CHAPTER IV

AS THE MOTHER WISHES IT

The sun was rising in splendor from behind the high peaks when Franz Martin opened his eyes and looked about him confusedly. He shivered a little,--he felt chilly. He wanted to sit up, but his head was heavy and dull. He put his hand to his brow; it seemed as though there was something lying on it. And he was not mistaken; sixfold, wet and heavy, his big kerchief that he had left in the hut lay upon his head. He pushed it away, and as the cool morning breeze played across his brow he felt so refreshed and strengthened that he sat up quickly and looked about him. He met a pair of big, serious eyes fixed steadfastly upon him.

"Are you here, Rudi?" he asked in surprise. "How did you get up so early? But now that you are here, come closer, so that I can lean on your shoulder; I am dizzy and cannot get up alone."

Rudi sprang up from his seat and went close to the herdsman. He braced his feet on the ground with all his might so that Franz Martin would have a firm support in him. In the toilsome ascent to the hut the herdsman, still leaning on the boy's shoulder, began to recall one thing after another that had occurred to him; but there were various incidents for which he could not account. Perhaps Rudi could help him out.

On reaching the hut Franz Martin sat down on one of the three-legged stools and said: "Rudi, bring the other stool and sit down by me. But first get down the big jar and we will have a good drink of cold milk together, for I cannot make a fire yet. There is a little bowl beside it; see--" He stopped and looked about in surprise. "But what has become of it? I always set it up there; I don't know what has happened to me since yesterday."

Rudi's face turned fiery red; he knew well enough who had taken down the little bowl. He said timidly, "It is down there on the ground," and ran and fetched it; then he brought the milk jar, and set them both down before Franz Martin.

The latter shook his head in perplexity. As long as he had lived he had never set his bowl on the ground there by the door. He drank his milk silently and thoughtfully, filled the bowl afresh, and said: "Come, Rudi, you drink, too. You have done me a good service in coming up so early. Did you think there might be cheese rolls to-day, and you would be here first?"

"No; truly I did not," protested Rudi.

"Well, tell me this," continued the herdsman, who had been looking now at the wet cloth that lay on the table, now at the little water pail that stood waiting at the door as if ready to start out,--"tell me, Rudi, did I have the cloth on my head when you came up early this morning?"

Rudi turned scarlet, for he thought that if Franz Martin heard all that he had done perhaps he would not be pleased; but the man was looking him so earnestly in the eyes that he had to tell all. "I laid it on your head," he began bashfully.

"But why, Rudi?" asked the herdsman in surprise.

"Because you were so hot," answered Rudi.

Franz Martin was more and more astonished. "But I was awake at sunrise. When did you come up?"

"Yesterday at five, or perhaps four, o'clock," stammered Rudi timidly. "The milker did not come until long afterward."

"What! you were up here all night? What did you do or want here?"

But the herdsman saw that Rudi was quite terrified. The visions of the night recurred to him, and with fatherly kindness he patted the boy's shoulder and said encouragingly, "With me you need not be afraid, Rudi. Here, drink another glass of milk and then tell me everything that happened from the time that you got here."

Cheered thus, Rudi took new courage. He drank the milk in long draughts; it tasted delicious to the hungry, thirsty boy. Then he began to relate: "I came up here to sit in the bushes a little while, but only as I did every day, not on account of the cheese rolls. And then, after the milker had brought the milk and you did not come for so long, I looked for you, and I found you on the ground, and you were red and hot and seemed thirsty. So I ran down quickly to the swamp and got all the big strawberries I could find and brought them up to you, and you were glad for them. But you pointed to your head and wanted water on it. I fetched the little bowl out of the hut, and the pail, and filled them at the brook, and poured the water over your head and gave you to drink, for you were very thirsty. Whenever the pail was empty I went to the brook and filled it; but because the water ran off your head so fast I thought a heavy cloth would keep wet a long time. So I got the cloth out of the hut and laid it thick and wet on your head and dipped it in the pail whenever it got dry and hot; and then at last you awoke when it was morning, and I was very glad. I was afraid you might get very sick."

Franz Martin had been listening with earnest attention. Now everything that he had gone through in the night was plain to him,--how he thought an angel had come to him with strawberries, and how he afterward enjoyed the water of Clear Brook as the real water of life. Franz Martin sat and gazed at Rudi in dumb amazement, as though he had never seen a boy before. Such a boy as this he had certainly never seen. How was it possible, he said to himself, that this boy, whom every one, young and old, never called anything else but "Stupid Rudi," had been clever enough to save his life, which had certainly been in great danger?--for what a fever had been consuming him the herdsman knew perfectly well. Had Rudi not quieted this fever with his cooling showers, who knows what might have developed by morning? And how could this boy, whom no one thought worthy of a friendly word, be capable of such self-sacrifice that he would sit up and care for him all night?

Tears came to the eyes of the big, stalwart man as he looked at the timid, despised little fellow, and thought this all over. Then he took the boy by the hand and said: "We will be good friends, Rudi; I have much to thank you for and I shall not forget it. Do me one more favor. I am so weak and shaky that I must lie down and rest. You go down to my mother and tell her to come to me. Say that I am not quite well. But you must come back with her, for I have much to talk over with you to-day. Don't forget."

In his whole life Rudi had never been so happy. He ran down the mountain, leaping and skipping for joy. Franz Martin had himself told him to come again, and now he need no longer hide, but might walk right into the hut, and, better still, Franz Martin had said that he would be good friends with him. At each new thought Rudi leaped high into the air, and before he knew it he had reached the Hillside. Just as he was coming down from above in jumps toward the neat little cottage with the shining windows, Frau Vincenze came up from below in her Sunday clothes, prayer book in hand. The boy ran toward her, but for several moments could say nothing; he was quite out of breath with running.

"Where do you come from?" said the proper little woman disapprovingly, as she looked the boy over from head to foot. She thought that Sunday should be fittingly observed, and Rudi presented anything but a holiday appearance in his little, old, ragged trousers and shirt. "I think I have seen you across the stream," she said; "you must belong to Poor Grass Joe?"

"No, I am only Rudi," the boy replied very humbly.

Then it occurred to the woman that Joe's wife had a foolish boy in her house, who would never be of any use, people said. This was probably the boy. "But what do you want of me?" she asked in growing astonishment.

Rudi had found his breath again and now delivered his message clearly and correctly. The mother was very much alarmed. Never before had her sturdy Franz Martin had any illness, and that he should now send for her, instead of coming down himself, was to her a very bad indication. Without saying a word she went into the house, carefully packed everything that she thought they might need, and in a few moments came out with a big basket on her arm.

"Come," she said to Rudi; "we will start right up. Why must you go back?"

"I don't know," he answered shyly, and then added hesitatingly, as though he were afraid it might be something wrong, "Must I not carry the basket?"

"Ah, yes! I understand," the mother said to herself; "Franz Martin thought that I should be bringing all sorts of remedies, and the boy was to carry them for me."

She gave Rudi the basket. Silently she walked beside him up the mountain, for her thoughts were troubled. Her son was her pride and joy; and was he really ill,--perhaps dangerously so? Her alarm increased as she approached the hut. Her knees trembled so that she could hardly keep up.

She entered the hut. There was no one there. She looked all about, then up into the hayloft. There lay her son buried in the hay; she could hardly see him. With beating heart she climbed the ladder. Rudi remained respectfully standing outside the door after he had shoved the basket inside. As the mother bent anxiously over her son he opened his blue eyes, cheerily stretched forth his hand, and sitting up, said: "God bless you, mother! I am glad you have come. I have been sleeping like a bear ever since Rudi went away."

The mother stared at her son, half pleased, half terrified. She did not know what to think.

"Franz Martin," she said earnestly, "what is wrong with you? Are you talking in delirium, or do you know that you sent for me?"

"Yes, yes, mother," laughed Franz Martin; "my mind is clear now and the fever is past. But my limbs were all atremble; I could not come down to you, and I wanted so much to talk to you. My knees are shaky even now, and I could not get very far."

"But what is it? What was it? Tell me about it," urged the mother, sitting down on the hay beside her son.

"I will explain it all to you, mother, just as it happened," he said quietly, as he leaned back against the hay; "but first look at that poor, gaunt, little boy down there, who hasn't a decent garment to his name, whom no one thinks worthy of a kind word, and who is known only as 'Stupid Rudi.'"

The mother looked down at Rudi, who was watching the herdsman with much concern to see whether he was going to faint again.

"Well, and then?" asked the mother intently.

"He saved my life, mother. If it had not been for this little boy, I should still be lying out on the ground in deadly fever, or it might even be all ended with me by this time."

Then Franz Martin told her everything that had happened since the afternoon before,--how Rudi had stayed with him all night and had cared for him and relieved him from the consuming thirst and fever, and had cooled the fire in his head. The cleverest person in the world could not have done it better, and perhaps no other person would have done it for him.

Again and again the mother had to wipe away her tears. She thought to herself, what if her Franz Martin had lain out there all alone and forsaken in his agony of thirst, and had been quite consumed by the fever, and no one had known anything about him!

Then such joy and gratitude rose in her heart that she cried aloud: "God be thanked! God be thanked!"

And for little Rudi she suddenly felt such a heart full of love that she exclaimed eagerly: "Franz Martin, Rudi shall not go back to Joe's wife! The boy has probably been only half fed, and she has let him run about in dirt and rags. This very day he shall go with me, and to-morrow I will make him some decent clothes. He shall not fare poorly with us; we will not forget what he has done for you."

"That is exactly what I wanted, mother, but of course I had to find out what you would say to it; now you have the same plan as I, and have thought it all out in the best possible way. There is nothing in the world like a mother, after all!"

And Franz Martin looked at her so lovingly and happily that it warmed her to her heart's core, and she thought to herself, "Nor is there anything in the world like a manly, virtuous son." Then she said: "Now you must eat and get strong again. I have brought fresh eggs and wheat bread, and I will go and start the fire. Take your time about coming down"; which Franz Martin found that he was really obliged to do, for he was still weak and trembling. But he finally succeeded. When he got down he beckoned to Rudi, who had been looking in through the door all this time, to come and sit at the table beside him.

"Rudi," he said, smiling into the boy's eyes, "do you want to grow up to be a dairyman?"

A look of joy came over Rudi's face, but the next moment it disappeared, for in his ears rang the discouraging words that he had heard so many, many times,--"He will never amount to anything," "He can't do anything," "He will never be of any use,"--and he answered despondently, "I can never be anything."

"Rudi, you shall be a dairyman," said Franz Martin decisively. "You have done very well in your first undertaking. Now you shall stay with me and carry milk and water and help me in everything, and I will show you how to make butter and cheese, and as soon as you are old enough you shall stand beside me at the kettle and be my helpmate."

"Here, in your hut?" asked Rudi, to whom the prospect of such happiness was almost incomprehensible.

"Right here in my hut," declared Franz Martin.

In Rudi's face appeared an expression of such radiant joy that the herdsman could not take his eyes from him. The boy seemed transformed. The mother, too, noticed it, as she set on the table before them the big plate of egg omelet that she had just prepared. She patted the boy's head and said, "Yes, little Rudi, to-day we will be happy together, and to-morrow, too; and every day we will thank the good God that he brought you to Franz Martin at just the right time, although no one may know why it was that you came up here."

The happy feast began. Never in his life had Rudi seen so many good things together on a table; for besides the omelet the mother had set out fresh wheat bread and a big, golden ball of butter and a piece of snow-white cheese, while in the middle of the table stood a bowl of creamy milk. Of each dish there was a generous portion for Rudi, and when he had finished one helping there was another ready for him.

When the mother was preparing to go home in the evening she said: "Franz Martin, I have changed my mind. Rudi shall stay up here with you until you are strong. He can fetch things and be useful to you. I will arrange matters with Joe's wife."

Franz Martin was satisfied, and Rudi's happiness knew no bounds. Now he was really at home with Franz Martin. That night, when the evening blessing was said, he was not crouching under the fir trees, but stood beside his friend under the starry sky, as the latter folded his hands and said, "Come, Rudi, we will say our evening prayer."

Reverently he, too, folded his hands, and when at the close the herdsman said, "God give you good night," Rudi's heart was so full of joy that he wanted to call out the blessing to everybody in the world,--"God give you good night!"

That very evening the mother went over to Joe's wife. The latter was standing before her house with the three boys and Lisi, and was trying to make out what they were telling her. They were all talking at once, and all she could understand was that it was something about Franz Martin, whose illness the milker had told them about. When Frau Vincenze explained why she had come, and said that she and her son had agreed to take Rudi as their own child, the woman made a great ado, assuring her that they would do far better to take one of her three boys, who would be much more help to Franz Martin, a hundred times more, than Stupid Rudi.

And the boys all shouted at the top of their voices, "Me! me! me!" for they well knew how kind Franz Martin was, and what good things there were to eat in the hut on the mountain. But all their begging and clamoring was in vain. Frau Vincenze said very quietly that she was determined to have Rudi, that she knew him, and that he had more heart and sense than many another who called him "Stupid Rudi." Moreover, she wanted to warn the boys to be careful henceforth about their jeering and gibing, or they would have to settle with Franz Martin and his strong arm. When she left them they all stared after her, dumb and stupefied, and each one of the children thought in his heart, "I wish I were Rudi! he'll have fine times,--like a king, up in Franz Martin's hut."

From that day on, whenever the boys saw Rudi anywhere, they ran after him and each one wanted to be his best friend, for they all remembered the last cheese party when Rudi was so badly treated. But now he would surely have all the cheese rolls to himself, and so it would be a good thing to be his friend. And later they did find it a good thing, for Rudi took great delight in dividing the rich harvest of cheese rolls among them all. He never ceased wondering at the way all the children had changed toward him, and at their not jeering or laughing at him any more.

When he got over being afraid of people, it turned out, to the surprise of all, that he was a very apt, nimble little fellow, of whom every one said, "Either he is not the same boy, or else we were all wrong in calling him 'Stupid Rudi.'"

THE LITTLE RUNAWAY

THE LITTLE RUNAWAY