Part 6

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!"