HOW ULI INSTALS HIMSELF AS OVERSEER
Calmly, with resolution taken, he joined the workers; it was afternoon,
shortly after dinner. They were threshing by sixes. The milker and
carter were preparing fodder; these he joined and helped. They did not
need him, they said, and could do it alone.--He couldn't do anything on
the threshing-floor, he said, until they started to clear up, and so
today he would help them prepare fodder and manure. They grumbled; but
he took hold and with his wonted adroitness mixed the fodder and shook
the dust from it, and so silently forced the others to work better than
usual. Below in the passage he shook out the fodder again, and made the
fodder piles so fine and even along the walls, sweeping up with the
broom the path between the horse-fodder and the cow-fodder, that it was
a pleasure to see him. The milker said that if they did it that way
every day, they couldn't prepare in two days what the stock would eat
in one. That depended, said Uli, how one was accustomed to prepare, and
according to how the stock treated the fodder.
When they went at the manure he had his troubles with the milker, who
wanted to take only the coarsest stuff off the top, as it were the cream
from the milk. It was nice and warm outside, said Uli, and the stock
wouldn't get cold; they would work thoroughly this time. And indeed it
was necessary, for there was old stuff left that almost required the
mattock before they could get to the stone floor of the stable. But
there was no time left to dig out between the stones. They had to dip
out the manure-pit, for the liquid was rising and almost reached the
back of the stable; and only with difficulty could he get them to carry
what they clipped out into the courtyard and not pour it into the road.
When the manure was outside no one wanted to spread it, and the answer
he got to his question was that they had no time today; they must soon
fodder; it would be time enough in the morning.--It could easily be done
during the foddering, said Uli, and the dung must be spread while still
warm, especially in winter. Once frozen, it wouldn't settle any more and
one would get no manure from it. With that he went at it himself, and
the two men calmly let him work and made fun of him behind the
stable-doors and in the fodder-passage.
In the house they had long since begun to wonder that the new overseer
did not come home, and to fear that he might have driven off and away.
Joggeli had sat down at the window from which he could see the road,
almost looked his eyes out, and began to scold: he hadn't thought
Johannes was as bad as that, and here he was his cousin, too, and such a
trick he wouldn't play on the merest stranger; but nowadays one couldn't
place reliance upon anybody, not even one's own children.
While he was in his best vein, Freneli came in and said, "You can look a
long time; the new man's out there spreading the manure they've taken
out; he probably thinks it's better not to let it pile up. If nobody
else will do it he probably thinks he must do it himself."
"Why doesn't he show himself when he comes home?" said Joggeli; and
"Good gracious, why doesn't he come to supper?" said the mother. "Go and
tell him to come in at once, we're keeping something warm for him."
"Wait," said Joggeli, "I'll go out myself and see how he's doing it and
what's been done."
"But make him come," said the mother; "I think he must have got good and
hungry."
Joggeli went out and saw how Uli was carefully spreading the manure and
thoroughly treading it down; that pleased him. He wanted to look for the
milker and the carter, to show them how Uli was doing it and to tell
them to do it so in the future; he looked into the fodder-passage and
could not take his eyes from it for a long time, as he saw the handsome,
round, appetizing fodder-piles and the clean path between them. He
looked into the stable, and as he saw the cows standing comfortably in
clean straw and no longer on old manure he too felt better, and so he
now went to Uli and told him that it had not really been the intention
that he should do all the dirty work himself; that was other people's
business. He had had the time for it, said Uli; there was no place for
him in the threshing, and so he had done this in order to show how he
wanted it done in the future. Joggeli wanted to bid him come in; but Uli
said he would first like to watch the cleaning up after the threshing;
he wanted to see how they did it. There he saw that the men simply
thought of getting through quickly. The grain was poorly threshed; a
number of ears could still be seen; it was winnowed still worse. The
grain in the bin was not clean, so that he felt like emptying it and
beginning the work over; however, he controlled himself and thought he
would do it otherwise tomorrow.--But in the house Joggeli was saying
that he liked the new man, for he knew his business; but he hoped he
wouldn't boss too much--he didn't like that. You couldn't do things in
all places just alike, and by and by he wouldn't have any orders to give
himself.
After supper Uli came to the master and asked him what was to be done
during the winter; it seemed to him that the work should be so arranged
that one should be all ready for the new work when the spring came.
Yes, said Joggeli, that might be good; but one couldn't do everything
all at once; things had to take their time. The threshing would last
about three weeks more; then they could begin to cut wood, and by the
time they were through with that the spring would just about be at hand.
If he might say so, said Uli, it seemed to him that they ought to bring
in the wood now. It was fine weather and the road good, so it would be
twice as easy. In February the weather was generally bad and the ground
soft; then you couldn't budge anything and ruined all the wagons.
That wouldn't do very well, thought Joggeli; it was not customary to
begin threshing in February.
He hadn't meant that, said Uli. They should continue threshing. He and
one more would cut down and get ready all the wood the carter could
bring home, and until a load was ready the carter could help them in the
woods.
Then they couldn't thresh by sixes any more, said Joggeli, if he took a
man from the threshing, and when they all cut wood together they could
do a lot in a short time.
"Well," said Uli, "as you will; but I thought this way: couldn't the
milker help in the threshing during the morning and the afternoon, too,
if the others help with the manure and the foddering at noon? And
sometimes two can do more in the woods than a whole gang, when nobody
wants to take hold."
"Yes," said Joggeli, "sometimes it goes that way; but let's let the wood
go: the threshing's more pressing now."--
"As you will," said Uli, and went somewhat heavy-hearted to bed.
"Well, you are the queerest man," said the old woman to her husband. "I
liked what Uli said awfully well. It would have been to our advantage;
and if those two fine gentlemen, the carter and the milker, don't have
time to be drying their noses in the sun all day, it won't hurt 'em a
bit, the scamps. Uli will be worth nothing to you, if you go on that
way."
"But I won't take orders from a servant. If I let him do that he'd think
nobody but he was to give orders. You've got to show 'em right from the
start how you want to have things." grumbled Joggeli.
"Yes, you're the right one to show 'em; you spoil the good ones, and the
bad ones you're afraid of and let 'em do as they please--that's your
way," said his wife. "It's always been that way, and it isn't going to
be any different now."
The next morning Uli told the mistress that one maid was superfluous on
the threshing-floor, and she might keep for the house whichever she
wanted. And Uli threshed through to the floor, and held his flail so
that it touched his neighbor's and forced him to thresh the whole length
of the grain to the wall; and when one section was done, the secondary
tasks were quickly finished and they threshed again; and all this Uli
effected not by words, but, by the rapidity of his own work. In the
house they remarked that it seemed as if they must have different flails
for the threshing; these sounded quite different, and as if they went
through to the floor. The maid who was released told Freneli how they
were going to do for this fellow; he needn't think that he was going to
start a new system, for they weren't going to let themselves be
tormented by such a fellow. She was sorry for him; he was well-mannered
and he certainly could work, she must admit. Everything he put his hands
to went well. While they were threshing the carter had ridden off,
ostensibly to the blacksmith. The milker had gone off with the cow, but
without telling his errand. It was noon before either came back, and
neither had worked a stroke.
After dinner Uli helped peel the remaining potatoes, as is customary in
well-ordered households if time permits; the others ran out, scarcely
taking time to pray. When Uli came out there was an uproar in the barn;
two couples were wrestling on the straw of the last threshing, while the
others looked on. He called to the milker to come quickly and take out
the calves and look to them; probably they needed to be shorn and
salved. The milker said that wasn't Uli's business; nobody was to touch
his calves; they would be all right for a long while. And the carter
stepped up to Uli, crying, "Shall we have a try at each other--if you
dare?" Uli's blood boiled, for he saw that it was a put-up job; yet he
could not well refuse. Sooner or later, he well knew, he would have to
stand up to them and show his mettle. And so he said to himself, let it
be now; then they would have his measure.
"Ho, if you want to try it, I'm willing," he replied, and twice running
he flung the Carter on his back so that the floor cracked. Then the
milker said he would like to try too; to be sure, it was scarcely worth
while to try falls with a walking-stick, with legs like pipe-stems and
calves like fly-specks. With his brown hairy arms he grasped Uli as if
he would pull him apart like an old rag. But Uli held his ground and the
milker made no headway. He grew more and more angry, took hold with ever
greater venom, spared neither arms nor legs, and butted with his head
like an animal, until at last Uli had enough of it, collected all his
strength, and gave him such a swing that he flew over the grain-pile
into the middle of the floor and fell on the further side; there he lay
with all fours in the air, and for a long time did not know where he
was.
As if by chance Freneli had brought food for the hogs and had seen Uli's
victory. In the house she told her godmother that she had seen something
that tickled her. They had wanted to give Uli a beating; he had had to
wrestle with them, but he was a match for them all. He had thrown the
hairy milker on his back as if he had never stood up. She was glad that
he could manage them all; then they would be afraid of him and respect
him. But Uli, interrupted in his examination of the calves, seized a
flail and merely told the milker that he had no time for the calves
today; they would look to them another day. The cleaning of the grain
took more time than usual, and yet they were through quicker and the
grain was better cleaned; but they had exerted themselves more, too, and
in consequence had felt the cold less. When Uli told the master how much
grain he had obtained, the latter said that they had never done so much
this year and yet today they had been threshing the fallen grain.
In the evening, as they sat at table, the master came and said he
thought it would be convenient to cut wood now; the horses weren't
needed, the weather was fine, and it seemed to him that the threshing
and the wood-cutting could go on together if properly arranged. The
carter said the horses' hoofs were not sharpened; and another said that
they couldn't go on threshing by sixes, but at most by fours, and would
never get done. Uli said nothing.
Finally, when Joggeli had no further answers to give, and was out-talked
by the servants, he said to Uli, "Well, what do you think?"
"If the master orders it's got to be done," answered Uli. "Hans, the
carter, and I will bring the wood in, and if the milker helps in the
threshing and the others help him with fodder and manure, the threshing
won't suffer." "All right, do it so," said Joggeli, and went out.
Now the storm broke over Uli's head, first in single peals, then in
whole batteries of thunder. The carter swore he wouldn't go into the
woods; the milker swore he wouldn't touch a flail; the others swore they
wouldn't thresh by fours. They wouldn't be howled at; annoyed; they
weren't dogs; they knew what was customary, etc. But they knew where all
this came from, and he had better look out for himself if he was going
to have the evening bells ring at six here (in the winter three o'clock
is the hour, six in summer). Many a fellow had come along like a
district governor, and then had had to make tracks like a beaten hound.
It was a bad sort of fellow who got his fellow-servants into trouble in
order to put the master's eyes out. But they would soon give such a
fellow enough of it. Uli said little in reply, only that the master's
orders had to be carried out. The master had ordered, not he, and if
none of them got off worse than he they ought to thank God for it. He
wasn't going to torment anybody, but he wouldn't be tormented either; he
had no cause to fear any of them. Then he told the mistress to be kind
enough to put up lunch for three, for they would scarcely come back from
the woods to dinner.
The next morning they went out into the woods. Much as the carter
growled and cursed, he had to go along. The milker would not thresh and
the master did not appear. Then the mistress plucked up courage and went
out and said that she thought he needn't be too high and mighty to
thresh; better folks than he had threshed before now. They couldn't
afford to pay a milker who wanted to dry his teeth in the sun all the
morning. So the wood was brought in, they scarcely knew how; and in
February weather and roads were so bad that they would have had a hard
time with the wood.
Hard as Uli had worked outside (and he had a bad time of it, for he
always took the heavy end, wishing to be master not only in giving
orders, but in working too), still in the evening he always helped to
prepare whatever vegetables the mistress ordered, no matter what they
were. He never shirked and he prevented the others from doing so; the
more they helped each other, he said, the sooner they would get done,
and if they wanted food it was only reasonable that they should help get
it ready. He himself always helped wherever he could: when one of the
maids had washed a basket of potatoes and did not like to carry it alone
because she would get all wet, he would help her carry it himself, or
would order the boy (half child, half servant) to do so; and when the
latter at first refused, or failed to come at his word, he punished him
until the boy learned to obey. It was not right, he said, for one
servant to refuse to help another take care of his clothes, or for
servants to plague each other; that was just wantonly making service
worse than it needed to be. But it was long before they grasped this,
for a peculiar atmosphere existed there. The men teased the maids
wherever they could; nowhere was there any mutual assistance. When one
of the men was asked to lend a hand he scoffed and cursed and would not
budge; even the mistress had to endure this, and when she complained to
Joggeli he simply said she was always complaining. He didn't hire
servants to help the women-folk; they had something else to do beside
hauling flowers around.
The behavior of Uli, who was not accustomed to such discord in a house,
attracted attention and brought down upon him the bitter mockery and
scorn of the men, which was aggravated intolerably by other causes. On
the very first Saturday the milker refused, out of sheer wilfulness, to
attend to the manure, but let it go till Sunday morning. This Uli would
not permit; there was absolutely no reason for putting it off, and it
would keep them from cleaning up around the house on Saturday, as was
customary. Besides, the commandment said men shouldn't work on Sunday
"thou nor thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant." Least of all was it
becoming to leave the dirtiest tasks for Sunday. The milker said,
"Sunday fiddlesticks! What do I care about Sunday? I won't do it today."
Uli's blood boiled hotly; but he composed himself and said merely, "Well
then, I will."
The master, who had heard the clamor, went into the house, grumbling to
himself, "If only Uli wouldn't insist on bossing and starting new
customs; I don't like that. Folks have manured on Sunday time out of
mind, and were satisfied with it; it would have been good enough for him
too."