# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 12 12_S60
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

60

until he comes out again from the large house yonder." Then he went his way with a good conscience, as a messenger goes back again whence he came, when he has handed his satchel to another messenger and has been given a receipt by him.

The long-eared one, now that she had become wholly masterless, lowered her care-laden head indeed somewhat lower, but did not budge a step from the spot, however many were the indignities which she had to suffer on the narrow raised pavement where she stood. The blows which the passers-by, vexed that they had to make way for her, dealt her in passing, she took calmly and said only to herself: "William beats my gray coat too little in the course of the year anyhow." But a maid from the neighborhood, who wanted to push her down off the raised pavement, she pinned against the house, so that the same screamed and was glad when she was able to get out again from between the wall and the back of the beast of burden. And with the two little chimney-sweeps, who took her by the ears and wanted to pull her away, she was likewise finished sooner than her adversaries had thought. She shook her head a little, and the two lads fell off to right and left from her, as an apple tree drops its apples when it is shaken by a great wind.

At last, after an hour or more, William came back from the large house with the high windows, and said to his she-ass, as he withdrew with her entirely out of the city, and also stood still now and then on the way: "Well, Jenny, I have stayed away from you too long, haven't I? But it could not be otherwise. A man in the large house, who had come from far across the sea, told about the heathen. He has seen with his own eyes how the wicked mothers bury their children in the earth, or burn them in the fire, or drown them in the water, or cast them to the crocodiles, which bite them in two in the middle and swallow them, as our black cat at home does a mouse. In great cities, he said, one sees whimpering children lying everywhere, whom one has thrown out before the houses, as with us young kittens that one does not want to raise. And with the old people it goes no better. When they grow weak and are no longer good for anything, the son takes them and gives them a blow on the head, or buries them alive. But the gnats and fleas and other vermin they do not touch, lest they offend the father of the same, the devil. For the dear God they know not, so they fear the Evil One above all and worship him."

Here William was interrupted in his report. His beast of burden stepped aside, and stretched itself toward a juicy thistle that stood by the way. But while it plucked one leaf after another, he went on in his loud thoughts and said: "Yes, said the man in the large house, the heathen are even worse off under the dominion of the devil than if the sheep said to the wolf: Be thou our god. Thou canst imagine, Jenny, how he would treat them. And just so does the devil with his subjects, the heathen. He leaves them not a good hour, and pulls the skin over their heads. He has also among many Christians themselves faithful confederates, who sell them brandy, so that they perish by whole crowds, as the flies in peppered milk."

At these words William grew so wroth in his heart that he forgot himself and gave his she-ass a blow with the flat of his hand on the back. The beast of burden took the blow for a sign that it should go on, and also continued its way willingly, although of the thistle not only a few leaves but also the crown were still left, wherefore it also, in going away, cast a rueful look back at it.

The boy, however, walked on in the spiritual path on which the man in the large house had gone before him, and said: "The devil, however — and this, good Jenny, thou thyself wilt not wish to deny — one must not let him do as he will with the poor heathen. One must strive against him and tear the wretched out of his teeth. I would gladly go against him myself, but cannot get away from my mother."

Amid these and like addresses to his Jenny the boy came home. There his first business was to provide the weary beast of burden with litter and fodder. Then he betook himself to his mother in the room, and laid the copper coins which he had taken for the sand he had sold in order on the table, so that they could easily be counted over.

While he was doing this he said, time after time: "Mother, we ought indeed to do something also for the poor heathen! — Mother, can we then do nothing at all for the poor heathen? — Mother, how would it be if we also did something for the poor heathen?"

The sand-woman, who for a long time had only shaken her head, answered at last: "O William, what can we do? I am a weak woman and thou a boy. Go ourselves we cannot, and give anything we cannot either. See, there lie twenty-six pence on the table. These twelve we need for bread, these six for the rent of the sand-pits, these two for the house-rent, these three for clothes and shoes, these two for coals, and this last for the sand-sacks and for the horseshoes for Jenny. And for the poor heathen there remains, alas, nothing but the empty table."

So spoke the woman, and carried the twenty-six pence, which she had gradually stroked from the right hand into the left, out into the chamber. William soon followed her and lay down thoughtfully on his straw sack.

What he, however, arrived at with his thinking, the friendly reader will soon perceive.

The next day he rose an hour earlier than usual, and said to his she-ass, as he threw her morning fodder into the crib: "From now on, Jenny, we must go into the city twice every day, the one time for our mother and the other time for the poor heathen. And therefore thou must no longer walk so slowly as old Lady Dungal to church, but must see to it that thou getst off the road. I also will linger nowhere any longer than is necessary."

William also kept his word. Formerly he stopped at every street corner, and did not go on until he had seen, or if possible read, what stood on the new placards; formerly, when he had quickly disposed of his sand, he often accompanied the little Savoyards and their marmots from lane to lane; formerly he was the first and last at every crying of wares; but from now on he passed by all this like a candidate who has his first sermon in his head. And when his second load of sand would find no proper sale any more, he cried the louder: "Buy sand for the poor heathen!" so there always turned up buyers again, women, and among them one and another who gave a penny more than he asked, mostly for love of the boy, who, where it was desired, told in his fashion of heathendom what he had imparted to his Jenny immediately after his being in the large house.

So he carried on for fourteen days, and in his zeal for the heathen did not notice how his she-ass let her head hang lower and lower. But when he was pasturing her on the following Sunday in the roadside ditch, his eyes were suddenly opened and he said in alarm: "O Jenny, how badly thou lookest! All thy ribs can be counted, and thy backbone stands out like the keel of a ship, and thine eyes lie as deep as the cellar windows behind the iron grating. But I know already whence it comes. Twice every day into the city, and yet no more to eat than before! That is too much for thee. But only be easy. From now on we will go only every other day twice into the City, and between times I will fetch thee so much fodder that thou canst feast like the Lord Mayor at his table in Guildhall."

Although, however, from now on William had sand for sale for the poor heathen only every other day, often only every third day, yet in one year he laid by for them a little bag full of pence and shillings.

With this he sought out one day the man who used to speak of the heathen in the large house, that is, he stationed himself under the door and waited for him. And when he came, he drew his little cap from his head with one hand, and with the other held out the little bag to him and said: "We should like also to give something for the poor heathen."

And the friendly reader knows well that by this he meant himself and his she-ass, who stood behind him with two empty sand-sacks on her back. But the man did not yet know it, and therefore asked the boy who the other person