Many old-time industries are passing away.  Yet Sarah Landis, was a housewife of the old school and still cooked apple butter, or “Lodt Varrik,” as the Germans call it; made sauerkraut and hard soap, and naked old-fashioned “German” rye bread on the hearth, which owed its excellence not only to the fact of its being hearth baked but to the rye flour being ground in an old mill in a near-by town, prepared by the old process of grinding between mill-stones instead of the more modern roller process.  This picture of the old mill, taken by Fritz Schmidt, shows it is not artistic, but, like most articles of German manufacture, the mill was built more for its usefulness than to please the eye.

[Illustration:  The old mill]

“Aunt Sarah, what is pumpernickel?” inquired Mary, “is it like rye bread?”

“No, my dear, not exactly, it is a dark-colored bread, used in some parts of Germany.  Professor Schmidt tells me the bread is usually composed of a mixture of barley flour and rye flour.  Some I have eaten looks very much like our own brown bread.  Pumpernickel is considered a very wholesome bread by the Germans—­and I presume one might learn to relish it, but I should prefer good, sweet, home-made rye bread.  I was told by an old gentleman who came to this country from Germany when a boy, that pumpernickel was used in the German army years ago, and was somewhat similar to ‘hard tack,’ furnished our soldiers in the Civil War.  But I cannot vouch for the truth of this assertion.”

“Aunt Sarah,” said Mary later, “Frau Schmidt tells me the Professor sends his rye to the mill and requests that every part of it be ground without separating—­making what he calls ‘whole rye flour,’ and from this Frau Schmidt bakes wholesome, nutritious bread which they call ‘pumpernickel,’ She tells me she uses about one-third of this ’whole rye flour’ to two-thirds white bread flour when baking bread, and she considers bread made from this whole grain more wholesome and nutritious than the bread made from our fine rye flour.”

CHAPTER IV.

John Landis.

The Bucks County farmer, John Landis, rather more scholarly in appearance than men ordinarily found in agricultural districts, was possessed of an adust complexion, caused by constant exposure to wind and weather; tall and spare, without an ounce of superfluous fat; energetic, and possessed of remarkable powers of endurance.  He had a kindly, benevolent expression; his otherwise plain face was redeemed by fine, expressive brown eyes.  Usually silent and preoccupied, and almost taciturn, yet he possessed a fund of dry humor.  An old-fashioned Democrat, his wife was a Republican.  He usually accompanied Aunt Sarah to her church, the Methodist, although he was a member of the German Reformed, and declared he had changed his religion to please her, but change his politics, never.  A member of the Masonic Lodge, his only diversion was an occasional trip to the city with a party of the “boys” to attend a meeting of the “Shriners.”