Part 5

When my father sat shaving himself, and when he had lathered his cheek and lips to such a snowy whiteness that he looked like the herd-boy after he has been lapping cream behind the milkmaid's back; when, further, he sharpened his gleaming razor on his brown-leather braces and then passed it slowly over his cheek, he would straightway begin to twist mouth, cheeks, and nose--indeed, his whole countenance--in such a fashion as made his dear kind face quite unrecognisable. He drew both lips deep into his mouth, till he was like nothing so much as old neighbour Veit who had lost all his teeth; or he stretched his mouth crosswise, from left to right, like Köhler-Sani scolding his hens; and he screwed one eye up tight and blew out a cheek, for all the world like poor Tinili the tailor, after his virago wife had been caressing him. All the funniest faces in the whole neighbourhood came to my mind in turn when my father sat at his shaving. And that set me off.

At this point my father, still friendly, would say, "Do be quiet, laddie." But scarcely had he spoken when again there came such a wonderful face that I simply couldn't help laughing outright. He peered into the little looking-glass, and I fully expected to see his distorted features relax into a smile. Then he suddenly called out, "If you're not quiet, boy, I'll break the shaving-brush over your pate!"

It was now high time to creep under the table, where my smothered giggles kept me shaking like a wet poodle. After that he could shave peacefully and without danger of breaking out into untimely mirth over his own or my grimaces.

And so it came to pass one winter evening that my father was sitting before the soap-bowl and I under the table when I heard someone in the entrance stamping the snow from his boots. A moment later the door opened and in came a big man whose thick red beard had icicles hanging from it just like our shingle roof outside. He at once sat down on a bench, drew a big tobacco-pipe from under his homespun cloak, gripped it between his front teeth, and, while striking a light, remarked, "Having a shave, Farmer?"

"Yes, I'm having a bit of a shave," answered my father, and went on scraping with the razor, and cut a really God-forsaken grimace.

"That's all right," said the stranger.

And later, when he was quite hidden in tobacco smoke and the icicles were dripping from his beard, he uttered himself thus:

"I don't know if so be you know me or not, Farmer. Five year agone I passed your place and took a drink of water at your spring. I come from Stanz; I'm Frau Drachenbinder's farm-hand, and I've come about the matter of that big lad of yours."

Under the table, I went hot to the tips of my toes at these words. My father had but one big lad at the time, and that was myself. I drew back into the darkest corner.

"Come about my boy?" returned my father. "You can have him if you want him--we can easily spare him; he's just too bad for anything!"

(Peasant folk are very fond of talking like that for the sake of teasing and overaweing their forward children.)

"Come, come, Farmer! Not so bad as all that! Frau Drachenbinder wants to get something written down--a will or some such matter--and she don't know anybody, far and wide, that's a good writing scholar. But now she's heard tell that the farmer at Vorderalpel has got an uncommon kind of boy that can do such things as that with his little finger alone! And so she's sent me off here, and I was to beg of you, Farmer, if you'd be so kind as to lend her the loan of the boy over there for a day. She'll soon pack him off back again, and give him something for his trouble as well."

When I heard him say that I rattled my shoe-tips against the table legs: that wouldn't come at all amiss, I thought.

"Go along with you!" said my father when he had scratched one cheek quite smooth. "However is my small boy to go to Stanz in the dead of winter? It must be at least a four hours' walk!"

"Just so," answered the big man, "and that's why I'm here. He's only got to climb up on my back and open his legs and shove 'em along past my ribs, both sides of me, towards the front, where I'll lay hold of them; and then he must hug me round the neck with his hands, like as if he was my sweetheart, so that he don't go falling off backwards."

"I see," replied my father; "you needn't make such a talk about a pig-a-back ride!"

"Well, after that I'll manage all right, and when Sunday comes I'll bring him back home again."

"I'm not afraid of your not bringing him back safe and sound," said my father; "and if Frau Drachenbinder really wants to have something written down, and seeing that you're her man, and if the lad will go with you--there's no objection so far as I'm concerned."

He uttered these words with a smooth, ordinary countenance.

A little later I was rigged out in my Sunday clothes. Elated with my so suddenly acquired importance I strutted up and down the room.

"You wandering Jew, you!" exclaimed my father. "Haven't you got anything to sit upon?"

But there was no more peace for me. Better than anything I should have liked to settle myself there and then on the big man's broad back, and ride straight away. But just then my mother came in bringing a steaming savoury dish, saying, "Eat that, you two, before you start off!"

Not in vain did she say it. I had never yet seen our biggest wooden spoon piled up so high as then when the strange big man plied it between the meat-platter and his bearded mouth. But I walked up and down all the while and thought about how I was going to become Frau Drachenbinder's scrivener.

Presently, when matters had gone so far that my mother could turn the dish upside-down on the hearth without a crumb falling out, I hopped up on to the man's back, held on hard by his beard, and rode away in the name of God.

The sun was already setting; the valleys were full of blue shadow; the far snow-heights of the Alps were a dull rose-colour.

So long as my nag was trotting uphill over the bare pastures the snow bore his weight well, but when he came in among the young larch and pine-woods the surface became treacherous and broke under him. He was prepared for that, however. When he came up to an old hollow larch with wild arms stretching out into the air, he pulled up, thrust his right hand into the dark cavity, and fished out a pair of snow-shoes of woven willow which he bound under his shoe-soles. Upon these wide things he began the pilgrimage anew. Progress was slow, for in order to manage the shoes he must keep them far apart; but with such duck's feet there was no more breaking through.

Suddenly--it was already dark and the stars shining clear--my mount began to undo my shoes, pulled them clean off my feet and put them away in his turned-up apron. Then he said, "Now, laddie, stick your little hoofs in my breeches pocket, so that your toes don't freeze off." He took my hands in his own and breathed warm breath upon them--and that was instead of gloves.

The cold bit my cheeks, the snow creaked under the snow-shoes; I rode on lonely through the forest and over the heights. I rode all along the ridge of the Hochbürstling, where even in summer I had never yet been. Now and again, when progress was too deliberate, I pressed my knees into the yielding flesh, and my horse took it all in good part, going on as well as ever he could--there was no doubt about his knowing the way! I rode past a post whereon, summer and winter, that holy patron of cattle, St. Erhardi, stood. I knew St. Erhardi at home, he and I between us had charge of my father's herd. He was always much carefuller than I: if a cow came to grief, I the herdboy was blamed; if the others throve, St. Erhardi got the credit for it.--It did my heart good he should see that I had become a horseman while he stood there nailed to his post for ever and ever.

At last our path took a turn and I began riding downwards over stumps and stones, making towards a little light that glimmered in the valley below. And just when all the trees and places had passed me by and I had nothing but the dark mass with the one little pane of shining light before me, my good Christopher came to a halt and said, "Now look here, my dear boy--seeing as how I'm a stranger to you and you've come with me like this without taking thought what you were doing--how d'you know that I mayn't have got a life-long grudge against your father and am just now going to carry you into a robbers' den?"

I listened a moment. Then, as he added nothing to these words, I answered in the same tone:

"Considering my father trusted me to Frau Drachenbinder's man and that I've come with him like this, it's not likely Drachenbinder's man has got a grudge against us, and he won't carry me into a robbers' den."

At these words of mine the man snorted into his beard, and soon after he lowered me on to the stump of a tree, saying, "And now here we are at Frau Drachenbinder's house."

He opened a door in the dark mass and went in.

The small living-room had a stove with glowing embers on it, a burning pine-splinter,[6] and a straw bed with a child asleep on it. Near it stood a woman, very old and bent and with a face as pallid and creased as the coarse nightgown she was wearing. As we entered, this person uttered a strange cry, a sort of crowing, began to laugh violently, and then hid herself behind the stove.

"That's Frau Drachenbinder," remarked my guide. "She'll soon come and speak to you, and meantime you sit down there on the stool near the bed and put on your shoes again."

I did what he bade me, and he seated himself on a block of wood near by.

When the woman became composed, she moved lightly about the stove and soon brought us a steaming grey meal-soup in an earthenware pot, and two bone spoons with it. My man ate solemnly and steadily, but I couldn't quite fancy it. Then he got up and said softly to me, "Sleep well, boy!" and went away. And when I found myself alone in the close room with the sleeping child and the old woman I began to feel downright creepy.

Frau Drachenbinder came up to me, laid her light, lean hand on my cheek, and said, "I thank the dear Lord God that you've come!--It's barely six months since my daughter died. That there"--she pointed to the child--"is my young branch--such a dear mite--he's my heir. And now I hear Death knocking at the door again. I'm very old. I've saved all my life--I'm going to beg my coffin from kind folks' charity. My husband died long ago and left this little house to me. My illnesses have cost me the house--but they weren't worth it. Whatever I leave behind me is for my grandchild's very own. As yet he's too young to take it into his heart, and I can't give it into any man's hand, and so I want to have it written down so that it's kept. I won't do it through the schoolmaster in Stanz, and the doctor can't do it without the stamp-duty. And then people told me about the son of the farmer at Vorderalpel, and how he was such a scholar that he could write out people's last wills without the stamp! That's why I've had you brought all this long way. Do this favour for me to-morrow, and to-night go and get a good rest."

She ushered me, by the light of the burning splinter, into the little room adjoining. It was made only of boards. A bed of hay, with a covering in the shape of the woman's thick, best Sunday dress, was there, and in a corner stood a little brown church with two small towers in which little bells were set a-tinkling whenever one trod the shaky floor. Frau Drachenbinder stuck the burning pine-wood in the window of one of the towers, made the sign of the cross on me with her thumb, and then I was alone in the room. It was cold: I was shivering with the bitter winter, and with a fear of my hostess too, but, before ever I crept into my nest, curiosity impelled me to open the door of the little church. Out sprang a mouse who had just made her supper off the gold-paper altar and St. Joseph's cardboard hand. Saints and angels were there within, and gay banners and wreaths--it was a lovely toy. I thought to myself that this must be Frau Drachenbinder's parish church, for the little body was far too feeble to walk to Stanz for mass. I said my evening prayer before it, asking Our Lord to protect me during that night; then I extinguished the splinter so that it should not burn right down to the window-frame, and after that laid myself down on the hay, in God's name.

It seemed to me as if I had been torn away from myself and were some learned clerk in a far-away cold house, while the real boy of the forest farm was sleeping at home in his own warm little nest. Just as I was falling asleep I heard the short, sharp cries of joy again in the living-room, and soon after that the loud laughter. Whatever was it that delighted her so much, and at whom was she laughing? I was terrified, and thought of running away. One of the boards could be easily shifted, but then--the snow!

Only towards morning did I fall asleep, and I dreamed and dreamed about a red mouse that had bitten off the right hand of all the saints in the church. And my father was looking out of the window of the tower with his lathered, distorted cheeks and holding a lighted pine-splinter in his mouth: and I sobbed and giggled together, and was hot with fear. When at last I awoke I thought I was in a cage with silver bars, for so the white daylight looked through the vertical cracks in the woodwork. And when I went outside the house door I was astonished to see how narrow the ravine was, and how high and wintry the mountains.

Within doors the child was screaming, and then Frau Drachenbinder broke out into her jubilant cries again.

At breakfast there was my horse again, but he hardly spoke at all, giving all his attention to his food; and when that was finished he got up, put on his huge hat, and went off to church at Stanz.

When the old woman had comforted the child, fed the fowls, and done other household work, she pushed the wooden bolt of the house door, went into the inner room, and began ringing the bells of the little church. She lighted two candles that stood on the altar, and then she made a prayer, and one more moving have I never heard. She knelt before the church, held out her hands, and murmured: "By the most sacred wound of Thy right hand, O my crucified Saviour, save my parents if they be still in torment. Though they have lain for half a century in the earth I can still hear my father in the dead of night crying out for help.--By the most sacred wound of Thy left hand I commend to Thee the soul of my daughter. She had hardly looked round upon the world and she was just going to lay her little one in her husband's arms, when up comes cruel Death and takes and buries her out of our sight!--By the most sacred wound of Thy right foot, I pray Thee from my very heart for my husband, and for my kindred and benefactors, and that Thou wilt not forget this little lad from the forest farm.--By the most sacred wound of Thy left foot, O crucified Saviour, in love and mercy remember also all my enemies, who have smitten me with their hands and trodden me with their feet. Blinded men crucified Thee to death, and yet Thou hast forgiven them.--By the most holy wound of Thy sacred side, I invoke Thee a thousand and a thousand times.--O crucified God, take up my grandchild to Thy Divine Heart. His father is far away with the soldiers, and perhaps I have not long to live. Be Thou a guardian to the child, I beseech Thee."

That was how she prayed. The little red candles burned devoutly. At that moment it seemed to me that if I were Our Lord I would come down from Heaven and take the child in my arms, and say, "See for yourself, Frau Drachenbinder, I am holding him close to My heart, and I will be his guardian." I would let him grow white wings, so that he could fly away to the Better Land.

But then, I wasn't Our Lord.

Presently Frau Drachenbinder said, "Now let's get to the writing." But when we wanted to begin there was no ink and no pen and no paper. We had forgotten every one of these things.

The old woman leant her head on her palm, murmuring, "What a misfortune!"

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.