APPENDIX. THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN DIALECT. (continued 2)

He said that among the mines in Schuylkill the population is English, that is, American, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish, but in the valleys there are “Dutch” farmers, mostly Lutherans, he thinks.

“The farmers lived well in the valleys of Schuylkill County; no danger of freezing in winter between two feather-beds;” and Mr. W. liked the fried pawn-haus, although he found it rather rich.

“In that county I had some of the pleasantest times. I was there as a teacher, and they immediately appropriated me. I was not obliged to wait for the formality of an introduction in the German community. I could see, however, a tendency to mistrust the man of Yankee origin, and to combine against him; the young men fearing lest the teacher should cut them out with the girls. I was invited to go one evening on a sleighing-party. There were an equal number of young men and girls, and at a village we took in two fiddlers. We drove several miles to a stone tavern or farm-house (for the tavern-keeper is generally a farmer). The fiddlers sat in the window-seats, formed by the thick stone walls; and the dance was lively until the small hours. The dancers made a business of it, and went to work with a will. The dances were called ‘straight eights,’ forward and back, and mostly shuffles. Although at a tavern, none got drunk. Coming home, the driver increased the fun by upsetting the party in the snow.

“I taught public school, and on account of not speaking German I had much difficulty with the younger scholars, who, being under the care of their mothers, seldom heard the English language. The home talk was always in ‘Dutch,’ as they called it, though the fathers, when transacting business, were able to speak English.

“Even the larger pupils were not able to understand all of their lessons in English. Some of the farmers were rich. The ‘Dutch’ farmers were universally Democrats.” So says Mr. W.

Another lawyer, named H. (of Pennsylvania German origin), has given me some of his recollections of Berks County. Berks is that county concerning which it has been a standing joke that its people still voted for Andrew Jackson,—a well-worn joke.

“It must have been a select party,” says Mr. H., “that W. was at, if none of them got drunk.”

“The great dancing tunes in Berks are Fisher’s Hornpipe, Washington’s Grand March, Charlie over the Water, Yankee Doodle, Hail Columbia, and We won’t go Home till Morning.”

“The walls in the stone houses in Berks are generally two feet thick, built like forts, with plenty of room to sit in the window-seats, but usually the landlord had a long bar-room table, on which he put chairs for the fiddlers. About every third dance they must have a drink, which frequent potations sometimes brought them to the floor, unable to distinguish sounds.” “The dancing they indulge in in Berks,” says Mr. H., “is not the fashionable kind, but is more exhausting than mauling rails in August, or thrashing rye with a flail. The figures are called out by some skilful person; the dances are called straight fours or hoe-downs, the dancers being arranged in four rows, in a sort of double column on each side. After the inside couples have danced and all have changed places, the former are allowed to rest while the outside couples dance.”

“The battalion (Pennsylvania Dutch, Badolya?) is an annual day of joy and festivity in Berks County. The annual training, which gave name to the day, has long been given up, but still just before hay-making the landlords of the country towns, such as Kutztown or Hamburg, will advertise that they will hold the annual battalion (without any soldiers). The peanut-venders, the men with flying-horses, and the others who expect to reap the harvest, come during the night before, and by six in the morning everything is ready, and about that hour the farmers begin to come in, wives, sons, daughters, hired men, and maids, even little children and quite small babies.

“The farmers patronize the landlords by dining and drinking. You can get a good dinner at Kutztown for less money than in any other town I know. As for drinking, bars have even been set up upon the second floor where the dancing took place.

“The old folks amuse themselves by talking together, looking on and seeing how well their sons and daughters can dance, the old men drinking a little whiskey, several times repeated, and perhaps treating their wives to some sarsaparilla. By evening the old folks will be at home; but the daughters, who could hardly expect the young men to walk home with them as long as the sun was shining, stay later, carrying gingerbread and pea-nuts home in their handkerchiefs.

“Roving gamblers also visit the battalion; and many an unwary youth has lost all his money, earned by hard work, and, after that was gone, has striven to better his fortune, but unsuccessfully, by giving up his watch.”

The remark of the last speaker, that they still have the badolya, or annual training, in Berks without any soldiers, reminds me that they still have in Germany the Kirch-weih, church consecration, or saint’s day, without going to any church at all, but dance and are merry after harvest.

I was told some years back of farmers in Berks “worth from thirty to eighty thousand dollars who never bring wheat bread to the table except at Christmas and New Year’s. This is from their great economy and desire to sell the wheat.”

Mrs. R., of Lehigh County, tells me that at her father’s they baked wheat bread on Saturday, for Sunday, but during the week they ate rye.

When her brother-in-law returned from a visit to Ohio, he said, “Daraus in Ohio, ’s is so schane. Sie essen laute waytzbrod;” or, “Out in Ohio it is so fine. They eat altogether wheat bread.”

There is a part of the city of Lancaster which is called Germany. Here natives of that country buy house-lots, and send their children out to beg until they find they have a secure footing. Nor does the average citizen disapprove of this proceeding; although he is dissatisfied if a woman who owns two brick houses sends to the soup-house for a free lunch.

I was amused one day in Lancaster by a boy’s asking, “Won’t you give me a penny to save?” A pretty little girl, comfortably dressed and speaking German, came into one of the newspaper offices for help, the family having been unfortunate. When some one gave her a penny, she took from her pocket a purse and put her money away.

Three great waves of emigration, it may be said, early settled Pennsylvania. The Quakers settled in the southeast. I have travelled among Friends in several localities, but I never saw any other community so strongly Quaker as Chester County.

The German immigration mostly lay outside of this, on the north and west. West of Chester County lies Lancaster, settled in a great measure by German Baptists (Mennonites), and which is probably one of the strongest Baptist populations in the world. Farther west the Scotch-Irish element is very strong. In the west of the State I was surprised by hearing a physician (I will call his name McCalmont) say that the Scotch-Irish had been the making of Pennsylvania. It is this class, doubtless, who have caused the region around Pittsburgh to be called the backbone of Presbyterianism.

This volume does not endeavor to describe the manners and ways of living of all Pennsylvania Germans, but only of the majority. People of wealth and education resemble each other in most civilized lands. And although the Pennsylvania Germans are principally devoted to agriculture, yet about twenty per cent., as I estimate, have gone into cities and into other employments. Among those who have aided less or more in the publication of this volume are ministers, lawyers, physicians, editors, bankers, merchants, and teachers of Pennsylvania German origin. Many persons of note in Pennsylvania have been of German descent, from Peter Muhlenberg, a Lutheran preacher, who commanded a regiment in the Revolution, to a number of governors of this State,—Snyder, Hiester, Shulze, Wolf, Ritner, Shunk, and Hartranft. Governor Hartranft’s ancestor, then called Hertteranfft, came in with the Schwenkfelders in 1734.

To these distinguished Pennsylvania Germans I may add Dr. Gross, the eminent surgeon. The German blood is also found in a great number of families in our country. It is stated that Simon Cameron is of Scottish descent on the father’s side; and on the mother’s is descended from Conrad Pfoutz. The Hon. Jeremiah S. Black and William D. Howells, the well-known author, have told me that they are partly of Pennsylvania German origin.

THE END.