendne people
| Among other quiet towns that of OsehaIz wa;
visited by that mighty swarm ofimperial .ocusts
and the inhabitants were called upon to pay
tribute in the way of food and comfortable quar-.
ters. II happened that company of infantry
halted before the house Of Protestant minister
and there demanded food, and the minister's son
handsome little lad, with great dark eyes deep
grave aud thoughtful ran to his mother for some
bread. The good woman gave him a large brown
loaf, such they themselves had Just been eating
1t was indeed their daily bread" This the lad
took out and courteously offered with knife, to
"a ua q n N N Inn mr. nff hf
tonishment and horror, flung it coutemptuously
on the ground saying,
''HOw dare you offer us miserable black bread,
fit only for swinish German peasants Brin,. us
white bread, you young rascal -
The soldiers, hungry as they were, in thc spirit
of their officer, kicked the offending brown loaf
about like football until they quite demolished
it, and then shouted Tor white bread. But little
Constantine, who was rightly named replied
brayely
''We have no white bread we gave yon the
best we had and you very wicked to treat
that good brown loaf so. Ny mother madp 1t,
and God Furnishes people who fling bread upon
the ground"
The rude French soldiers might have made
bin suffer for his plain speaking had no, the
officer, looking little ashamed marched them
on to the other houses in search oil white bread,
better suited to their dainty appetites.
ue lUClCeU. udQ UecH WltueSSeu Di Il CfOWu
of people, who, shocbed and indignant, all
prophesied humiliation and misfortune to the
discourteous strangers. After few hours, The
French troops marched off, and the old town,
whose inhabitants they had bulled and robbed
turned to its quiet, steady going ways. They
marched on with splendid visions and magnif-
cent plans Of conquest, glory, dominion, spoils,
and revels, to disaster defeat-to unutterable
horrors of tempests, cold, and death. The dread
elements, the awful forces of nature, were arrayed
against them-the blind avenging furies of frost,
and fire and food. In the cold bosom of a
strange land unseen graves, like icy pitfalls,
awaited them and in the clouds of an alien sky
were even then being prepared for them slowly
and silently, from the soft exhalations OF the
Summer earth, vast winding sheets of snow.
Many grass valley, in which they gayly
bivouacked on the daisied turf, with murmurous
leaves and sweetbird chirpngs overhead, was but
a few months later to receive them in white ST.
lence-to invite them to beds of treacherous
softness and fatal repose, overhung by leafess
branches sheathed in ice-a spot seemingly
abandoned by nature, forsaken of life, ghostly
Valley of the Shadow of Death
When the people of Oschatz heard of the fear
full reverses of that grand army, they said 'lt
is little wonder, if they flung good bread on the
ground and kicked it about, after the manner of
those Heavendefying soldiers who marched
through our town.
At last the remnants of that pround invading
host came struggling back through Germany. A
miserable set of men were they-sckly, ragged,
manned, frost bitten-humiliated and amazed to
find the world slipping 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 forces /;
had left out chances, accidents, providences,
God.
So it happened that the town of Oschatz was
again visited by the French, and strangely enough,
it happened that to the 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 10 his mother for bread,
and he took out large brown loaf and offered
it to that very young officer he had remembered
so well, though now he saw him pale and
emaciated, his brave uniform soled and dilapi-
dated, and one sleeve of his braided coat hanging
empty. To the lads surprise, the officer re-
cogniZed him at once to his great surprise he
burst into tears and refused TO take that tempting
white loaf, saying
'tNo my good little friend, cannot take this,
though l am very hungry, as are my men. Bring
us black bread, such as we trampled upon 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 had done
before, feeding the poor crestfallen fellows, and
refreshing them with good beer, without ad-
dressing to them one reproaching or taunting
word-without as much as saying to them, ''We
told you SO, you profane frog eaters and bread
despisers l'' This was the way in which the good
people of Oschatz obeyed the command of the
Lord /; eff thine enemy hunger, feed him, if be
thirst give him drink"
One honest farmer, who had actually come to
town that day to purchaee farm wagon and
horses to replace those of which these same French
soldiers had robbed him, now filled the new
vehicle with sick and wounded men, and so con-
veyed them several miles on their homeward way,
walking most of the distance himself, to make
room for a poor straggler. That unlettered
"German poor, had probably never heard of a
triumph chariot, yet his rude wagon was one
only that the conqueror walked while the captives
rode. He had unconsciously achieved Christian
victory.
Il STRANGE EPISODE IN A CHEoUERED CAREER.