Missing Friends. Thorvald Peter Ludwig Weitemeyer
r Ludwig Weitemeyer
Missing Friends / Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880)
INTRODUCTORY
was born in Copenhagen in the year 1850. My father was a builder there in moderately good circumstances. I was the second son of a large family, and it was my parents' great ambition that we all should receive a good education. My eldest brother was intended for a profession, and I was to be, like my father, a builder, and to take up his business when old enough to do so.
My father ruled us with an iron hand. I am sure he had as much love for us all as most fathers have for their children, but it was considered necessary when I was twenty years old to treat me as boys of ten are ordinarily treated. During the time I learned my trade in my father's shop I never knew the pleasure of owning a sixpence. After I had learned my trade, it was just the same. I worked for my father and received my food, clothes, and lodging as before, but I never dared to absent myself for a quarter of an hour even without asking permission, and that permission was as often refused as granted. A rebellious feeling kept growing up in me; but I dared not ask my father to relax a little and give me more liberty. To assert my independence before him seemed just as impossible, and yet my position had become to me unbearable. There was but one thing to do, viz., to run away, and I had scarcely conceived this idea before I carried it into execution.
I was now twenty-one years old. One evening, after saying good-night to my parents in the usual orthodox fashion, I went to my room, and when all was still, crept downstairs again and left the house. I had a bundle of clothes with me and a watch, which I pawned next morning. I forget the exact amount I received for it, but to the best of my recollection it was the first money I ever possessed, and it seemed to me a vast sum to do with just as I liked. I dared not to stay in Copenhagen for fear of meeting my father, or somebody who knew me, so I bought a through ticket for Hamburg the same day, and although the purchase of this ticket nearly exhausted my funds, it was with a feeling of glorious freedom that I left Copenhagen. On arriving in Hamburg I obtained work at my trade without difficulty, and soon saved a little money, so that a few months after I found myself on board an emigrant ship bound for Queensland, where I have been ever since; but for fourteen years I never wrote home. After that interval I sent a short letter to my eldest brother, telling him that I was in Queensland, married, in good health, my own master, but that I had not made my fortune; however I owed nobody anything, and was satisfied, &c., and asked only for news.
By return of mail came two letters, one from my father and the other from my brother. My brother wrote that our father was now getting to be an old man, and that his one sorrow these many years had been what had become of me, coupled with the fear that I did not remember him as a loving father; that he had always acted as he thought best for us, and that the greatest joy the earth could offer him would be if he might see me again. My father wrote in the same strain, adding that if I could not come home I must write, and that nothing I had done would seem trivial or uninteresting for him to read about.
When I had read these letters my conscience smote me. Not that I had ever felt indifferent to my parents. I had thought of them often. I do not think ever a day went over my head during those fourteen years in which I did not remember them. Yet I had never written. But I was now a married man, had children of my own, and I could fully realize how it is that the parents' love for their children is so inconceivably greater than children's love for their parents. Would it not be a hard day for me if ever I should have to bid good-bye to any of my sons, even if they went out of the front door, so to speak, with my blessing? Would the least they could do be to write to me circumstantially and often what they thought, what they did, how they fared? And here was I who never to that moment had been conscious of having done my parents any wrong! Yes; I would write. I began the same evening, and kept writing on about all my wanderings from the day I had left home up to the time of writing, and as I wrote, many things which I thought I had forgotten came clearly to my mind; and so I grew interested in it myself. I had my writing copied. All this took time; but at last the manuscript was posted to my father with a large photograph of myself enclosed. It arrived the day after his death, but before the funeral. They buried the manuscript and photograph with him.
These are matters far too sacred to write much about, even anonymously. I only touch upon them to show the origin of the following narrative. The copy I had taken has been lying in my desk now for some years, and when I took it out the other day it occurred to me that as it gives a faithful picture of life that thousands of people lead here in Queensland, it might be of general interest. I doubt if ever a book was written with more regard to truth. I have added nothing to the original manuscript, but I have erased such private matters as, of course, would be out of place in a publication, and I have also considerably shortened the description of the voyage out, as a voyage across the sea is a more than twice-told tale to most Australian people. I have also altered the names of persons and places mentioned wherever I have thought it necessary. It is now several years since the events recorded happened. The incidents themselves are sometimes trifling and always harmless. Should any one who may read this book think they recognize themselves in any part of my descriptions, I must beg them to accept my apology. They will most likely then also recognize the substantial truth of my description and my endeavour not to be too personal.
Although it will be seen by the reader that I have often acted foolishly and seldom excelled in wisdom, yet I do not wish it to be understood that I consider my life altogether misspent. As I look back, I think of myself as being always cheerful. It is the privilege of youth to be happy under almost any circumstances, and I was young when these things I here set down happened. If the tale has a moral, I think it will be found sufficiently obvious. Queensland is full of missing friends. Some come to the colony in the hope of making a speedy fortune, that they may go home again and bless the old folks with their good fortune. Others come out with the hope of making a good home, and to bring the old people thither. The successful man is generally a dutiful son too, insomuch, at least, that he lets everybody know of his success; but the man who fails, either from lack of perseverance or from untoward circumstances, too often becomes a "missing friend." It is generally true that a man is valued according to the cut of his coat, but it is not true between parent and son. So! write home, you lonely swagsman on the dusty track of the far interior. Do not think yourself forgotten. If you have parents alive you have friends too, who think of you night and day. If you will only let them know that you yet have a thought left for them, they will bless you.
I have nothing else to add to this introduction, except that possibly the book might have been more interesting if it contained more thrilling adventures, but in my opinion the only merit which it may possess lies in the strict regard paid to truth and the avoidance of all exaggeration from beginning to end.
CHAPTER I.
MY FIRST EXPERIENCES ON LEAVING HOME
Having left Copenhagen in the way just described and arrived in Hamburg, my first care was to get work, which I fortunately obtained the next day. The place I worked in was a large building or series of buildings, four or five stories high, with cabinet-makers' shops from the cellars to the loft. We had to be at work at six o'clock in the morning, and to keep on till eight o'clock at night. Even on Sundays we worked from six o'clock to dinner-time. Some would keep on till it was dark on Sunday evening, and content themselves with knocking off early, as they called it. And such work! Everybody would work as if the house were on fire. It was all piecework. The man who stood next myself had made veneered chests of drawers for thirty years, and never had made anything else. He would turn out two veneered chests of drawers in a week, and the work was faultless. These chests would, I am sure, sell readily in Brisbane for from twelve to fifteen pounds each. He earned about nine Prussian thalers per week. On the other side of me stood a man who made German secretaires. There were nine or ten men in the shop. The master was working too. He seemed just as poor as the men. Whenever work was finished, some furniture dealer would come round and buy it. The men seemed all more or less askew in their bodies with overwork. If ever they had an ambition in their lives, it was to instil a proper sense of respect into the two apprentices. I did pity these two boys. They received their board and lodging from the master, but they could, I am sure, easily have made one meal out of their four daily allowances. They slept in a corner of the shop. They had, of course, to be at work at six o'clock in the morning the