Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1878-04-03
The Faithful Lovers ;
Something to His Advantage.

Old Ludwig Leibhart was a brewer
in the good city of Hamburg. He was
AS rotund as one of his own ale-casks; ;
stolid, good-natured and obstinate.
His wife, katrine, was his antipode.
Fair, blue-eyed, merrurial, tull of
dreams and fiower-like fancies, she
hourished under her husbands protec-
ton in a strange, beautiful sort of con-
trast TO his rude strength. Ludwig
regarded her as something unique
being a woman; and, also, being wo-
man, to be restrained judiciously, and
by no means to have her own head.
"Ah. katrine," he would say, slowly
shaking his head, .'tis well the children
take after me. If they had thy tenn
permanent they would drive four-in-
hand to the devil"
Tut, tut" looking around upon her
round-cheeked flock, ''Otto is my own
boy"
1--WE will make Otto BREWER" said
his father, cOmposedly.
Otto grew up handsome, talented,
impetuous, and with special passion
for study. But brewer Otto would
not become. Old Leibhart's good ma
ture deserted him. He stormed; Kat
rine cried. The end of it all was that
Otto sailed for America to seek his
fortune
Behold him, then. housed in little
room, far up towards the sky, in the
great foreign city, with its unfamiliar
life and ways, trying to keep soul and
body together by translating, giving
lessons in German and in music, get
ting an occasional bit of copying to do,
and so keeping the wolf from the door;
sometimes getting a dinner plentiful
enough for his young, strong frame,
sometimes not, but maintaining his
Teutonic good nature, and never quite
ready to despair.
1t may be guessed that the Young
fellow suffered from homesickness.
Letters from home came seldom, for
katrine was no pen-wOman- 1t may
also be guessed that with his impul-
sive, ardent, affectionate temperament,
he longed for society. Chance, it Is
true, threw him into the way of few
of his compatriots, but they wereof the
beer-drinking, registering sort, and
Otto's distaste for the paternal busi-
ness extended to the beverage manu-
factured; and so the young fellow
lived mostly alone sOlacing himself by
those happy visions which are the
dover of youth, and by his violin, an
old instrument which he had picked up
in boyhood in a stall in Hamburg, and
which he fondly persuaded himself
was genuine Stradivarius. When
he was particularly happy or specially
sad, this Old World instrument shared
Lis emotions and rollicking measures,
or walled in the minor key with the
soul of its master.
Living this isolated, unnatural sort
Of life, Otto hardly knew or cared to
know, who his fellow-lodgers were.
They came and went; he net them on
the stairs; they bowed silently or
passed him unrecognizing and he never
thought of them again.
Among others, he occasionally lifted
his hat to young girl who daily trip
ped over his staircase. At first he
hardly noticed more than that she was
a girl. By-and-by something more
stole in upon his consciousness She
was lovely as well as young, slender,
rose-and-white, gray-eyed creature,
with brown curling hair, cropped close
about her temples.
1t was spring. The children in the
street were selling violets. The wind
came in warm, soft sighs, such as stir
the heart and waken vague longings
and sweet old memories. Otto's heart
was tender. 1t was young-so eager
to love, so empty, so desolate-
Coming home and mounting the land
ing, he saw the figure OF his young
neighbor leaning by the window, which
opened upon a square, green and flow
er-garnished, and then looked away
over the tops of the tall houses to the
superbly beautiful bay. As he came
up she turned her head slightly. and
their eyes met. hers so soft and beauti-
full that there suddenly aweke in his
heart an uncomfortable desire to hear
her voice.
at is a lovely view," he said at haz-
ard
Eyes, worship it. 1t is my great
est pleasure and l hate to leave it,
she said, with certain impatienee In
her voice, which he did not under
stand. But he felt all at once for her
to go away was for his life to loose
something.
"Are you going away, them" he
asked sadly.
81 must. If stay shall starve, and
starving is not pleasant. Unless, in
deed,'' with a quick look, Monsieur
goes"
81 gor' he responded, not compre-
hending.
"Yes indeed! Do you not under