Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1901-01-28
CHAPTER I.

Angels are as a rule pictured as ideal
beings with long, fair hair, light raj
ment and beautiful white wings,-be-
ings who invisibly hover over those
entrusted to their protection, and OPP
portunely prevent them falling in
to some abyss. This belief is, how
ever, common only in early youth;
later on one sees this guardian angel
in it's true form which has nothing SUI
pernatural about it.
When Frau Wollmeyer died and with
my mother, [ stood beside her coffin,
placed in the hall and surrounded by
all the solemn pomp imaginable, GER
tainly did not suspect that she, too,
had been an angel upon earth, guar
dian angel. At this time such
thought would have struck me as com
ical, notwithstanding the gravity of the
occasion. Only later did | learn how
faithfully she had ruled, only then did
I become sensible of the fact that an
angelic exterior is but incidental to
this craft.
Good soul, Hannchen Wollmeyer, nee
Himmeli She now lies in Trinity
churchyard. Did the widower who, in
his emotion, blow his nose so violently
that it seemed to me he was trying
to awaken the dead by his blasts, did
Town Councillor Wollmeyer have any
idea of what he had lost in her? This
question was undecided To cousin
Himmel, cousin of the deceased, who
for years had lived as dependent in
the Wollmeyer household, this was
clear, for she wiped her eyes upon
corner of her apron and said: What
will become of him now? Hanne was
his good genius!"
No more eloquent oration no higher
praise was uttered over her remains
than these few words contained.
Since then year had flown. I sat
with my mother at the window of the
sitting room at the close of an autumn
evening. Her Industrious hands were
folded idly, she was looking down upon
the court. I was attempting to recall
the deceased as she had been in life.
In appearance Frau Hannchen Woll-
meyer bore little resemblance to her
cousin; the latter was a slender per-
son with serious, almost austere fea-
lures, usually silent and reserved;
Hannchen was round and stout, always
ready for tears and speeches, always
in nervous dread of her liege lord But
both YNoccoccnd IN oo1oo7oooy, t1,o -71oo,,Ii
arity of naive, incorrupt natures, SYM
pathy with the sorrows and the joys
of others, the longing to fulfill to the
uttermost that which duty required Of
them, which was not always easily
done They resembled each other in
another particular: they both loved me
dearly. 'Hannchen was very fond of
YOU" the cousin often said.
All, yes, was aware of it! To her
kindness I owed many of those trifing
and yet great pleasures of my child
hood and girlhood. She had had a
child and had buried it, so she Iavished
melancholy tenderness upon Stern
Berg's little Anneliese Tearfully on
Fost darling's dolls and toys for my
amusement. [ learned to spin on her
dead child's distaff, and today spin
ming is one Of my favorite occupations
AS ] spun she taught me the old.
mournful folk-songs peculiar to the
Thuringen Forest. The older I grew
the more did Frau Hannchen become
attached to me. 81 believe my little
one would have been as tall as this now
too, cousin" she said.
Worthy Hannchen Wollmeyer! She
died so gladly. Her cousin asserted
it, and she likewise spoke Of it herself
a few days before her death to my
mother, as for the last time she sat
in the warm sun and gazed upon the
Sd, magnificent garden.
Il shall go willingly, madam; have
finished with life. 1t is very hard to
sit in rolling-chair, to be unable to
busy oneself with anything, and, too,
l am useless. When I have been dead
a year, he can marry another, an edu-
Gated woman more suited to him, of
whom he need not be ashamed And
if it be true that I shall meet my child
in heaven, as the superintendent says,
I shall wish for nothing more"
Frau Wollmeyer," my mother re-
piled, chow can you talk so? Your
husband will miss you very. very
much; SO will your cousin and others,
tOo-will they not, Anneliese?
EMO No! He will not miss me, Frau
Won Sternberg. God forbid Yes, at
the time that we married and sat and
worked together in the pretty old mill
for our daily bread and the future of
our little one-yes, then he would not
have cared to have parted with me;
[ believe that. But now he is rich and
aristocratic and associates with the
best here-no, not now!"
And Hannchen died in the belief that