nuts.'
"'O dear Saviour,' answered the angel, 'I ate half of them, and I was
grateful to you, for I felt that I owed them to your bounty as they were
my 'little Christ child' as the people in the city where we lived called
a Christmas present.'

"'You see, Peter,' the Saviour interrupted the angel.  'Do we not owe it
to the nuts of that woman that a pure child's soul was led to us?  That
in itself is no small thing!  Tell what further happened to you?'

"'I ate most of them,' the little girl answered, but I had still more to
eat by Christmas-eve; for the people who had looked at me when the woman
threw something into my lap were interested in my suffering, and soon I
had sold all six sheep, and besides many pennies and groschen, one big
thaler had flown into my lap.  With these I was able to buy mother many
things that she stood in sore need of, and, though she died on New Year's
morning, she had had many little comforts during her last days.'

"The Anointed cast another look full of meaning at Peter, when a large
and beautiful angel, the spirit of the mother of the cherub, began: 'If
you will permit me, O, holy Jesus, I, too, would like to say a word in
favor of the condemned.  Before Hannele came home with the nuts, I lay in
bed without hope, or help in my great suffering.  I had lost all faith,
for my prayers had not been heard, and in the bitterness of my heart, it
seemed that you, who were said to be the friend of the poor on earth, and
God the Father, had forgotten us in our misery, in order to overwhelm the
rich with greater gifts.  In my distress, and that of the child; I had
learned to curse the day on which we were born.  Oh! how wild were my
thoughts during the time that Hannele was trying to sell the sheep, and
did not come home; though I needed her so sorely.  I was often so thirsty
that my mouth burned as with fire, and the moments when I gasped for
breath were frequent, and almost unbearable when no one was there to lift
me up.  I called those people liars who would persuade the poor that they
had a merciful Father in Heaven, who looked upon them as his children,
and cared for them.  But when Hannele came home, and lighted the little
lamp, and I saw her tiny face, where for a long time I had seen no smile,
but only pain and grief, now beaming with joy, when I saw the nuts and
the other good things which she had brought, and saw her pleasure in
them, my belief in thee, O Lord, and in the kind Father returned, and I
ceased not to be grateful to the end.  If now, in the glory of thy
magnificence, I know bliss unutterable, I owe it to that woman, and to
the fact that she was good enough to throw the nuts into Hannele's
apron.'

"Peter nodded affirmatively.  Then he bowed before the Saviour and said:
'The little gift of the condemned soul has indeed borne better fruit than
I imagined; yet when I tell you what a great sinner she was on earth....'

"'I know,' the Son of God interrupted him.  'Before we decide upon the
fate of this woman, let us hear what the child did with the rest of the
nuts, for we know that she did not eat them all.  Now my little angel,
what became of the last of them?  Speak on.  Gladly will I listen to
you.'

"Hannele began anew: 'After they had buried mother, they sent me into the
country among the mountains, for they said it was not the duty of the
city to care for me, but that of the village parish, where my parents
were born.  So I was taken there.  The six nuts that I had saved I took
with me to play with.  This I most enjoyed doing in the spring, alone on
the little strip of grass behind the Poor-house, in which I was the only
child.  Besides me there were but three old women 'being fed to death,'
as the peasants used to say.  Two of my companions were blind, and the
third was dull-witted and gazed ever straight before her.  Not one of
them noticed anything that happened around them, but my heart used to
grow light when everything about me budded, and sprouted, and burst into
bloom.  My body was always aching but my pains could not lessen my
enjoyment of the spring.  Wherever I looked, men were sowing and
planting.  It was the first time that I had ever seen it, and the wish
came over me to confide something to the good earth that would take root,
and sprout, and grow green and high for me.

"'So I stuck four of my nuts into the ground.  I put them as far apart in
the small space as I could, so that if big trees came from my seeds they
might not stand in one another's way, but might all enjoy the air and the
sunshine that I was so thankful for.  I saw my seeds sprout, but what
became of them afterwards I did not live to see.  Two years after I sowed
them a famine fell upon us.  The poor weavers who lived in the mountain
village had all they could do to nourish wife and child.  There was
little left for the Poor-house.  As I was already ill I could not stand
the misery, and I was the first to die of the dreadful fever caused by
hunger.  Only one of the blind women, and the dull-witted one followed
the sack in which I was buried--for who would have paid for a coffin?
The last two nuts I divided with the old women.  Each one of us had a
half, and how gladly we ate the little morsel, for even a taste of any
dainty seemed good to us, after we had lived on nothing but bread and
potatoes.  From here I watched the other nuts grow to be trees.  All four
had straight stems and thick crowns.  Under one of them that stood near a
spring, which is now called the Fresh Spring, an old carpenter who came
to the Poor-house built a bench.'

"Here another angel interrupted the little narrator with the question:
'Do you mean the nut-tree in Dorbstadt?' and, receiving an answer in the
affirmative, he cried: 'I, Master, I am that old carpenter, and during my
last summers, I had no greater pleasure than to sit by the Fresh Spring
under the nut-tree, and while I smoked my pipe to think of my old wife,
whom I was soon to find again with you.  In the autumn, too, many a dry
brown leaf found its way among the more expensive tobacco ones.'

"'And I,' cried a former peddler, breaking into the carpenter's story,
'I assuredly have not forgotten the nut-tree, where I always set down my
pack when my shoulders were nearly broken, and under whose shade I used
to rest my weary limbs before entering the village.'

"'I, too!  How often have I stopped under the spreading branches of that
tree on a hot summer day and found refreshment!' cried a former post-
messenger of Dorbstadt.  A porter who had also lived there added his
praises.

"'But the nut-trees were cut down many years ago,' the latter added.

"'I saw it,' cried the spirit of little Hannele, and one heard from her
tone how she deplored it.  'They were felled when the Poor-house was
given up.  'But the great Son of God has now heard what he wished to
know.'

"'No, no,'  the  Saviour answered, 'I should still like to know what
became of the wood of these trees.'

"The voices of several  angels  were heard at the same moment, for many
of the poor weavers of Dorbstadt were to be found in the Heavenly
Kingdom.  St. Peter, however, bade them to be quiet, and permitted only
the one who had last entered the Abode of the Blessed to speak.

"'I was the village doctor,' this one began, 'and I quitted the earth
because I, too, fell a victim to the pestilence of which many of the poor
people were dying, and against which I fought with all my powers, but
with small success.  I can tell you all that you wish to know, my Master,
for, during forty-five years, I devoted my humble services to the sick
poor there.  When Hannele died in our Poor-house--it happened before my
time--the misery was even greater than at present.  The weavers were
ground down by the large manufacturers, until an energetic man built a
factory in our village, and paid them better wages.  As the population
then increased, and consequently the number of patients, space was
wanting in which to house them, for the dilapidated Poor-house--whither
they were carried--was no longer large enough to accommodate them all.
Therefore the parish, aided by the owner of the factory, built a hospital
for the whole district, and the site of the old Poor-house was chosen for
it.  The beautiful nut-trees which Hannele had planted had to be
destroyed.  I was sorry to be obliged to give the order, but we needed
the ground where they stood.  As we had to be economical in everything,
big and little, we had planks sawn out of the trees for our use.'

"At this point another spirit interrupted the physician.  'I have lain in
one of the beds made from the wood.  At home I slept on a bundle of
straw, and very uncomfortable it was when I was shaken by the fever.  In
the hospital all was different, and when I lay in my comfortable bed, I
felt as if I were already in Heaven.'

"'And I,' cried another broad-winged angel, 'for ten years I walked with
the crutches that were made for me from the nut-tree by the Fresh Spring,
and old Conrad, below on the earth, is still using them.'

"'And  mine  also,'  another  continued, 'were of the same wood.  I had
lain for a long time on my back; but after I got them, I learned to walk
with them and they enabled me to stand before the loom, and to earn bread
once more for my family.  That man yonder from Hochdorf has had the same
experience, and the wooden leg of William, the toll-gate keeper, who
entered here shortly before me, was made of wood from the nut-tree.'

"'I owe it a debt of gratitude, too, but for an entirely different
service,' said a beautiful angel, as it bowed its crowned head reverently
before the Son of God.  'My lot below was a very hard one.  I was early
left a widow, and I supported my children entirely by the work of my
hands.  By dint of great effort I brought them up well, and my three sons
grew to be brave men, who took care of themselves, and helped their
mother.  But all three, my Master, were lost to me, taken away by the
unfathomable wisdom of the Father.  Two fell in war, the third was killed
by the machinery while at his work.  That broke my strength, and when
they brought me to the hospital I was on the verge of despair, and life
seemed a greater burden than I could bear.  Your image, my Saviour, had
just been finished by a sculptor, who had carved it from the wood of the
nut-tree by the Fresh Spring.  They put it up opposite to my bed.  It
represented you, my Lord, on the cross, and your head bowed in agony,
with its crown of thorns, was a very sorrowful sight.  Yet I paid but
small heed to it.  One morning, however--it was the anniversary of the
death of my two dear sons, who had lost their lives, fighting bravely
side by side for their Fatherland--on that morning the sun fell upon your
sad face, and bleeding hands pierced by the nails, and then I reflected
how bitterly you had suffered, though innocent, that you might redeem us,
and how your mother must have felt to lose such a child.  Then a voice
asked me if I had any right to complain, when the Son of God himself had
willingly endured such torments for our sake, and I felt compelled to
answer no, and determined then to bear patiently whatever might be laid
upon me, a poor, sinful woman.  Thenceforth, my Lord, was your image my
consolation and, since the wood of which it was made came from the tree
planted by Hannele near the Fresh Spring, I owe beyond doubt the better
years that followed, and the joy of being with you in Paradise, my
Saviour, to the nuts which that condemned woman gave to the child.'

"Humbly she bowed her head again.  The Son of God turned to St.  Peter,
saying: 'Well, Peter?'

"The latter called to the guardians of Hell: 'Let her go free, the gates
of Heaven are open to her.  How rich and manifold, O Lord! is the fruit
that springs from the smallest gift offered in true love!'

"'You are right,' answered the Saviour, gently, and turned away."

The colonel had talked for a longer time than was allowed him by his
doctor, and he needed rest.  When he appeared again at supper time, in
order to help us eat our Christmas carps, he found little Hermy standing
with Karl and Kurt before the fire, and he noticed how his favourite's
eyes rested with pleasure on the nuts which he had bought for his
grandmother; and how the older boys, who were only too prone to tease
their younger brother, treated him with a certain tenderness, as if they
had something to make up for.

At table we overheard Kurt say to Karl: "Little Hermy's present for
grandmother was not a bad idea," to which Karl answered quickly: "I am
going to put away some of my nuts to-morrow, and plant them in the
spring."

"To make a pair of crutches for me, or in order that you may go to
Heaven?"  asked the colonel.

The boy blushed, and could find no answer; but I came to his rescue, and
replied:  "No, his trees shall remind us of you, Colonel, and of your
stories.  When we give, we will, in remembrance of you, give in all love
and willingness, and when we receive, even the smallest gift, we will
only ask in what spirit it was offered."

THE END






ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE SHORT WORKS OF GEORG EBERS:

Absence of suffering is not happiness
Arrogant wave of the hand, and in an instructive tone
At my age we count it gain not to be disappointed
Buy indugence for sins to be committed in the future
Caress or a spank from you--each at the proper time
Clothes the ugly truth as with a pleasing garment
Couple seemed to get on so perfectly well without them
Death itself sometimes floats 'twixt cup and lip'
Exceptional people are destined to be unhappy in this world
Had laid aside what we call nerves
Honest anger affords a certain degree of enjoyment
If speech be silver, silence then is gold!
Laughing before sunrise causes tears at evening
Like a clock that points to one hour while it strikes another
Mirrors were not allowed in the convent
Ovid, 'We praise the ancients'
Pays better to provide for people's bodies than for their brains
People see what they want to see
Repeated the exclamation: "Too late!"  and again, "Too late!
Seems most charming at the time we are obliged to resign it
To-morrow could give them nothing better than to-day
Who watches for his neighbour's faults has a hundred sharp eyes
Who gives great gifts, expects great gifts again
Wrath has two eyes--one blind, the other keener than a falcon's