THE WHITE APRON.
t might be a curious question, worth asking and ascertaining, of persons whose names are famous in history or prominent among the heroic traditions of war, how large is the proportion composed of those who have greatness thrust upon them, compared to individuals who, by the virtues of true courage, perseverance, boldness, and sagacity, have achieved it for themselves?
It is at all events one that rises to the mind after hearing the story of Johanna Stegen, a fortunate milkmaid of Lüneberg, who, by no particular effort of her own, save a forced compliance, rose to fame, ultimate elevation in rank, and extreme prosperity.
In 1813 the French, greatly to the disgust of the conquered, still occupied Lüneberg. A time however was at hand when the power that deemed itself all but omnipotent, was to totter, and presently fall down amidst the well-earned execrations of all Europe.
But it is the story of the fortunate milkmaid which is the object of this paper, not the progress and termination of the first Napoleon’s wars.
On the outskirts of Lüneberg there stood then, and very possibly still remains, a little settlement of milch farm-houses. The inhabitants of this village, which is called Grimm, carried on a brisk trade by supplying the lacteal fluid in large quantities to Lüneberg, which city depended mainly on these farms for that important article of diet. Our heroine, Johanna, was employed in one of these rural dairies, and was, in short, just a milkmaid and nothing more. Truth compels her biographer to state that there was little enough of the picturesque in our Johanna’s personal appearance, and that she had even more than the usual bucolic attributes of robust health and florid bloom, charms accompanied moreover by locks whose redness was a fact above all contradiction.
But Fate, the mighty, can overcome all; and, for anything we know, could make even an empress, of a short, stout, red-headed dairy-woman.
Little indeed Johanna dreamed when—her milk-pails slung from her square shoulders—she issued forth on a certain morning, the exact date of which the present biographer fairly owns to have been unable to ascertain; little did she dream or think—supposing she was even in the habit of thinking, to which practice luckily for their health and vigour, milk-maids are not prone—that fortune was waiting slily, in no far-off nook, to invest her with all that the heart of woman is said—mind, only said—to love best, viz., rank, homage, wealth, and fame.
By Johanna’s side, on that memorable morning, came forth at the same time, similarly laden, a being, gentler and fairer, though in all likelihood no better nurtured or cultivated than her companion. This young person was an assistant dairymaid, and in this narrative, with the courteous reader’s leave, shall be called “Caroline.”
These girls were bound on their usual errand, taking to Lüneberg supplies of rich creamy fluid. They chatted and sang and laughed on their road from Grimm to Lüneberg, a distance of probably not more than a mile and a half. Suddenly, as they were nearing the city, Johanna halted.
“What dost thou stare at?” says Caroline, in her guttural German. “I see nothing.” {Ich sehe nichts.)
“Canst hear neither, perhaps,” answered Johanna, raising her hand and pointing.
And now indeed Caroline heard sharp and loud reports, which gave her an idea, expressed curtly enough.
“Fighting, eh?” quoth Caroline.
“Come on,” answered Johanna; “the milk must go to Lüneberg, if Boney himself be there! We’re late enough now, I tell you.” For Caroline showed symptoms of turning back towards Grimm, a tendency to cowardism which plainly proves her to have had no pretensions to be a heroine, and which ought to reconcile us to her ultimate fate. “Come on, I tell you, fool! they won’t hurt us!”
“No; but the bullets may. Hark! there they go—pop! pop! Johanna, never mind the milk—let the people want their breakfasts for once.”
But, arguing thus, they still walked on; and, as it proved, marched right into the lion’s mouth. When it was too late, even for women as they were, to retreat, they found themselves right in the midst of Prussian and Russian soldiers, who, up to that moment, had been pouring their fire against Lüneberg. There was, however, just then, a momentary forced cessation of hostilities on the