One Man

Kevin Enty

Description

My father's brother was a boatman; and there was no greater joy for me than when he was with his ship lay here in the port. Then I had no peace at home, but asked if they would let me go to Munde. Oh, what a merry life when I was on the ship, jumping about with the sailors at their work!
Not much less was my love and joy of gardening, because my grandfather was also a special garden lover, always took me to his garden, even gave me a small patch of land to own and let me see and learn what gardening was all about. Here I put fruit pits; I transplanted, I grafted and grafted; I watered and tended to my plants.

Sujets

• Special Interest
• Travel
• Adventure

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 14 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456640293
• Langue: English

Extrait

ONE MAN
KEVIN ENTY
ONE MAN
Copyright © Kevin Enty

I
1
I was born on September 20 and was given the baptismal name Joachim . My father, Johann David, was a brewer and brandy distiller here and was particularly loved and devoted to the citizenry. I inherited this happiness from him, and I still enjoy it now, at my age, with my dear fellow citizens. My mother was of the sailor's bare family. I also have to gratefully mention my two godparents – namely the merchants Lorenz Runge and Gruneberg – because some of their fatherly ideas and what other good things they impressed on me made an impression on me that has accompanied me throughout my life.
Since I was barely nine months old, I have been brought up by my paternal grandparents; but as soon as I could babble, my mind was set on becoming a boatman. This may well be due to the fact that such things have often been blurted out to me. My passion for it drove me so violently that I carved little boats out of every piece of wood, every bit of bark that fell into my hands, fitted them with feather or paper sails, and handled them on gutters and ponds or on the persante .
A few of my earliest and liveliest memories are attached to this small but invaluable piece of property, the care of which is still a joy in my old age.
I might well have been a lad of five or six, still in my first panties (that is, about or), when there was such a terribly scarce and dear time here, and in the country far and wide that many people died of hunger, because a bushel of rye cost a thaler eight groschen. Many poor people came from inland to Kolohen, bringing their hungry little worms with them on wheelbarrows to fetch grain from here, because grain ships were expected in our harbor to steer the cruel misery. All the streets around us were full of these unfortunate starving people. My grandmother, with whom I was brought up, as I have already said, had several baskets full of green cabbage picked from our garden every day, and boiled one cauldron full after the other for our dying ones Guests, and I was given the gladly accepted honorary office of bringing them this meal in small bowls together with a slice of bread. Then the old and the young eagerly snatched my bowl out of my hand, or probably from one another's mouths. I cannot express what a dreadful impression this scene made on my childish soul.
Finally a ship with rye arrived in the roadstead, which a thousand longing eyes and hearts turned towards. But oh pity! On entering the harbor it struck a rocky coast of the pier and was so badly damaged that it sank to the bottom in the current itself, only a few hundred paces away, opposite the Munder Bailiwick. Should the valuable cargo not be completely lost, urgent preparations had to be made to get the crashed vehicle back on the water. Two ships were then used for this, which were also in the harbour, and one of which was led by my father's brother. So I was constantly present during this ascension, which gave me childish joy; was sometimes also pushed aside as useless and a hindrance, and I kept all these individual circumstances in mind all the better.
Even if the ship was successfully refloated, the grain was soaked through, unsuitable for grinding and the hope of all those who had hoped for it was frustrated. The citizens of Kolohen bought the damaged rye for a quarter of the prevailing market price, and since my father was the royal grain knife in town at the time, the entire salvaged load passed through his hands. Everyone tried to manage their purchase as well as possible and to dry it off as quickly as possible. All the streets were thus covered with sheets and aprons, on which the grain was exposed to the air and sun. A short time later a appeared second large grain ship; and now it was finally possible to satisfy foreign poverty.
In the following year Kolohen received, through the kindness of the great Frederick, a gift that was completely unknown in this country at the time. A large wagon full of potatoes arrived at the market; and by drumming in the city and in the suburbs, it was announced that every garden owner was to appear at a certain hour in front of the town hall, in which the King's majesty had intended a special boon for him. It is easy to see how turbulently everything got into motion, and all the more so the less one knew what this gift meant.
The gentlemen from the council now showed the assembled crowd the new fruit, which no one here had seen before. Alongside this was read a lengthy instruction how these potatoes should be planted and cultivated, as well as how they should be boiled and prepared. Of course, it would have been better if such written or printed instructions had been distributed at the same time; because now in the tumult, very few people paid attention to that lecture. On the other hand, the good people took the highly praised bulbs in their hands in amazement, smelled, tasted and licked them; shaking their heads, one neighbor offered them to the other; they were broken apart and thrown to the dogs present, who sniffed at them and uniformly despised them. Now they were sentenced! "These things," they said, "have no smell or taste, and even the dogs don't like to eat them. What good would that do us?” The most general belief was that they would grow into trees from which similar fruits would be shaken in due course. All this was negotiated in the market place, right in front of my parents' door; gave me enough to think about and wonder about and has therefore also been preserved in my memory, down to the iota.
In the meantime, the king's will was carried out and his bounty distributed among the garden owners present, according to the proportion of their possessions, but in such a way that even the lesser ones did not go out among a few butchers. Hardly anyone understood the instructions given to grow them. So whoever did not throw them on the rubbish heap outright in his disappointed expectation, went about the planting as wrongly as possible. Some stuck them in the ground here and there one at a time without paying any further attention to them; others (including my dear grandmother with her fourth daughter) thought it would be even smarter to attack the thing if they dumped these potatoes together in a heap and covered them with some earth. There they now grew into a dense felt; and I still often look thoughtfully at the spot in my garden where the good woman taught her first lesson in this way.
However, the gentlemen from the Council may well have soon found out that there were many loose despisers among the recipients who would not even have entrusted their treasure to the earth. Therefore, in the summer months, a general and strict potato inspection was organized by the council servant and field warden, and a small fine was imposed on those who were found to be unruly. This in turn gave rise to a great outcry and did not serve to awaken better patrons and friends for the new fruit in the punished.
The year after, the king renewed his charitable donation by a similar charge. But this time it was more expedient to proceed higher up, in that a country rider was sent along who, as a Swabian by birth (his name was Eilert, and his descendants are still alive in Treptow), knew how to grow potatoes and helped the people with the planting and took care of her further care. So this new fruit first came into the land and has ever since, by ever increasing Cultivation, vigorously defended, that never again has a famine been able to take hold of us so universally and oppressively. Nevertheless, I remember very well that it was not until a full forty years later (1785) near Stargard that I found, to my pleasant astonishment, the first potatoes planted in the open field.
Besides some other childish things, I was also a great lover of pigeons. I saved enough of my breakfast money to buy myself a pair. Now that was glorious! But since my grandparents lived under the post office at Herr Frauendorf's, there was no opportunity here to fly the pigeons. So I made an agreement with the so-called "post boy", Johann Witte (later post and bank director in Memel), that he should take my pigeons with him, but I should give a certain portion of peas to feed them every day, which unfortunately I gave to my grandparents secretly carried away in their pockets! The pigeons multiplied, and consequently the field peas too.
With all these games, school was missed (unfortunately again!); I had neither the desire nor the time to do so. When my grandmother thought I was busy at school, I was navigating in gutters and ponds, or hanging out with my pigeons; and it bothered me so much that I could not rest from it, day or night. This restless busyness also haunted me later on in far more important matters and even into my old age. Admittedly, in doing so, I probably cared less for myself than for others of my fellow human beings.
Godfather Runge, who had no wife or children, loved me very much and spent a lot of time with me, gave me some encouragement for these antics. Finally, however, he interrogated me a little more seriously (as he sometimes does by Godfather Gruneberg) and told me that if I wanted to become a skipper, I would have to go to school diligently, write well and learn arithmetic well, otherwise I should never think of anything like that. That really got to my heart. I pondered what would have to be stopped from my current actions and activities? - What different than my pigeons, which cost me so much time and yet were so close to my heart! However I might consider it, it was no different; I had to let my dear little animals go, which meanwhile had multiplied considerably! This happened by means of a formal written contract, whereby I made Johann Witte her sole lord and owner.
So I got rid of my pigeons and now I get such a burning urge to go to school that the desire to learn followed me everywhere. I wanted an