THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
written. My hesitating manner at once convinced him that something was amiss, and a few direct questions brought me to full confession. Then the following conversation took place:
“You failed to do your duty and you tried to conceal the truth from me; don't you think that you deserve a whipping?”
“Yes, but do please let us go into the cow-stable, so that nobody can see or hear it.”
The request was granted. In the solitude of the cow-stable I received my punishment, and nobody knew anything about it; but for many a day I carried with me a bitter consciousness of well-deserved humiliation, and for a long time I would not put foot into the cow-stable, the theater of my disgrace.
But my childhood was on the whole sunny and happy, and if my memory fondly dwells upon it and I am a little diffuse in describing it, I must be pardoned. I consider myself fortunate to have spent my early life in the country, where one feels himself not only nearer to nature, but nearer to his kind than in the confinements and jostling crowds of the city. I also consider myself fortunate in having grown up in simple and modest circumstances which knew neither want nor excessive affluence, and which did not permit any sort of luxury to become a necessity; which made it natural to me to be frugal and to appreciate the smallest pleasures; which preserved my capacity of enjoyment from the misfortune of being blunted and blasé; which kept alive and warm the sympathy, that feeling of belonging together, with the poor and lowly among the people, without discouraging the striving for higher aims.
Our village was so small that only a few steps led into field or forest, and every inhabitant was a near neighbor.
[ 42 ]
