Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1886-05-12

and far-seeing, whom we cannot help
agreeing in humanity's chief hope!
squalor, and for just peltry dollar
works all day at making soap.
KARL'S STORY.
Eyes; [ am an American at heart, -
and a well-developed hand was laid
emphatically on the seat of that organ,
land an American citizen, though l
have remained here some years, but I
soon 60 back -
"And what detained you here?''
'MY wife: her health was bad, and
the doctors, they ordered her native
air; so I came for her health.''
"And hope she has improved.
''Oh, yes; she is very we'll. and l
soon go back. love America"
The speaker, handsome German in
later middle life, his bones we'll covered
with healthy adipose matter, his face
clean shaver, rudy, and radiant, and
his whole air that of an independent,
contented gentleman, not being very
busy-having, in fact, only to hang
around Wiesbaden. Frankfort, and
Hamburg till his wife had bad enough
of her native air-gave some particu-
lars of his life, which. supplemented
from other sources, make up the fol-
lowing life-story.
Born in Hesse-Darmstadt, in little
tile-covered house, to which a few acres
of ground-divided from other similar
estates by the primitive stone land
marks-were attached, Karl Krekmann
helped to raise potatoes. buckw heat,
beet-root, and such other crops as
could be made profitable for the main
tenance of good-sized German family.
The rate of living was moderate, but
the work was hard and gave Karl little
promise of advancement. Nor could
he be sure of continuing as help to
father and mother and the little group
of younger children. His good school
education gave him fair idea of other
countries, and when once the notion of
trying his fortune elsewhere entered
his mind, he lost no chance of learning
more about them.
The United States seemed to him
the most hopeful field; but, alas! all
the ready money that came into the
family in a year would have been
needed to pay his passage, even to
New York; and he had made up his
mind that it was best to go into the
middle of the country, so as to get the
advantages of both the East and West.
When, however, Hermann Bertram
came over from London to visit his
mother, and turned out on Sunday in
a broadcloth dress-coat anG white
necktie-his official costume in a
West-End hotel-a new idea struck
Karl. Could he not go to London and
earn money enough to CARRY him to
the land of his hopes? The matter was
clear enough when Bertram told him
he could be his assistant, and earn
eighteen shillings a week, not includ-
ing perquisites. So be worked in
London, living at the modest German
rate, and in a ytar he knew English
fairly, and over and above the money
he sent home when his mother was
sick, he had earned enough to enable
him to visit the old home, take leave
OF kindred and neighbors, and pay his
passage to America and his fare to
Cincinnati; all which be had calcu-
lated to a pfenning.
In his adopted city Karl found plenty
of his countrymen, and soon made up
his mind to stay only till he found
something better than walters work.
He could write rs we'll as speak Eng
lish, and he had learned in his free
hours, to keep books. So when Col.
Greenough wanted a clerk who could
write and speak English and German,
and keep the books at his "works' in
Nebraska, then first coming into no.
tice, Karl got the place. Installed as
Mr.. Krekmann' in the Office, Karl
felt that he had reached the safe mid
die region, where one got all the good
OF East and West.
And Karl's father and mother were
Of the same opinion, as letters brought
them sums Of money not large in Me-
oraska, but surprising in Darmstadt.
Directions came also about the educa-
ton of his brothers, and the one sister
that remained-for Karl's one
grief was that the two next to
him had died of scarletina. The older
OF these had been able to write him let
ters, which somehow, made a large
part Of that real life lived by him not
n the ''office," but in the room of the
hotel in which be boarded-a one story
wooden house, with more romance
about its history and its inmates than
in the Mildred House or the Windsor,
its ambitious SUCCESSORS. On many a
summer evening Karl wandered over
the rising ground. then rich unbroken
prairie, looking over the river to the
growing Council Bluff. reading again
and again, the letters of Katerina.- For
they told all about home-about the
new tables and carpet, the handsome
clock, the boys advance and her own
longing to see the land where her Karl
could do so we'll. something more too
they told over which Karl used to muse
and hope: but alas! Katerina let
ters he could look for no more.
Col. Greenough wanted an agent in
Hamburg, able to buy and send out
some tools not yet in use in America.
Could Karl try it Ior year? Yes.
Hamburg was not far from the old
home. He could see his parents and
Katerina's grave, ard perhaps Adel-
held. whom he we'll remembered as a
girl, and about whom Katerina kept
him informed. 1t was, in fact, over
Adelheid that Karl used to muse and
hope as he lay on the prairie-grass and
wondered at the richness of the colors
as the setting sun lit up the bits of
wood along the slopes of the river
~, f11;