The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-09-25

lOOuS, SpOlltSb III cleanliness ana 1aulu-
less in comfort, immortalized by WASH
ington Irving in his description of the
Dutch settlements in North America.
The floor is polished like mirror the
tasteful green and white paper (Which
looks delightfully."- fresh this sultry
weather) seems as fresh as the day it
was put on; while the broad, we'll
stuffed sofa, which takes up nearly one
whole side of the room, seems Just made
for the brawny beam ends of some port
ly German burgher, OF the restless rolly-
pooly limbs of his half-dozen big ba-
bies. Above the chimney-piece, along
which stands the usual china shep-
herdesses, Presents from Dres-
den," and busts of Goethe and Schiller,
hangs staring, highly colored medley
of dre, smoke, blue and white uniforms,
rearing horses, and overturned cannon,
which some Grabbed Teutonic letters
beneath it proclaim to be ''Die Schlacht
bel Konniggartz, 3 JUL, 1866 )" while
facing it from above the sofa is q rather
neatly done water-color likeness of a
chubby, fair-haired lad, in an infantry
uniform, whom L rightly guess to be
my hosts soldier son William Ga house.
j.,
on garrison duty at Spandau.
But the object which especially at
tracts my attention is tall, grim
bureau of dark oak, in the further cor
ner beyond the fireplace, decorated
with those quaint old German carvings
which carry one back to the streets of
Nuremberg and the house of Albrecht
Durer. There stand Adam and Eve, in
all their untrammelled freedom, shoul-
der to shoulder, like officers in the CEN
tire of hollow square, with all the
beasts of the earth formed in close or.
der around them, and the tree of knowl-
edge standing up like sign-post in the
rear. There the huge frame of Goliath,
smitten by the fatal stone, reels over
like falling tower, threatening to crush
into powder the swarm of diminutive
Philistines who hop about in the back
ground. There appear the chosen
twelve, with faces curiously individual
lied, in spite of all the roughness of the
carving, and passing through every
graduation, from the soft, womanly fea-
lures of the beloved disciples to the
bearded, low-bred, ruffianly visage of
him (Which also was the traitor" And
there the prosecutor Saul, not yet
transformed into Paul the Apostle
(sheathed in steel from top to toe,
armed with a sabre that might have
suited Bluebeard himself, and attended
by squadron of troopers armed cap
a.pie), rides at full gallop past the
gate of Damascus on his errand of de-
struction.
"The bureau must be n very old
one," remarked 1, tentatively.
1T is, indeed; but that's not why we
value it," answers the old man, with
kindling eyes. "That bureau is the
most precious thing we have; and there's
story attached to it which will never
be forgotten in our family, I'll answer
for it. I'll tell you the story one of
these days, but not tonight, for we
mustn't spoil our pleasant evening by
any sad recollections. And here, in
good time, comes Lieschen to tell us
that teas ready"
l will not tantalize my readers with a
catalogue of the good cheer which
heaped the table; suffice it to say, the
meal was one that would have tempted
the most notorious evil liver" that
ever returned incurable from Calcutta,
and seasoned with heartiness of well
come which would have made far poorer
fare acceptable. Fresh from reminis-
cences of " Hermann and Dorothea," 1
could almost have imagined myself in
the midst of that finest domestic group
of the great German artist. The hearty
old landlord of the Golden Lion, and
his "kluge yer stindige Hausfrau, ="
were before me to the life; the blue
eyed Madchen, who loaded my plate
with tea-cakes, might, with the addition
of little dignity, have made very
passable Dorothea; while "brother Will
helm," had he been there, would have
represented my ideal Hermann quite
fairly. Nor was the " friendly chat
wanting to complete the picture. The
old man, warming with the presence of
new listener, launched into countless
stories of his soldier son, who, young as
he was, had already smelt powder on
more than one hard fought field, during
the first short fever of the seven weeks
war. Frau Lisbeth, who was an actual
mine of those quaint old legends which
are nowhere more perfect than in Ger
many, poured forth series of tales
which would have made the fortune OF
any Christmas Number" in Britain;
while the young lady, though rather
shy at first, shook off her bashfulness
by degrees, and asked thousand ques-
tions respecting the strange regions
which had recently quilted; the sandy
wastes of the Volga, and the voiceless
solitudes of the Don-relics of former
glory which still cling around ancient
II yfa1y lo, ~. l..
by brawling Cossacks and Crimean cav
erns tenanted by Tartar peasants-bat-
tered Kertch and ruined Sebastopol-
Odessa, with her sea-fronting boule-
ward. and sacked Kiev, with her dim
catacombs and diadem of gilded towers
the barbaric splendor of ancient Mos
COW, and the imperial beauty of queenly
Stockholm. 1t was late in the evening
before departed, which I was not al
lowed to do without promising once and
again not to be long of returning.
And kept my word for the quiet
happiness of this little circle, SO simple
and so open-hearted, was real treat to
restless gad-about like myself. Be-
fore the month was at an end I had
strolled around the town with Herr
Holzmann a dozen times had par
taken fully as often of Frau Lisbeth' s
inexhaustible tea-cakes; I had present
ed Fraulein Mafgarethe, on the morn
ing of her eighteenth birthday, with a
pair of Russian ear-drops, accompany
ing my gift { as any one in my place
might well have done } by a resounding
kiss on both cheeks, which the plump
little Madchen received as frankly as it
was oivan Rut tho ra1aptlaoo diyinik iky