Posted by Many Flags on January 21, 2001 at 06:07:44:
21 Januar 1759
The Cabin in Allemangel
Journal Entry:
Much has happened since the last entry. Magdalena and I continue to settle more and more in our married life. We have kept young Andrew the artist on with us, he throws his pallet by the fire each night. He is great company, making us laugh at times with his silly jokes. But he can be a serious young man, and his drawings are such wonderful likenesses. He has never told us his last name, being a small mystery there. So, we have taken to calling him Herr Kuntz, short for Kuntzler.
The butchering was wonderful good and we took away several loins, sausage, panhaus (which some call scrapple) and other such delicacies. We started before dark last Samstag and all the local folk came together, some of them cousins, uncles, aunts of ours, the Schisslers, Kistlers and Reichelderfers among them. My father, the German immigrant was one of the main men with the Rauthmall brothers, doing the close work of gutting the 8 hogs and saving all the parts which are edible, which is almost the whole animal. I have done some of this work before, but the older men know this business best, saving intestines for sausage skins, finding the sweetbreads, putting aside the livers for the liverwurst and panhaus, and all other parts going into the panhaus, after cutting the skin and fat to cook down into lard and kracklins. It is a long process, but by the end of the day, we have the satisfaction of gut essen which will keep through the winter since game animals are so scarce.
We had a heavy snow last evening, but Andrew Kuntz and I have much firewood cut, split and stacked to the eaves on the cabin porch and in a small woodshed which I built soon after finishing the cabin. Luckily, I had also built another small shed, so I have turned this into a smokehouse and the hams and sausage have been hanging in there for a week, a smoke of sassafras and hickory woods permeating the meats, for preservation and taste. Magdalena has been up before sunrise and as I write this, she has begun to fry panhaus and some buckwheat cakes. We have some maple sugar to add to this breakfast, a gift from Sign Talker. Leben ist gut!
Sign Talker came visiting last week at the Rauthmall brothers. He came bustling in with Bristlebrush pulling him this way and that while we were butchering. I took a short time to talk with him and it was then that he gave me the gift of several cones of the maple sugar. But, a strange occurrance then happened. Sign Talker and I had talked a bit, in sign of course, when several of the children ran up to me, pulling at my leggins and asked if I could tell them an adventure. The children in the area, knowing that brother Tales and I were once Scouts with the 77th, often ask Three Tales and I to tell stories. Tales being there also, we both sat down, took several of the children on our knees, Sign Talker sat on a deer hide, the ground being covered with some snow, and we told some stories. Tales and I had told some of the story of the death of Red Leaf, when one of the children asked us to relate the story of the man whom we had found dying near my cabin, before Magdalena and I were married. I had told this story once before to the children, but children will ask for certain favorites over and over again.
I didn't wish to tell this story, but the one lad piped up, "What was it the man said before he died, Many Flags?" I replied, "Well, he whispered the words 'redbud'."
At this, Tales and I noticed that Sign Talker had become very animated. He signed to me - I TELL YOU. ALL YOU DANGER. EVIL BROTHER SHORT FAT RED KILL......But, Sign Talker did not finish and I had no chance to ask him to make more sense of his signs. For at that moment, Bristlebrush, that crazy small horse with the travois attached, the horse which tacks like a boat in the wind, began to paw and move off. Sign Talker lunged to grab his bridle and in trying to stop this strange animal from taking off, got his buffalo robe caught in Bristlebrush's harness and was carried off, dragging, yelling, cursing. I have never heard so many actual words come out of my Indian friend's mouth. The whole butchering crowd thought it quite funny and Sign Talker was gone from sight in a few moments. But, Three Tales and I stood there, gazing at each other with furrowed brows. For, we were the only ones to know what Sign Talker had "said" to us.
We know not what the words of Sign Talker meant, but we know that there is something evil which is trying to kill. Kill us? Whose brother was he speaking of? Is Redbud an evil man who has a brother that is short and fat?
I have decided to ask my young friend Andrew Kuntz if he will take a letter to the 77th at Bedford and warn our cousins and comrades that there is evil afoot, although we don't know what sort of evil it will be when it rears its ugly head. In the meantime, my rifle stays loaded, my rifle with the beech leaf carved on it, the one made by Wolfgang Haga of Reading. I sleep with it next to me and my pipehawk nearby.
Breakfast is ready. Magdalena has called to me and young Andrew is up and about. I will ask him today if he will take the journey to Fort Bedford to see Malcolm and Davey.
Good Sabbath! We will read the heilige Schrift and have prayer on our own today since the circuit riding preacher is not due to arrive in our area for a few more weeks. Magdalena has asked if we could travel south to Womelsdorf and listen to her father, the Pastor Gutshall, preach in the Lutheran Kirche there. It is about a day's journey for us. So, I have assented, but wish to wait until the weather breaks and this latest snow melts.
Pax Aye!
Many Flags, Mann von Magdalena Viele Fahnenin