Mary’s liking for bright, energetic Frau Schmidt was not greater than the affection bestowed on Mary by the Professor’s wife, who frequently entertained Mary with tales of her life when a girl in Germany, to all of which Mary never tired listening.  One Aunt, a most estimable woman, held the position of valued and respected housekeeper and cook for the Lord Mayor of the city wherein she resided.  Another relative, known as “Schone Anna,” for many years kept an inn named “The Four Seasons,” noted for the excellent fare served by the fair chatelaine to her patrons.  The inn was made famous by members of the King’s household stopping there while in the town during the Summer months, which was certainly a compliment to her good cooking.  One of the things in which she particularly excelled was potato cakes raised with yeast.  Frau Schmidt had been given a number of these valuable recipes by her mother, all of which she offered to Mary.  One recipe she particularly liked was “Fast Nacht Cakes,” which the Professor’s wife baked always without fail on Shrove Tuesday (or “Fast Nacht” day), the day before the beginning of Lent.  This rule was as “unchangeable as the law of Medes and Persians,” and it would have been a very important event, indeed, which would have prevented the baking of these toothsome delicacies on that day.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE OLD “TAUFSCHIEN.”

[Illustration:  BIRTH AND CHRISTENING CERTIFICATE

OLD TAUFSCHIEN]

Aunt Sarah had long promised to show Mary her Grandmother’s “Taufschien,” and she reverently handled the large old family Bible, which contained between its sacred pages the yellowed paper, being the birth and christening certificate of her grandmother, whom we read was born in 1785, in Nockamixon Township, was confirmed in 1802, and was married in 1805 to the man who was later Aunt Sarah’s grandfather.  The old certificate was signed by a German Reformed minister named Wack, who history tells us was the first young man of that denomination to be ordained to the ministry in America.  Folded with this “Taufschien” is another which has never been filled out.  This is printed in German.  Pictures of women, perhaps they are intended to represent angels, with golden wings, clothed in loose-flowing crimson drapery and holding harps in their hands; birds with gayly-colored plumage of bluish green, crimson and yellow, perched on branches of what presumably represent cherry trees, also decorate the page.  Religious hymns printed on the “Taufschiens,” encircled with gay stripes of light blue and yellow, dotted with green, further embellish them.  On one we read: 

    “Infinite joy or endless woe,
      Attend on every breath;
    And yet, how unconcerned we go
      Upon the brink of death.”

“Mary, this old ‘Taufschien’ of my grandmother’s is one of my most cherished possessions.  Would you like to see your Uncle’s old deed, which he came into possession of when he inherited the farm from his father?”