We talked on, for Mina understood English, although many of her mates could chatter only in their Würtemberg dialect, whose provincialisms confused my carefully learned German; I was grounded in Goethe, well read in Schiller, and struggling with Jean Paul, who, fortunately, is 'der Einzige,' the only; another such would destroy life. At length a bell sounded, and forthwith work was laid aside in the fields, the workshops, and the houses, while all partook of a light repast, one of the five meals with which the long summer day of toil is broken. Flagons of beer had the men afield, with bread and cheese; the women took bread and apple-butter. But Mina did not care for the thick slice which the thrifty house-mother had provided; she had not the steady unfanciful appetite of the Community which eats the same food day after day, as the cow eats its grass, desiring no change. 'And the gardener really wishes you to marry Jacob?' I said as she sat on the grass near me, enjoying the rest. 'Yes, Jacob is good,--always the same.' 'And Gustav?' 'Ah, mein Gustav! Lady, _he_ is young, tall,--so tall as tree; he run, he sing, his eyes like veilchen there, his hair like gold. If I see him not soon, lady, I die! The year so long,--so long they are. Three year without Gustav!' The brown eyes grew dim, and out came the square-folded handkerchief, of colored calico for week-days. 'But it will not be long now, Mina.' 'Yes; I hope.' 'He writes to you, I suppose?' 'No. Gustav knows not to write, he not like school. But he speak through the other boys, Ernst the verliebte of Rosine, and Peter of Doroty.' 'The Zoar soldiers were all young men?' 'Yes; all verliebte. Some are not; they have gone to the Next Country' (died). 'Killed in Battle?' 'Yes; on the berge that looks,--what you call I not know.' 'Lookout Mountain?' 'Yes' 'Were the boys volunteers?' I asked, remembering the Community theory of non-resistance. 'O yes; they volunteer, Gustav the first. _They_ not drafted,' said Wilhelmina, proudly. For these two words so prominent during the war, had penetrated even into this quiet little valley. 'But did the trustees approve?' 'Apperouve?' 'I mean did they like it?' 'Ah! they like it not. They talk, they preach in church, they say 'No.' Zoar must give soldiers? So. Then they take money and pay for der substitute; but the boys they must not go.' 'But they went in spite of the trustees?' 'Yes; Gustav first. They go in night, they walk in woods, over the hills to Brownville, where is der recruiter. The morning come, they gone!' 'They have been away three years, you say? They have seen the world in that time,' I remarked half to myself, as I thought of the strange mind-opening and knowledge-gaining of those years to youths brought up in the strict seclusion of the Community. 'Yes; Gustav have seen the wide world,' answered Wilhelmina with pride.