"Well, I am," said Meredith smiling.
"Would it interest me?"
"I think, perhaps, it would."
"Ah, Ditto, don't you want to try? Read us some of it. What is it about?"
"It is a Mission Magazine."
"Missionary! Oh, then, we _shouldn't_ like it," said Esther. "I don't believe we should."
"And in it are stories," Meredith continued.
"What sort of stories? about heathen?"
"I like stories about heathen," said Maggie.
"Stories about heathen and Christian, which a certain Pastor Harms used to tell to his people, and which he put in the magazine."
"Did he write the magazine?"
"Yes."
"Who was Pastor Harms?"
"A wonderful, beautiful man, who loved God with all his heart, and served Him with all his strength."
"Why, there are a great many people, Ditto, who do that," said his sister.
"Most people that I have seen keep a little of their strength for something else," remarked Meredith dryly.
"Was he a German?" Maggie asked.
"He was a German; and he was the minister of a poor country parish in Hanover; and the minister and the people together were so full of the love of Christ that they did what rich churches elsewhere don't do."
"And does that book tell what they did?"
"Partly; what they did, and what other people have done."
"_I_ should like to hear some of it," was Maggie's conclusion.
"Well, you shall. We'll try, after dinner. Flora and Esther may shut their ears, if they will."
"If you won't read something else," said Flora, "I suppose I would rather hear that than nothing. I can get on with my work better."
"And worsted work is the chief end of woman, everybody knows," remarked her brother. "The kettle is boiling, Maggie!"
All was lively activity at once. Even the afghan and the worsted embroidery were laid on the moss, and the two elder girls bestirred themselves to get out the plates and dishes from the baskets and arrange them; while Maggie made the tea, and Meredith set about his omelet.
Maggie watched him with intense satisfaction, as he broke and beat his eggs and put them over the fire; watched till the cookery was accomplished and the omelet was turned out hot and brown and savoury.
The girls declared it was the best thing they had ever tasted, and Flora thought the tea was the best tea, and Meredith that the bread and butter was the best bread and butter. Maggie privately thought it was the best dinner altogether that ever she had eaten in the woods; but I think she judged most by the company. It was a long dinner! Why should they use haste? The October sun was not hot; the sweet air gave an appetite; the thousand things they had to talk about gave zest to the food. They were not in a hurry with their tea, and they lingered over their apple-pie.
When at last they were of a mind to seek a change of diversion, and really the dinner was done--for talk as much as you will you yet must stop eating some time--the plates and remnants were quickly put back in the baskets and set again in the cart, tea-kettle and napkins cleared away, and the mossy dining-room looked as if no company had been there.
"This is first rate," exclaimed Meredith, stretching himself on the warm moss.
"And now, Ditto, you are going to read to us."
"Am I?"
"Yes, for you said so."
"An honourable man always keeps his promises," said Meredith. But he lay still.
The two elder girls got out their work again. Maggie sat by and silently stroked the hair on Meredith's temples.
"This is good enough, without reading," he presently went on. "The moss is spicy, the sky is blue, I see it through a lace-work of pine needles; the air is like satin. I cannot imagine anything much better than to lie here and look up."
"But you can feel the air, and see the sky, and smell the moss, too, while you are reading, Ditto."
"Can I? Well! your ten fingers are so many persuaders that I cannot withstand. Let's go in for Pastor Harms!"
So he raised himself on one elbow, no further, and laid his book open on the moss before him.
"But it is in German!" cried Maggie, looking over to see.
"Never mind, I will give it to you in English--I told you it was German."
"What is the first story about?"
"You will find that out as I go on. Now, you understand it is Pastor Harms who is speaking, only he was a famous hand at story-telling, and to hear him would have been quite a different thing from hearing me."
And Meredith began to read.
"'I will go back now a thousand years, and tell you a mission story that I am very fond of. I found it partly in the parish archives of Hermannsburg, and partly in some old Luneburg chronicles. I say I am very fond of it; for after the fact that I am a Christian, comes the fact that I am a Luneburger, body and soul; and there is not a country in the whole world, for me, that is better than the Luneburg heath'"----
"Oh, stop, Ditto, please," cried Maggie, "what is a 'heath'? and where is Luneburg?"
"Ah! there we come with our questions. Luneburg heath isn't like anything in America, that I know, Maggie. It is a strange place. There you'll see acres and miles of level land covered with heather, which turns purple and beautiful in the latter part of the season; but in the midst of this level country you come suddenly here and there to a lovely little valley with houses and grain-fields and fruit and running water; or to a piece of woods; or to a hill with a farmhouse perched up on its side, and as much land cultivated as the peasant can manage. So the people of the parishes are scattered about over a wide track, except where the villages happen to be. And for _where_ it is--Luneburg is in Hanover, and Hanover is in Germany. You must look on the map when you go home. Now I will go on--
"'And next to the fact that I am a Luneburger, comes the fact that I am a Hermannsburger; and for me Hermannsburg is the dearest and prettiest village on the heath. My mission story touches this very beloved Hermannsburg. From my youth up I have been a sort of a bookworm; and whenever I could find something about Germany, still more something about the Luneburg heath, and yet more anything about Hermannsburg, then I was delighted. Even as a boy, when I could just understand the book of the Roman writer Tacitus about old Germany, I knew no greater pleasure than with my Tacitus in my pocket to wander through the heaths and moors and woodlands, and then in the still solitude to sit down under a pine tree or an oak and read the account of the manners and customs of our old heathen forefathers. And then I read how our old forefathers were so brave and strong that merely their tall forms and their fiery blue eyes struck terror into the Romans; and that they were so unshakably true to their word, once it was given, that a simple promise from one of them was worth more than the strongest oath from a Roman. I read how they were so chaste and modest that breaking of the marriage vow was almost an unknown crime; so noble and hospitable, that even a deadly enemy, if he came to one of their houses, found himself in perfect security, and might stay until the last morsel had been shared with him; and then his host would go with him to the next house to prepare him a reception there.
"'But my heart bled too, when I read of their crimes and misdeeds, their inhuman worship of idols, when even human beings were slaughtered on bloody altars of stone, or drowned in deep, hidden, inland lakes; when I read how insatiable the thirst for war and plunder among our forefathers was, how fearful their anger, how brutish their rage for drink and play; and when I read further, how the whole of heathen Germany was an almost unbroken wood and moorland, without cities or villages, where men ran about in the forests almost naked, at the most, clothed with the skin of a beast, like wild animals themselves; and got their living only by the chase, or from wild roots, with acorns and beechmast; then, even as a boy, I marvelled at the wonderful workings of Christianity. Only one thing I could not understand; how there should be nowadays in Christian Germany so much lying, unfaithfulness, and marriage-breaking, while our heathenish ancestors were such true, honest, chaste, and loyal men; it always seemed to me as if a German Christian must stand abashed before his heathen forefathers. And when I observed further, how many Germans nowadays are cowardly-hearted, while among our heathen ancestors such a reproach was reckoned the fearfullest of insults, it was past my comprehension how a Christian German, who believes in everlasting life, can be a coward, and his heathenish ancestors, who yet knew nothing about the blessed heaven, have been so valiant and brave.'"
"Ditto," said Maggie, interrupting him, "do you think that is all true?"
"Pastor Harms would not have lied to save his right hand."
"And--but--Ditto, do you think people in America are so bad as that?"
Meredith smiled and hesitated.