Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA381&id=12YTAAAAYAAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Illustrated with Facsimiles of the original
German Woodcuts.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
LEYPOLDT & HOLT,
In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.
I see you now, my fine fellow, as large as life, with youryellow haircropped very short, except in the neck, where a long tail remains as ifyou had cut yourself after the pattern of a plough-horse. You arestaring straight at me with your broad visage, your great blue goggleeyes, and your mouth which is never shut. Do you remember the morningwe met in the hollow where the new houses stand now, when you cut me awillow-twig to make a whistle of? We little thought then that I shouldcome to pipe the world a song about you when we should be thousands ofmiles apart. I remember your costume perfectly, which is not verysurprising, as there is nothing to keep in mind but a shirt, redsuspenders, and a pair of linen pantaloons dyed black to guard againstall contingencies. On Sunday you were more stylish: then you wore a furcap with a gold tassel, a blue roundabout with broad buttons, a scarletwaistcoat, yellow shorts, white stockings, and buckled shoes, like anyother villager; and, besides, you very frequently had a fresh pinkbehind your ear. But you were never at ease in all this glory; and Ilike you rather better in your plainer garb, myself.
But now, friend gawk, go about your business; there's a goodfellow. Itmakes me nervous to tell your story to your face. You need not bealarmed: I shall say nothing ill of you, though I do speak in the thirdperson.
The gawk not only had a real name, but a whole pedigree ofthem; in thevillage he ought to have been called Bart's Bast's1 boy, and he hadbeen christened Aloys. To please him, we shall stick to this lastdesignation. He will be glad of it, because, except his mother Mariaand a few of us children, hardly any one used it; all had the impudenceto say "Gawk." On this account he always preferred our society, evenafter he was seventeen years old. In out-of-the-way places he wouldplay leap-frog with us, or let us chase him over the fields; and whenthe gawk--I should say, when Aloys--was with us, we were secure againstthe attacks of the children at the lime-pit; for the rising generationof the village was torn by incessant feuds between two hostile parties.
Yet the boys of Aloys' own age were already beginning to feeltheirsocial position. They congregated every evening, like the grown men,and marched through the village whistling and singing, or stood at thetavern-door of the Eagle, by the great wood-yard, and passed jokes withthe girls who went by. But the surest test of a big boy was thetobacco-pipe. There they would stand with their speckled bone-pipebowls, of Ulm manufacture, tipp