Chapter M: E. K (3)

I had heard somewhere the story of the doctor who in default of the necessary things wrote his prescription on the door of the room with chalk. His example was worth following now; but there was no chalk to be found in the house. I didn't know what else to suggest, and was unspeakably ashamed of being a scribe without a pen.

"My boy," said the woman suddenly, "maybe you learned to write with charcoal too?"

Yes, yes--with the charcoal--just like that on the hearth there; that would do!

"And this, in God's name, must be my writing-paper," she went on, and lifted the lid of an old coffer standing near the stove. Inside the coffer I could see cuttings of cloth, a piece of linen, and a rusty spade. When she saw me looking at the spade, she looked sadly confused, covered her old face with her brown apron, muttering, "It's a real disgrace!"

I was stricken, for I took this to be a reproach for my having no writing things about me.

"I expect you'll be making fun of me," she said. "But don't you go and think badly of me--I can't do more than I do, I really couldn't do a thing more--I'm a fairly worn-out old body!"

Then I thought I understood: the poor old woman felt herself disgraced because she could no longer handle the spade, and it had therefore gone rusty. I looked about on the hearth for a bit of soft charcoal. The pine-tree was obliging, and lent me the pen wherewith to write out Frau Drachenbinder's will, or whatever it might prove to be.

Just when the grey coffer was opened and I standing there ready to take down her words, that they might deliver their message to her grandchild in the years to come, the old woman beside me uttered a loud cry. She turned away quickly, crowed again, and then broke into hoarse laughter.

In terror I broke the charcoal in my fingers and glanced askance at the door.

When she had done laughing, she grew quiet, drew a deep breath, wiped the sweat from her face, and turning again to me, said, "Write this--it won't come to much altogether--still, you'd best begin up in the top corner, there."

I placed my hand on the topmost corner of the lid. Then the woman spoke as follows:

"One and one is God alone.--That, child of my child, is thy very own."

I wrote this on the wood.

"Two and two," she went on, "Two and two is man and wife.
Three and three the child of their life.
Four and five to eight and nine--
For griefs are countless, darling mine.
Pray as if thou hadst no hand,
Work as if thou knewest no God,
Carry fuel, and think the while,
God will cook the broth for me."

When I had written these things, Frau Drachenbinder let down the coffer lid, bolted it carefully, and said, "You've done me a great service--and there's a great stone lifted off my heart. That coffer there is my legacy to my grandchild.--And now you must tell me what I owe you for this."

I shook my head. I wouldn't ask for anything, not anything at all.

"What--learn to write so finely and then come all this long way and suffer cold the long night through and then in the end take nothing for it--that would be fine indeed!" she cried. "Why, my boy, I couldn't allow it!"

I glanced through the open door into the next room where the little church stood. It certainly would be heavenly company for my little bed at home. She guessed at once. "You're thinking of my little house-altar!" she said. "Then, in God's name, you shall have it. I can't shut it up in the chest--my dear little church--and the people would only steal it from me when I'm gone. With you it will be respected, I know, and you'll think of old Frau Drachenbinder in sacred moments, when you're saying your prayers."

And she gave me the little church as it stood. And that was the greatest bliss of all my childhood.

I dearly wanted to take it on my shoulders at once and carry it away over the hills to my home. But she said, "You dear little goose, that's impossible. When the man's back, he'll contrive something for you."

And sure enough, when the man was back again and had eaten the midday meal with us, he knew what to do. He bound the little church on to my back with a string, then stooped down in front of the wood block, and said, "Now, boy, mount again!" So for the second time I got up on his back, thrust my feet in his breeches pockets, and clung with my hands round his neck. The old woman held the waking child so that it might put out its little hand to me, uttered more thanks, and then dived behind the stove and crowed as before.

I rode away from the place, and with every movement the saints in the church kept tapping behind my back and the bells in the towers kept tinkling.

When the man had climbed with me as far as the heights of the Bürstling, and there again bound the snow-shoes fast to his feet, I asked him why Frau Drachenbinder was continually screaming for joy and laughing.

"That's not screaming nor yet laughing neither," said my horse; "Frau Drachenbinder has a lot of suffering to bear. For some years she used to have a sort of catch in the breath--such as you may get through a chill or the like: she didn't take any notice of it, let it just go its own way, and so, little by little, the barber says, that cramp-crowing and cramp-laughing came on. Her inside just twists itself up together, and when she gets excited the fits come on strong. She can hardly touch any food, and she's face to face with death all the time."

I said nothing. I looked up at the snow-white heights, at the twilight forests, and saw we were gradually climbing down towards my home in the clear Sunday afternoon. I was thinking about the little church I had got as a legacy--how I would set it up in the living-room and hold a service in it, and how my father and mother would now no longer have to trudge all that long way to the parish church.

My good horse trotted patiently on, and behind me all the way the little bells in the towers kept on chiming. What were they saying?...

Old Frau Drachenbinder died soon after that.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] With these small torches the peasants light their rooms.

V

How Little Maxel's House was Burned Down

How well I remember that night!

A dull report, as if the trap-door of the hay-loft had slammed to, woke me up. And then someone rapped on the window and called into the living-room: whoever wanted to see little Maxel's house burning must get up and go and look.

My father sprang out of bed; I began to cry, and immediately thought about rescuing my rabbit. When other people lost their heads in moments of emergency it was always blind Julia, our old servant, who calmed us down again. So now, too, she remarked it wasn't our house that was burning, but little Maxel's, and that was half an hour away; that it was not even certain that little Maxel's house was burning; that a wag, passing by, had thrown the lie in through the window; and that quite possibly no one _had_ done so at all, but it had only happened to us in a dream.

Meanwhile she pulled on my breeches and shoes, and we hurried out of the house to look.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" cried my father. "It's all gone already!"

Over the Waldrücken, which stretches like a wide-bowed saddle across our part of the country, dividing it into Highlands and Lowlands, the flame streamed steady and clear toward us. No hissing nor crackling was to be heard; the beautiful new house, only finished a few weeks before, was burning like oil. The air was damp, the stars were hidden; now and again there was a growl of thunder, but the storm was drawing gently away in the direction of Berkfeld and Weitz.

The lightning--so the man who had wakened us now said--had been darting hither and thither, had described a great cross in the sky, and then descended. The fiery point at its lower end had never died out, but had grown rapidly larger, and then he--the man--had thought to himself, "There now, it's gone and struck little Maxel's!"

"We must go and see if we can't do something to help," said my father.

"Help, would you?" rejoined the other. "Where the thunderbolt falls, _I_ shan't meddle! Man mustn't work against his Maker, and if He casts fire upon a house He certainly intends that house to burn. Besides, you know, anything struck by lightning can't be quenched!"

"Nor your idiocy neither!" cried my father; and then, angry as I had seldom seen him, he shouted in his face, "You've been struck silly!"

He left him standing there, and took me by the hand and quickly away. We descended into the Engtal and went along by the Fresenbach, where we could see the fire no longer, only the fiery clouds. My father carried a two-handled pail, and I advised him to fill it at the Fresen. My father didn't listen, but said several times to himself, "Maxel--to think of that happening to Maxel!"

I knew little Maxel quite well. He was an active, cheery little chap, somewhere in the forties; his face was full of pock-marks, and his hands were brown and rough as the bark of the forest trees. So long as I could remember he had been a woodcutter in Waldbach.

"If it was anyone else's house that was burning down," said my father, "well--it would just be his house burning down!"

"Isn't it the same with little Maxel?" I asked.

"With him it's his all that's being burnt: everything that he had yesterday, and has to-day, and might have had to-morrow."

"D'you mean the lightning has struck Maxel himself?"

"It were better so, boy! I don't grudge him his life--God knows I don't grudge it him--but if he might have confessed first, and not been in any mortal sin, I could say downright it were best for him if the lightning had struck him too."

"Then he would be already up there in Heaven," I remarked.

"Here, don't go paddling about in that wet grass. Keep close behind me and catch on by my coat-tail. About Maxel--I'll tell you something about him."

The path sloped gently upwards. My father said, "It must be about thirty years since Maxel came. Poor people's child. At first he went out as herdboy among the peasants; later, when he'd grown up a bit, he went in for the woodcutting--a thorough workman, and always industrious and thrifty. When he became foreman, he asked the landlord to allow him to clear the Sour Meadow on the Gfarerhöhe and keep it for life, because he was so mighty set upon having his own little bit of land. This was willingly granted, and so, every day, when his woodcutting hours were over, Maxel was up there on the Sour Meadow, cutting away the undergrowth and trenching it, and grubbing up stones and burning the roots of the weeds; and in two years the whole place was drained; and there's good grass growing there, and he's even sown a little patch of rye. When he'd got on so far that he had tried it with cabbage and seen how much the hares relished it, he set about getting some timber. They couldn't give him that, like the Sour Meadow--he must purchase it with labour. So he let his wages stand, and he felled the trees and hewed them square and cut them up for building timber, and all that in the free time when the other workmen were long since lying on their stomachs smoking their pipes! And the next thing was he began to get some of the other woodcutters to help him at such work as a man couldn't do single-handed, and this way he built his house on the Sour Meadow. Five years he laboured at it, but there--you've seen for yourself how it stood there with the golden-red walls, with the clear windows, and the decoration all round the roof--something grand to see! There's quite a fine little property been made of the Sour Meadow; and how long ago was it that our pastor in the catechism class held little Maxel up as an example of energy and industry? Next month he was meaning to get married: and to think he's risen from being a poor pauper lad to the brave householder and house-father!--Take off your cap to him, boy--And now suddenly there's an end of everything; all the industry and toil of years has gone for nothing; Maxel stands again to-day on the same spot as he did at the very beginning."

At that time I derived all my piety from the Bible, and so I met my father's story with: "Our Heavenly Father has punished Maxel because he was set upon earthly things like the heathen, and has probably taken too little thought for Eternity. Look at the birds of the air, they sow not, neither do they reap----"

"Hold your tongue!" interrupted my father angrily. "The man who said that was King Solomon--it's easy enough for _him_ to say it: only let some of our sort try it! I wouldn't be sure of myself; if it happened to me like little Maxel, I should just lose all heart--I'd just turn idle and good for nothing. Why, if a man puts a match to a thatched roof he's put in prison, and quite right too--he doesn't deserve anything better. But when Someone throws fire down out of Heaven on a brand-new house that a poor, plucky working-man has built----"

He stopped himself. We were now upon the height, and in front of us blazed the homestead of little Maxel. The house was just falling in. Several people were there with axes and pails, but there was nothing to be done but just stand and look on as the last charred bits tumbled into ruins. The fire wasn't raging, it didn't roar nor crackle, it didn't flicker wildly in the air: the whole house was just one flame rising, hot and steady, towards the Heaven whence it had come.

A little way off from the conflagration lay the stone-heap where Maxel had carried the stones from the Sour Meadow. Thereon he was now sitting, the little brown, pock-marked man, and looking at the furnace, the heat of which was streaming towards him. He was half clad, had thrown his black Sunday coat, the only thing he had rescued, over him. The neighbours were holding a little aloof. My father greatly desired to utter a word of sympathy and comfort, but somehow he too didn't venture to go near him. Maxel went on sitting there in a way that made us think every moment, now, _now_ he would leap up and utter some fearful curse against Heaven, and then throw himself into the flames!

And at last, when the fire was only licking the ground and the bare wall of the hearth was staring out of the ashes, Maxel got up. He walked over to the glowing mass, picked up an ember, and lighted his pipe with it.

I was still very small at that time and didn't think much. But this I remember: when I saw little Maxel in that dawn-twilight standing before the burnt ruin of his home, sucking the blue smoke from his pipe and blowing it away from him, my heart grew suddenly hot within me. As if I felt how mighty man is, how much greater than his fate, and how there was no finer scorning of it than calmly blowing tobacco-smoke in its face.

And when the pipe was well alight, he sat down again on the stone-heap and gazed away into the distance. You would like to know what he was thinking? So should I.

Later, little Maxel went rummaging among the ashes of his house, and drew from them his great wood-axe, and made it sharp again on a grindstone of the neighbourhood and set to work again. Since then many years have passed, and to-day on the Sour Meadow there lie beautiful fields, and on the place of the burnt-out farm a new one has arisen. It is lively with young folk, and the house-father, little Maxel, teaches his sons to work--but also allows them to smoke. Not too much, but just a pipe in due season.

VI

Three Hundred and Sixty-four Nights and a Night

The white kid was gone.

But my father still had four big nanny-goats in the stable, just as he had four children, who always stood in close relationship to the goats. Each of the goats had her own little manger, out of which she ate hay or clover while we milked her. Not one of them would give milk at an empty manger. The goats were called Zitzerl, Zutzerl, Zeitzerl and Heitzerl, and were the property of us children--a welcome present which father had made us. Zitzerl and Zutzerl belonged to my two little sisters; Zeitzerl to my eight-year-old brother Jakoberle; Heitzerl was mine!

Each of us faithfully tended and looked after his allotted charge; but we put all the milk together in a pot, mother boiled it, father gave us the slices of bread that went with it--and the Lord God blessed the spoonful of soup for us.

And, when we had ladled up our suppers with our broad wooden spoons, which had been carved by our uncle and which, because of their size, would hardly go into our mouths in the first place or out of them in the second, we would each of us take our horsehair pillow and lie down, one and all, in the goats' mangers. These were our beds for a time; and the beloved animals used to fan our cheeks with their soft beards and lick our little noses with their tongues.

But, when we lay thus in our cribs, we did not always go to sleep at the very first lick. My head was crammed with a multitude of wonderful stories and fairy-tales of our grandfathers. I would tell these stories in those evening-hours; and my brothers and sisters revelled in them and even the goats were fond of listening to them too. Only now and again, when the thing struck them as too incredible, they would give a little bleat to themselves or bang at the mangers impatiently with their horns. Once, when I was telling of the corn-wraith who blackens the oats when she cries at midnight in the fields, and eats nothing but the grey beards of old charcoal burners, my Heitzerl began to bleat so violently that the other three joined in until at last my brother and sisters burst into wild peals of laughter and I was shamefully obliged to hold my tongue like a convicted boaster.

For a long time after that, I told my sleeping-companions no more stories and I resolved never to speak another word to Heitzerl so long as I lived.

Then came Ascension Day, on which day mother made us the usual egg-cake, my favourite dish in all the world. That year, however, the hawks had taken our best laying-hens; the egg-basket would not fill; and, when the cake appeared on Ascension Day, it was only a tiny little loaf. I gave a woe-begone look at the wooden dish.

My little five-year-old sister peeped up at me; and, as though noticing my longing, she suddenly cried:

"I say, Peterle, look here! If you will tell us a short story every night for a whole year long, I will give you my share of the cake."

Strange to say, the others all chimed in and echoed this noble renunciation on the little one's part; they clapped their hands; and--I entered into the bargain. So, suddenly, had I attained the object of my desire.

I tucked my cake under my jacket and went with it to the dairy, where no one could see or disturb me. I bolted the door, sat down on an overturned tub and allowed my ten fingers and the well-ordered host of my teeth to work their will on the poor cake.

But now came this anxiety. There could not be a doubt that my brother and sisters would insist strictly on their due. When I went out a-herding, I begged a story of every pitch-maker, every charcoal-burner, every keeper and every knowing little woman that I met in the wood and on the fields. They were productive sources, and I was able to meet my liabilities every evening. Meanwhile, of course, it was a daily misery until I hit upon something fresh; and, after a time, it happened not seldom that little sister would interrupt me and call out from her manger:

"Look here, we know that one! You have told it us before!"

I could see that I must think of new ways and I therefore struggled to improve my reading, so as to draw treasures from the many story-books which lay idling on the sooty shelves in our little house in the forest. Now I had new sources: the story of the Countess-palatine (Jakoberle always said, "The Countess-Gelatine") Genovefa; the four sons of Aymon; the Fair Melusina; Wendelin von Höllenstein: wonderful things by the dozen. And my brother would often say from his manger:

"I don't mind going without my cake a bit! This is just _too_ lovely. What do you say, Zeitzerl?"

Now the evenings grew too short; and I had to tell some of these stories in serials and sequels, a proceeding to which little sister refused point-blank to agree, for she stuck to it that a _whole_ story every night was what we bargained for.

So the year went by. Little by little, I acquired a real skill in telling stories and even told them in High German, as they stood printed in the books! And it often happened that, during the telling, my listeners buried themselves in their coverlets and began to groan with fright at the stories of robbers and ghosts; but I was not allowed to stop, for all that!

Ascension Day was very nearly there again, and with it, the completion of my bargain. But--it was like my luck!--just before the last evening, my thread gave out entirely. All my recollections, all the books which I could get hold of, all the little men and women whom I met were exhausted, drained, pumped dry beyond all hope. I implored my brother and sisters:

"To-morrow is the last evening; make me a present of it!"

There was a general outcry:

"No, no, no presents! You got your Ascension cake!"

Even the goats bleated their approval.

The next day, I went about like a lost sheep. Then the thought suddenly came to me: "Deceive them! _Invent_ something!"

But my conscience at once stepped in and cried aloud:

"What you tell must be real! You really had the cake!"

Nevertheless, an event occurred in the course of that day which made me hope that, in the heat of the excitement, it would release me from my duty.

My brother Jakoberle lost his Zeitzerl. He went this way and that over the heath, he went into the wood and, crying and calling, hunted for the goat. But, at last, he brought her home, late in the evening. We ate our porridge quietly and went to our cribs; and a story was expected of me.

All was silent. The listeners waited eagerly. The goats clashed their teeth together as they chewed the cud.

"Very well, they shall have their story," said I.

I reflected. I began:

"There was once a great, great wood. And everything in the wood was dark. No little birds sang: only the screech-owl's cry was heard. But, even though the other birds had sung, all the boughs and all the leaves on the trees wept thousands and thousands of tears. In the middle of this wood is a heath, silent as the graveyard; and he who goes over it and does not turn back is never seen again. Once upon a time, two knees went over this heath; and inside those knees was blood."

"Jesus Mar...!" gasped the elder of my little sisters; and all three crept under their coverlets.

"Yes, two knees with blood inside them," I continued, "and they passed over the heath towards the dark wood, like a lost soul. But, all at once, the two bloody knees...."

"I say, I'll give you my blue trouser-belt if you stop!" whimpered my brother in his fear and hid still deeper in the coverlet.

"The two bloody knees stopped," I continued, "and on the ground lay a stone as white as a winding-sheet. Then two flickering lights appeared between the trees; and thereupon four more knees, _all with blood_--hovered to the same place...."

"I'll give you my new pair of shoes if you stop!" Jakoberle panted in his trough and, for sheer terror, drew Zeitzerl to him by her beard.

"And so they all six together passed through the dark wood and out upon the heath and over the oat-field to our house ... and here into the stable...."

Now they all three cried out and whimpered; and there was no end to their terror, and my little sister timidly promised me her share of to-morrow's Ascension cake, which was expected this year too, if I would only stop. But I went on:

"Well, ah, yes, I forgot to begin by saying that the first two knees--with blood--belonged to our Jakoberle and the last four to his Zeitzerl ... as they went about in the wood to-day."

Suddenly, they all burst out laughing.

"Why, everybody has two knees with blood in them!" cried little sister; and the goats bleated their share of the jubilation.

I had played my part right out. For three hundred and sixty-four nights long, I had shone as a wise and veracious story-teller; the three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth had unmasked me as a deceitful humbug. The promise of the second Ascension cake was withdrawn; little sister declared that her offer had been made in self-defence.

And I had shattered the confidence of my public for good and all; and, thereafter, whenever it wanted to express its doubts of anything I related, it cried, with one voice:

"Ah, that's only one of your old knees again!"

VII

How the White Kid Died

There was yet another time when I just escaped the birch.

My father had a snow-white kid, my Cousin Jok had a snow-white head. The kid loved chewing stalks and twigs; my cousin loved chewing a short pipe. We--I and my younger brother and sisters--were ever so fond of the kid and of Cousin Jok too. And so we lighted upon the idea of bringing the kid and our cousin together.

One bright, sunny day in July, I took my brother and my two sisters out into the cabbage-patch and there put this question to them:

"Which of you has a hat without a hole in it?"

They examined their hats and caps, but the sun shone through all of them, making little flecks of light in the shadow on the ground. Only Jakoberle's hat was without a flaw; so I took it in my hand and said:

"Cousin's called Jok and to-morrow is St. Jokopi's[7] Day. Now what shall we give him for a present on his name-day? Why not the white kid?"

"The white kid belongs to father!" cried little sister Plonele, shocked at this arbitrary suggestion.

"That's just why I am sending the hat round," said I. "You, Jakoberle, sold your rabbit to Sepp, the Knierutscher, yesterday; you, Plonele, have had three groschen as a tip from your god-father; you, Mirzerle, got a present from father two days ago. Look, I'll put in the five kreuzer which I've saved up; and we must manage to buy the kid from father between us. And then we'll give it to cousin to-morrow. Now here goes for the collection!"

They looked into the hat for a moment and then began to feel in their pockets. Then Plonele said, "Mother's got my money!" And Mirzerle cried, in alarm, "I don't know wherever mine's got to!" And Jakoberle stared at the ground and muttered, "There must be a hole in my pocket!"

And so my plan fell to pieces.

None the less, we petted and fondled the snow-white kid. It stood up and put its fore-feet on our knees and looked at us roguishly with its squinny eyes, as though it were mocking us for not being rich enough to buy it between the lot of us. It tittered and bleated at us like anything and showed us its snow-white teeth. It was hardly three months old and already had a beard; while I and Jakoberle were seven years old and more and had to make ourselves a beard of grey tree-moss when we wanted one. And the kid ate even that off our faces!

In spite of that, each one of us was much fonder of the little four-footed creature than of all the others put together! And so I cast about for some other means of rejoicing my cousin with the gift of the animal.

When father came home from the fields that afternoon, we all swarmed about him and tugged at his clothes.

"Father," I asked, "is it true that 'The early morn has gold in its mouth'?"

This being one of his own proverbs, he answered promptly:

"Indeed it _is_ true."

"Father!" the four of us immediately cried together. "How early must we get up every day for you to give us the white kid?"

Father did not seem to jump at this business view of the matter. But, when he heard of our proposal to give the kid to Cousin Jok, he bargained that we should get up half an hour earlier every morning and thereupon made the dear little beast over to us.

The kid was ours. We resolved with one accord to creep out of bed next morning before cousin's time for getting up--and that was saying a great deal--to tie a red ribbon round the kid's neck and to take it to old Jok's bedside before he thrust his body into his long grey fur, which he wore winter and summer alike.

This was our sacred intention.

But, next day, when mother called us and we opened our eyelids, the sun shone so fiercely into our eyes that we had to shut them again until she covered the window with her kerchief.

Now there was no excuse left. But cousin had gone out long before, taking his fur with him. He had driven the sheep and goats to the meadow in the valley where he always tended them and where he sat all day smiling and chewing his pipe. And the little animals nibbled busily at the dewy grasses and shrubs and skipped and gambolled merrily on the sunny meadow.

The little kid was among them. And had nobody reminded Jok that this was his name-day?

* * * * *

At the time of which I speak, lucifer-matches had not yet been invented and so the beloved fire was a precious thing. You could not carry it in your pocket as easily as to-day, without burning your trousers. It had to be knocked out of stones with hard blows; no sooner hatched, it must be fed with tinder, and it was long ere it derived strength enough from this to peck at coarser food and then become fledged. On every separate occasion, fire had to be formally brought into the service of man.

It was a toilsome and ticklish piece of work; my own mother, who was usually so gentle, could get quite cross over it.

The glowing embers, however carefully preserved overnight in the hearth, were generally dead by morning. Whatever pains mother might take to blow up the sparks in the ashes, it was all in vain: the fire had died during the night. And then the striking with flint and steel began, and we children were often quite hungry before mother produced the fire that was to cook the morning-porridge.

So it was on the morning of cousin's name-day. We had heard the bellows-blowing and fire-striking for some time out in the kitchen. Then our mother suddenly exclaimed:

"It's no good at all! One would think the devil had spat on the hearth! And the flint hasn't a spark of fire left in it, and the tinder's damp, and here's everybody waiting for their porridge!"

Then she came into the room and said:

"Come, Peterle, quick, and run across as fast as you can to the Knierutscher woman. Tell her that I beg her to send me a handful of embers from her hearth. And take her that loaf of bread over there for her kindness. Hurry up, Peterle, so that we can get our porridge quickly."

I had my little white linen breeches on in no time and, as I was, barefoot and bareheaded, I took the heavy round loaf under my arm and ran off to the Knierutschers' house.

"You old sunshine!" I said, as I went. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, that you can't even warm a mouthful of porridge, and here I've got to go running to the Knierutscher woman for fire--But just you wait: things will soon be bright and jolly on our hearth--the flames will leap over the sticks, the walls will light up red, the pots will bubble, the smoke will rush out of the hearth and the chimney and hide you from sight! And quite right too, for then we shall eat our porridge and our stew in the shadow, and the pancake, too, that's to be fried to-day for Cousin Jok, and you shall see nothing of all these nice things!"

As I went down the hill after my lecture to the sun, I had a happy thought. My loaf was as round as a ball and as hard as if it had been turned out of larch-wood. In my part of the country, they let bread grow stale, because it makes it last twice as long; even though it has occasionally to be smashed up, at mealtimes, with a sledge-hammer.

Well, seeing that my loaf was so round that there was nothing rounder on the face of the earth, I let it run loose down the slope, raced nimbly after it and caught it up again.

That was a thoroughly jolly game; and I should have liked to call all my brothers and sisters to see it and share in it. But, as I was jumping up and down the slope in my delight, my loaf suddenly played me a trick and darted like the wind between my legs. Hurrying and hopping away it went, fleeter than a roe before the hounds--it bounded down the hill, leapt far over the edge into the valley below and vanished from my sight.

I stood there like a block, feeling as if I should drop with fright and go rolling into the valley in my turn. I went to and fro and up and down for a while; and, then as I could nowhere see the loaf, I slunk with hanging head into the Knierutschers' house.

There was a fine big fire burning on the hearth.

"What have you come for, Peterle?" asked Frau Knierutscher, kindly.

"Our fire's gone out," I stammered, "we can't cook a thing and so my mother sent me to ask for a handful of embers and she will return them very soon."

"You little silly, you! Who ever heard of returning a few embers?" cried she, as she took the tongs and raked some into an old pot. "Here, tell your mother to make up a good fire and cook you a nice stew. But take care, Peterle, don't you let the wind get at them, or it will blow the sparks up to the roof. There, go now, in God's name!"

So gentle was she with me, who had so lightly played away her loaf! It weighs upon my conscience to this day.

When, at last, I got back to the house with my pot of fire, I was greatly surprised to see blue smoke rising out of the chimney.

"You're one to send to fetch death and not fire!" cried mother, as I entered.

And she busied herself about the fire crackling in the hearth and did not so much as look at me.

My coals were now hardly flickering and looked wretched beside that fire. I put the pot down sadly in a corner of the hearth and slunk away. I had been gone much too long; then, by good fortune, Cousin Jok had come home from the meadow, and he had a burning-glass, which he held over a piece of tinder in the sun until it caught. And so the sun which I had slandered had stolen a march upon me and provided fire for the porridge before I did. I was heartily ashamed of myself and, to this day, am unable to look the benefactor straight in the face.

* * * * *

I slunk into the paddock. There I saw Cousin Jok squatting in his long grey, red-embroidered fur, with his white head. And, when I drew nigh, I saw why he was squatting here like that. The snow-white kid lay in front of him, with its head and its feet outstretched and Cousin Jok was stripping off its hide.

At that I burst into loud weeping. Cousin Jok stood up, took me by the hand, and said:

"There it lies and looks at you!"

And the kid really was staring into my face with its glassy eyes. And yet it was dead.

"Peterle!" whispered my cousin, gravely. "Mother sent the Knierutscher woman a loaf of bread."

"Yes," I sobbed, "and it ran away from me, right down over the edge."

"Since you own up, laddie," said Cousin Jok, "I will arrange things so that nothing happens to you. I have told mother that a stone or something came rolling down and killed the kid. (Somehow, I thought in my own mind that Peterle was at the back of it!) That loaf of bread came straight out of the air, down over the high edge, passed me and hit the kid right on the head. The poor little thing staggered and fell and was dead as a mouse at once. However, don't be afraid, we'll keep to the stone idea. I'll make things all right with the Knierutscher woman too; and now be quiet, laddie, and don't pull such dismal faces. To-night we'll eat the poor beastie, and mother will cook us a horseradish-soup to go with it."

In such wise died the little white kid. My brother and sisters told me it had been killed by a naughty, cruel stone.

To please me, mother added my coals to the fire on the hearth, and before this fire the kid was roasted. It was to have been a gift for Cousin Jok; and now he was to have roast kid instead. But he invited all of us to join him and gave us the best bits. I did not relish mine at all.

The next morning, Jakoberle armed himself with a cudgel, followed Cousin Jok with it into the lower meadow and wanted to see the stone that killed the little kid.

"Child," said Cousin Jok, chewing hard at his pipe, "it rolled further on and the water's running over it now: it's down in the glen."

The dear, good old man! The stone that killed the little kid was lying on my heart.

FOOTNOTE:

[7] Jacob, Jacobus. The feast of St. James the Apostle is celebrated on the 25th of July.--_Translator's Note._

VIII

Children of the World in the Forest

Far more intelligent must he be, the peasant of the isolated mountain farm, far more versatile and capable than the villager, and infinitely more so than the townsman--_must_, or he could not exist!

The townsman has an easy time of it: if he can write, or keep accounts; if, for instance, he has the knack of making leather, or keeps a grocer's shop; or even if he speculates and applies himself to cutting off his coupons, he has all that he requires; and all that a townsman requires everyone who is a townsman knows.

The things which, in the towns, are produced by the divided toil of thousands of heads, hands, and wheels, in other words, the necessaries of life, the peasant in the far-lying mountains must make for himself, in his narrow circle, with his small, unaided means. He is a provider of natural produce, manufacturer, middleman and consumer, all in one. The bread which he eats comes from the corn which he flung into the earth last year with his own hand; the bacon which he enjoys on its bed of cabbage is cut from the pig fattened with the turnips which he has planted in his own ground. The shoe which he wears is made of the cow-hide which he himself has stripped from the animal's body and himself has tanned; the wool that forms his coat he has shorn from his own sheep, spun, woven and milled. The shirt on his back he saw last summer shimmering in the sunny fields in the blue flax-blossom; and the milking-pail into which his cow sends her milk streaming was, but a year ago, hiding in a fir-trunk in his woods. And I could in like manner string out a long list of matters in which the farmer must be his own breeder, gardener, miller, baker, smith, saddler, carpenter, weaver, wheelwright and so on. And a household in which one and all of these trades are put in practice need not even be a very large one: it is the ordinary farmhouse in the mountain valleys to which the world of exchange and barter has not yet fully made its way.

Isn't it true, then, that such a peasant-farmer needs to have a head on his shoulders? This head, again, is of home production, and a good thing too; for the Jew pedlar, who is always prepared to bring any requisite from town for cash, could hardly be expected to supply that.

But nowadays this, like most things, is changing; and, since gold and silver have taken to rolling to and fro, in such a momentous fashion, between the houses of town and country, the peasant no longer has the same joy in his farm, where he must always be labouring for others. Besides, he need not work out in the wilderness nowadays; he can do much better, they tell him, on rented land or in the factories; he sells or lets his property and goes after money. And there at last you have the stupid peasant!

I only speak of these things because my father's house, concerning which I have something to tell, was one of those farms in which we ourselves produced nearly everything that we wanted. And yet, even at that time, money played us a trick. My father was particularly clever at tanning hides, at weaving, at grinding corn and at pressing linseed-oil. In the last case, I assisted him to brave purpose, as a boy of ten, by dipping a slice of white bread into the oil that ran from the gutter of the press and then transferring the bright yellow slice to my mouth.

One day, while we were thus engaged, Clements, the timber-merchant, walked into the pressing-room. He had once been forest-ranger at Alpel; but he had made such a huge amount of money in the timber-trade that he lost all interest in our mountains and went down into the broad Mürzthal, where he displayed a restless activity in acquiring more and yet more money. He had grown quite lean at this unedifying occupation; but otherwise he continued in fairly good fettle.

Well, when Clements saw the oil bubbling in the wooden pail, he asked, was the cider sweet?

My father invited him to taste it; but, when Clements lifted the pail bodily and took a draught from it, he fell back as though someone had struck him in the face and lost no time in spitting out what he had swallowed.

"It can't hurt you," said my father, to console him. "It is pure linseed oil."

"Forest-farmer," said Clements, gradually recovering himself, "here I am, bringing all sorts of good things to your house; and this is the way you treat me!"

"You're the first I ever met that did not like flax-wine," replied my father. "It's just like a wine, so golden and clear. And you couldn't find anything better for one's precious health. I am in the doctor's debt to the price of a couple of oxen; and even then I should be under the sod to-day if Our Father in Heaven had not made linseed-oil to grow."

"And, as you, forest-farmer, are still, thank God, above the sod," drawled Clements, "you'll be needing money, I'm thinking. Look, it's your guardian angel's brought me here: I'm bringing you some."

"Oh, my gracious!" replied my father, leaning his whole weight upon the lever, so that the oil-cake in the press had to yield its last drains, which, however, were received into a separate little pot, for these dregs are not quite so clear and mild as the first stream. "Oh, my gracious!" said he. "I could do with the money well enough; but you can just take it away again: I know what you want for it. You want the six old fir-trees that stand outside my house. Things are a sight worse with me than they were a year ago, when you came and asked to buy the trees, but I have no other answer for you than I gave you then: the six trees outside the house are a memory of the old days; and, if I had to sell field and meadow and the cattle in the stable, those trees shall stay where they are; and, if they have to lay me in the grave without a coffin, those old trees shall stay where they are until God's lightning cracks them or the storm fells them."

The last words were spoken with violence; and, with that, the last drop of oil left the press.

But Clements said:

"Forest-farmer, you shall not sell a field, nor a head of cattle from your stable; you shall have a coffin of good white ash-wood: God grant that you may not need it for a long time to come! You shall have good days yet in this world. You shall not sell the old fir-trees, but you shall sell the larch in your wood that are fit for felling. Have you your pocket-book on you? If so, just open it."

I got a fright, when I saw the figure on the bank-note which the tempter had now drawn from his leather case and which, holding it between his finger-tips, he sent fluttering to and fro, like a little flag, before my father's blinking eyes. Misfortune had cleared the way in our house for the timber-merchant: we were no longer able to get all we wanted for our ten heads and stomachs out of that eighty yoke of mountain land; the doctor was sending us letters which I could not read soft and low enough to make them bearable to my father:

"The forest-farmer is hereby summoned within fourteen days to ... failing which...."

"As my patience is at last exhausted, I have placed the matter in the hands of the imperial and royal courts, and if, within eight days ... execution and distraint...."

Those were more or less the first sentences which I was given to read in our dear High-German language. And there was a certain book, too, with its "date of debt" and "date of payment," which gave me an idea of the force that lies concealed in the language of Schiller and Goethe.

It was a real live "hundred" which the timber-merchant held by the corner between his two fingers. Did not a chill shudder, at that moment, go over the tops of the larches that were dotted here and there in the pine-woods outside, I wonder? Nor any anxious foreboding trouble the hearts of the little birds that had built their nests there?

My father did not put out his hand for the money, but neither did he hide it in his pocket; he did not busy it with the lever of the oil-press; he just kept it, half-open, as nature had bent it, on his knee, while he sat exhausted with his labour. Clements dropped the rare bit of paper into it; then the lank fingers closed softly--instinctively--and held it tight.

The larch were sold.

"I have only one condition to make," said the timber-merchant, when he saw that the poor small farmer lay duly under the spell of the money. "I shall have the trees felled late in the autumn, when the snow comes. You will be astonished, forest-farmer, when I tell you that the emperor will ride over your larch-trees! Yes, yes, we shall use them for building the railway. My condition is that my wood-cutters shall be allowed to cook their meals and sleep in your house as long as they are working in the woods."

"Why not?" said father. "That'll be all right, if it's good enough for them under my roof."

What mischief those good-natured words brought down upon our peaceful forest home!

Clements went away happy and contented, after presenting me with a bright new groschen for myself. I remember being surprised at this: it was obviously for us to be contented, seeing that we had the money! Father took his up to the loft and hid it in the clothes-press: it was very soon to come out again. Then the days passed, as usual, and the larch stood in the woods and rocked their long branches in the wind, as usual, and got ready their twigs for next spring, as usual.

"They don't know how soon they are to die!" my father said to me once, as we were coming from the meadow through the woods.

But I comforted myself with the hope that Clements the timber-merchant, who lived out in the merry Mürzthal and never came back to our neighbourhood at all, would forget all about the larch. My mother, to whom I confided this view, said sharply:

"Oh, child, that fellow forgets about his soul, but he'll never forget the larches!"

And, one day, when the earth had frozen hard and the moss cracked and broke underfoot, we heard the rasping of the saw in the woods. When we looked across the brown tops of the firs, we saw the yellow spire of a tall larch-tree soar high above them. The rasping of the saw died away, the blows of the axe rang out; then slowly the spire bent over, dipped; and thunder echoed through the forest.

That evening the wood-cutters came to our house. There were only two of them; and, at first sight, we were all pleased with them. One of them was already well on in years and had a long red beard, a bald pate and a sharp, crooked nose. The man's little eyes looked smaller still because the red eyelashes and eyebrows were hardly visible against the colour of his skin; but the eyes were full of fun and devilment. The other was quite twenty years or so younger, had a little brown beard, but otherwise was rather pale and thin in the face. Anyone, however, seeing his powerful neck and his broad chest would take him to be much more of a wood-cutter than the red one, who only looked such a warrior because of his beard, but, in other respects, was much slighter in build than the pale one. Both wore stiff leather aprons and smelt of rosin and shavings.

Our cooking was soon done; so mother left the hearth to them. And, upon my word, they knew how to make use of it! What they cooked was not the regular wood-cutter's game, such as stray foxes, sparrows and such-like dumplings as are prepared with flour and fat, but real meat and bacon and grill; and it all simmered and frizzled in the pans until our stomachs, which had to be satisfied with bread-soup and potatoes, were driven frantic. But the red one tore off a whole piece of bacon for us to taste. They had a wooden jar with them, wound round with straw, out of which one and the other took long draughts. The red one invited my father to try their wine. He did; and his experience was worse than that of Clements with the linseed-oil: the jar contained that hellish stuff, brandy.