The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-05-04
SELECTED STORY,
The GOOseherd.

have been listening to you for some
time with establishment, my friend.
You generally endeavor, even more
than l, to see things as they really are.
WHY, In these critical observations up
on the life of sentiment, do you sud-
denly surrender to this deplorable ideal
istic illusion?
1t seems to me that your levelling
democratic tendency has again played
you stupid trick.
If / understand you correctly, you
maintain that no radical difference ex-
lists between the different social classes
in capacity for feeling, while life proves
the contrary every day. 1t would be
unimaginably beautiful if you were
right. The ideal of equality and
brotherhood, which l, as born aristo-
must hold to be q mere Pigment of
the imagination, would then become
reality, or rather, would already be
less is not enough on which to base an
organic difference in humanity.
No, my friend, it is difference in
sensibility more than disparity of
riches, rank and knowledge, all TO.
gether, that separates the educated
from the lower classes, causing them
totally to misunderstood one another's
motives and desires and dwell side by
side like citizens of two different
worlds. Woe to him who hopes to
bridge this chasmI
You do not believe me-you shake
your head? Oh, my dear, speak from
experience, alasl And if l could tell
you but why should l not? The twi-
light falls about us, outside bowls the
November storm, and l am celebrating
to-day my thirtieth birthday; reasons
enough to conjure up light, spring and
youth.
Let me close my eyes, and listen
quietly; shall tell you of my first love.
Do you know who my first love was?
A gooseherd, real gooseherd. l am
not joking. Long after l was q highly
respectable young lady wept bitter
tears over the sorrow he had caused
me.
To be sure, at the time when he first
set my heart afire was still in that Pc
riod of my life when my highest ideal
of happiness was to 60 barefoot. !
was eight, he about ten years old; /
Wde luo uduSuJtT VI tu6 udDOT, u6 Lu6
son of our smith.
In the morning, as was drinking
coffee upon the balcony with mamma
and my older brother, he used to go by
with his geese and vanish in the d.
rection of the heath. At first he stared
at us with naive wonder, without think
ing to remove his cap; but after my
brother had admonished him that it
would be suitable for him to offer a
morning greeting to the quality, he
would swing his cap in great circles in
the air and call up to US "Good-morn-
ing, ALL" exactly as though he had
learned it by heart.
If my brother happened to be in a
good humor l would receive permission
to take roll down to him as recogni-
ton of his urbanity. This he always
snatched out of my hand with a certain
greedy anxiety, as though there were
danger OF my taking it back again.
How did he look; can see him now;
his sleek blonde hair hung in yellow
thatch over his sun-burned cheeks;
from under it his blue eyes peeped
slyly and merrily out; his tattered trou-
sers he had rolled up above his knees,
and in his hand he held a slender
willow switch, in the green bark of
which his skillful hand had cut spiral
row of white rings.
My childish desire first fastened itself
upon this switch. thought it would
be charming to hold in my hand such
marvel, 30 different from all my play
things, and when I completed the pic
ture by imagining myself driving geese
with 1t and going barefoot, had
reached the pinnacle of earthly bliss.
Naturally, it was this same switch
which drew us together. One morning
as was at the breakfast table, saw
him again passing gaily by and l could
no longer subdue my longing. l Sc
eretly clapped together the roll spread
with honey which / was eating, and
hastily excused myself that might run
after him.
When he saw me coming he stopped
and looked at me in establishment, but
as soon as he spied the roll in my hand
his eye beamed with intelligence.