ERICK AND SALLY
By the Swiss Writer
JOHANNA SPYRI
Author of Heidi, Chel, and many other stories
Translated by
HELENE H. BOLL
1921
Affectionately dedicated to
MRS. MARTHA C. BĂHLER
PREFACE
To our Boys and Girls:
Years ago, in a little country called Switzerland, there lived a little
girl who was the daughter of a doctor. This doctor sometimes had to
climb up high mountains and sometimes he had to descend slowly to the
deep valleys, always on horseback, to visit the sick people who had sent
for him. Of course there were no telephones, electric lights, steam
trains or automobiles, and so often this doctor was away from home for
two or three days attending the people who needed his help. His trips
took him into little villages where there were only a few hundred poor
people who made a scant living from farming and sheep raising, but he
knew them so well that he became very fond of them, and he shared their
sorrows and joys. When he returned home he would tell his little
daughter, who was Johanna Spyri, about what he had seen and heard. She
became very much interested in the people whom her father told about,
and when she grew up she visited many of the places that he had told her
about when she was a child.
It was not until she was quite a grown woman that she wrote any books,
but the children of Switzerland and Germany loved her stories so much,
that we have decided to translate the story of Erick and Sally for the
children of America. The author knew children and loved them, and wrote
to them and not for them. Thus, every one who reads this story will
follow the sorrows and pleasures of Erick just as if he were a personal
living friend.
The translator understands American boys and girls, for she has been a
teacher in our schools for many years. She also has an intimate
knowledge of the country described in this story for she has often
visited the places mentioned. Through her knowledge and love of the
country about which Madame Spyri wrote, and speaking her language, the
translator, Helene H. Boll, appreciates her thoughts, and has faithfully
reproduced them in this absorbing little story.
THE PUBLISHERS.
CONTENTS
Chapter I In the Parsonage of Upper Wood
Chapter II A Call in the Village
Chapter III 'Lizebeth on the Warpath
Chapter IV The Same Night in Two Houses
Chapter V Disturbance in School and Home
Chapter VI A Lost Hymn
Chapter VII Erick Enlists in the Fighting Army
Chapter VIII What Happens on Organ-Sunday
Chapter IX A Secret that is Kept
Chapter X Surprising Things Happen
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait of Madame Spyri
Now the lady held out her hand and said in a friendly tone, "Come here,
dear child"
Churi....unexpectedly gave him such a severe push that Erick rolled
down the rest of the mountain side
He threw both arms around the old gentleman's neck and rejoicingly
exclaimed: "Oh, Grandfather, is it really you?"
CHAPTER I
_In the Parsonage of Upper Wood_
The sun was shining so brightly through the foremost windows of the old
schoolhouse in Upper Wood, that the children of the first and second
classes appeared as if covered with gold. They looked at one another,
all with beaming faces, partly because the sun made them appear so, and
partly for joy; for when the sunshine came through the last window, then
the moment approached that the closing word would be spoken, and the
children could rush out into the evening sunshine. The teacher was still
busy with the illuminated heads of the second class, and indeed with
some zeal, for several sentences had still to be completed, before the
school could be closed. The teacher was standing before a boy who looked
well-fed and quite comfortable, and who was looking up into the
teacher's face with eyes as round as two little balls.
"Well, Ritz, hurry, you surely must have thought of something by now.
Now then! What can be made useful in a household? Do not forget to
mention the three indispensable qualities of the object."
Ritz, the youngest son of the minister, was usually busy thinking of
that which had just happened to him. So just now it had come to his
mind, how this very morning Auntie had arrived. She was an older sister
of his mother and had no home of her own; but made a home with her
relatives. She was a frequent visitor at the parsonage for months at a
time and would help the mother in governing the household. Ritz
remembered especially, that Auntie was particularly inclined to have the
children go to bed in good time--and they had to go--and he also
remembered that they could not get the extra ten minutes from Mother,
for Auntie was always against begging Mother. In fact, Auntie talked so
much about going to bed, that Ritz felt the feared command of retiring
during the whole day. So his thoughts were occupied with these
experiences, and he said after some thinking: "One can make use of an
aunt in a household. She must--she must--she must--"
"Well, what must she? That will be something different from a quality,"
the teacher interrupted the laborious speech of the boy.
"She must not always be reminding that it is time to go to bed," it now
came out.
"Ritz," the teacher said now in a severe tone, "is the school the place
to joke?"
But Ritz looked at the teacher with such unmistakable fright and
astonishment, that the latter saw that it was an honest opinion which
Ritz had made use of in his sentence. He therefore changed his mind and
said more gently: "Your sentence is unfitting and incorrect, for your
three qualities are not there. Do you understand that, Ritz? You will
have to make three sentences at home, all alike; but do not forget the
different qualities. Have you understood me?"
"Yes, teacher," answered Ritz in deepest dejection, for he already saw
himself sitting alone in the evening thinking and thinking and gnawing
on his slate pencil, while Sally and Edi could pursue their merry
entertainments.
Now the end of school was announced. In a short time the door was
opened, and the boys and girls hastened out toward the open place before
the schoolhouse, where suddenly all were crowded together like a huge
ball, from the midst of which came a tremendous noise and confused
shoutings. Something out of the common must have happened.
"In the house of old Marianne"--"a tremendously rich lady"--"a piano,
four men could not get it in, the door is too narrow"--"a small
boy"--"before we went to school"--It was so confused, nothing could
really be understood. Then a voice shouted: "All come along! Perhaps
they are not through with it, come, all of you to the Middle Lot!" And
suddenly the whole ball separated, and almost the whole crowd ran in the
same direction.
Only two boys remained on the playground and looked at each other, quite
perplexed. The one was stout little Ritz, who long since had forgotten
his great trouble and had listened intently to the exciting, although
incomprehensible story. The other was his brother Edi, a slender, tall
fellow with a high forehead and serious grey eyes beneath. He was hardly
two years older than his brother; but for his not quite nine years, he
was tall, and appeared much older than the seven-year-old Ritz.
"We must run home quickly and ask whether we too may go; we must see
that, Ritz, so hurry up!" With these words Edi pulled his brother along,
and soon they turned round the corner and also disappeared.
Behind the schoolhouse, near the hawthorn hedge, stood the last of the
crowd in animated conversation. It was Sally, the ten-year-old sister of
the two boys, with her friend Kaetheli, who with great excitement seemed
to describe an occurrence.
"But Kaetheli, I do not know the beginning," said Sally. "Just you begin
at the beginning, from where you saw everything with your own eyes, will
you?"
"Very well, I will, but this time you must pay close attention," said
Kaetheli. "You know that the old blind straw-plaiter lived with the
little girl Meili at old Marianne's? Well, Meili went to school at Lower
Wood. Two weeks ago her father died and Meili had to go to Lower Wood to
her uncle. Then Marianne cleaned the bedroom and the sitting-room
terribly clean, opened all the windows, and afterwards closed them all
again and put on the shutters. She herself lives in the little room
above. But this morning everything was open, and yet Marianne had said
nothing about it to anyone and all people in Middle Lot were surprised
at that. At half-past eleven, just when we were coming out of school, we
saw a wagon coming up the hill from Lower Wood, and the horse could
hardly pull the load, for there was a large piano on the wagon, a bed,
and lots of other things, a table and a little box, and I think that was
all. Now the wagon stopped at old Marianne's cottage, and all at once
there came out of the cottage old Marianne and a woman, who was quite
white in the face, and behind them came a little boy, and no one had
seen them come up. Then four men of Middle Lot wanted to carry the piano
into the cottage but it would not go through the door because the door
was too narrow and the piano too wide. And all who stood around to look
said she must be a very rich woman, because she had such a large piano.
But no one knew from where she came, and when anyone asked old Marianne
she snarled and said: 'I haven't any time.'
"All the people around are surprised that a rich lady should come to old
Marianne in the wooden cottage; my father has said long since that the
cottage would tumble over one of these days. And Sally! I wish you could
see the woman, you too would be surprised that she should make her home
there. Just think, she wears a black silk skirt on week-days!"
"And what about the boy, how does he look?" asked Sally, who had
followed her friend's story with close attention.
"I had almost forgotten him," continued Kaetheli. "Just think, he wears
velvet pants, quite short black velvet pants and a velvet jacket and a
cap to match. Just imagine a boy with velvet pants!"
"I should think that would be quite pretty," observed Sally, "but what
does he look like otherwise?"
"I have forgotten that, I had to watch the moving of the piano. He is
nothing particular to look at."
"Kaetheli, do you know what?" Sally said, "you go home with me. I want
to ask whether I may go home with you for a little while. I should like
to see that too, and then afterwards we will both go to old Marianne's
to call, will you?"
Kaetheli was ready at once to carry out the plan, and the children ran
together toward the parsonage.
It was only a little while before, that Edi and Ritz had arrived home
panting for breath. In the garden on the bench under the large
apple-tree, Mother and Auntie were sitting mending and conversing over
the bringing-up of the children; for Auntie knew many a good advice,
quite new and not worn out. Now they heard hasty running, and Edi and
Ritz came rushing along.
"May we--in the Middle Lot--to the Middle Lot--people have arrived--a
wagon and a piano--a terribly rich woman and a--"
Both shouted in confusion, breathlessly and incomprehensibly.
"Now," the aunt cried into the noise, "if you behave like two canary
birds who suddenly have become crazy, no human being can understand a
word. One is to be silent and the other may talk, or still better both
be silent."
But Ritz and Edi could do neither. If Edi began to report, then Ritz had
to follow. It always had been so, and to be silent at this moment of
excitement, that could not be expected; therefore both began afresh and
would no doubt have continued thus for some time if Sally and Kaetheli
had not arrived on the scene. They made everything clear in a short
time.
But the mother did not like to have her children run to the Middle Lot
for the sake of staring at strange people who had arrived there, and to
increase the gaping crowd who, no doubt, were standing in front of
Marianne's cottage. She did not give the longed-for permission, but she
invited Kaetheli to stay at the parsonage and take afternoon coffee with
the children and afterwards play in the garden.
That was at least something; Sally and Ritz were satisfied, and they ran
at once with Kaetheli into the house. But Edi showed a dissatisfied
face, for wherever something strange could be seen or found, he had to
be there.
He stood there without saying a word. He was thinking whether he dared
to work on his mother to get the desired permission. He feared, however,
the auxiliary troops which his aunt would lead into battle to help his
mother. But before he had weighed all sides his aunt said: "Well, Edi,
have you not yet swallowed the defeat? Isn't there some old Roman, or
Egyptian, who also could not always do what he wanted? Just you think
that over and you will see that it will help you."
That helped, indeed, for Edi was a great searcher in history, and when
he happened in that field, then all other interests were pushed into the
background. He at once remembered that he had not finished reading about
his old Egyptian, and with a smoothed brow he ran into the house.
The sun had set and it was growing dark among the bushes in the garden,
where the children, with red cheeks, were seeking each other and hiding
again. All of a sudden there came a loud, penetrating call: "To bed, to
bed!" Ritz had just found a fine hiding-place in the henhouse, where he
had comfortably settled, secure from being discovered, when this
terrible call reached him. It struck him like a thunderbolt. Yes, it
took his breath away so that he turned white and hadn't the strength to
rise; for, with the call came the remembrance of the three sentences
which he had to write: three whole sentences and nine different
qualities, and he had forgotten everything, and now all the time had
gone and he had to go to bed.
"Where are you, Ritz?" It sounded into his hiding-place. "Come, crawl
out. I know you are in there and will be covered with feathers from head
to foot."
The aunt stood before the henhouse, and Sally and Kaetheli beside her
full of expectation, for they had sought Ritz for a long time in vain.
But Auntie had experience in such things. Ritz actually came crawling
out of the henhouse and stood now in a lamentable condition before his
aunt.
"How you do look! You ought to have been in bed an hour ago, you haven't
a drop of blood in your cheeks," the aunt exclaimed. "What is the matter
with you, Ritz?"
"Where is Mamma?" asked Ritz in his fright.
"She is upstairs; come, she will put you to bed at once when I have got
you finally together. Come, Sally, and you, Kaetheli, go home now."
With these words she took Ritz by the hand, and drew him up the stone
steps into the house, and wanted to bring him up the stairs to the
bedroom. Then everything was over and no rescue from going to bed at
once. Now Ritz stopped his aunt and groaned: "I must--I must--I have to
write three sentences for punishment."
"There we have it." But Ritz looked so miserable that Auntie felt great
pity for him. "Come in here," she said, and shoved him into the
living-room, "and take out your things."
Now she sat down beside him and the whole affair proceeded finely. Not
that Auntie formed the sentences, no indeed, she was not going to cheat
the teacher; but she knew well what was needed to form a sentence and
she pushed and spurred Ritz and brought so many things before him, and
reminded him how they looked, that he had his three sentences and his
nine qualities together in no time. Now there came a feeling to Ritz
that he had not acted right, when he said that an aunt must not always
be reminding people, and when now Auntie asked: "Ritz, why had you to
write the sentences?" then the feeling grew stronger in him, for he felt
that he could not tell the cause of his punishment without making his
aunt angry. He stuttered, "I have--I have--the teacher has said, that I
made an unfitting sentence."
"Yes, I can imagine that," said Auntie. "Now quickly to bed."
Edi and Ritz slept in the same room and that was the place where the two
boys, every evening after the mother had said evening prayer with them,
and they were alone, exchanged their deepest thoughts and experiences
with one another and talked them over. Ritz had the greatest respect for
Edi, for although the latter was only a little older, yet he was already
in the fourth class, and he himself was only in the second, and in
history Edi knew more than the scholars in the fifth and some in the
sixth class. When now the two were well tucked in their beds, Ritz said:
"Edi, was it a sin that I said Auntie must not always remind?" Edi
thought a bit, such a case had never come to him. After a while he said:
"You see, Ritz, it goes thus: if you have done something that is a sin,
then you must go at once to Daddy and confess, there is no help for it;
but if you do that, then everything comes again in order and you feel
happy again, and afterwards you look out not to do the sinful thing
again. I can tell you that, Ritz. But if you do not confess, then you
are always full of fear when a door is slammed or a letter-carrier
unexpectedly brings a letter, then you think at once: 'There now,
everything will come out.' And so you are never sure nor safe and you
feel a pressure in the chest. But there is another thing that presses so
hard that you can think of nothing else, for example, if you have given
away a rabbit, you regret it afterwards. But there is a remedy and I
have tried it many a time, and it helps. You must think of something
dreadful, like a large fire, when everything is burnt up, the fortress
and the soldiers in it and all historical books, and--all at once you
think everything backwards and you have everything; then you are so glad
that you think: what difference does a rabbit make? You still have
everything else. Now Ritz, try that and see if it helps you, then you
can find out whether everything passes away or whether you have to tell
Daddy tomorrow."
"Yes, I will try it," said Ritz somewhat indistinctly, and soon after he
took such deep breaths that Edi knew what was going on. He heaved a sigh
and said: "Oh, Ritz, you are asleep and I wanted to tell you so much
about the old Egyptian."
A little while afterwards the whole peaceful parsonage of Upper Wood lay
in deep sleep; only old 'Lizebeth went about the passage calling: "Bs,
bs, bs." She wanted to get the old grey cat into the kitchen to catch
the mice during the night. 'Lizebeth had been in the parsonage of Upper
Wood as long as one could remember, for there had always been a son, and
when the time had come, then he had become parson in Upper Wood. First
'Lizebeth had served the grandfather, then the father and now the son,
and she had long since elected Edi as the future minister, and intended
to look after his house when he should be the master here.