For some time past Mr. Meyerhofer had gone about with great plans in his
head. He had discovered that the turf moor which surrounded the farm in
a wide circle was in a condition to afford a sure profit. Already, twice
or thrice, when need had been sorest, he had, to make shift, ordered
peat to be cut, and sent five cart-loads to the town.
Secretly, quite secretly--for he was too proud to be considered as
nothing better than a common peat-cutting farmer. His people had each
time brought home twenty to twenty-five marks clear gain, and said that
there was far more to be gained still in this way, because black, firm
peat was an article much in demand in the market.
But Meyerhofer was not to be induced to utilize the moor in this manner.
“I have never bothered about such trifles,” he said; “I’d rather be
ruined wholesale than earn in detail,” and then he drew himself up like
a hero.
But the moor did not let him rest. It was in September, after an
unusually favorable harvest, when Lob Levy, the complaisant friend of
all farmers in debt, appeared on the farm twice or thrice weekly, and
had much to negotiate with the master. Frau Elsbeth trembled with fear
as soon as the Jew, in his dirty caftan, appeared at the gate. She
seated herself at the window and followed untiringly every movement of
the negotiators. If her husband assumed a thoughtful air she felt a cold
shiver, and only when he smiled again she dared to breathe freely, too.
She anticipated no good, but did not venture to ask what kind of
business her husband had to transact with this usurer.
She was soon to be enlightened. One afternoon Paul saw how a strange
vehicle came rumbling along on the road from the town, which looked
in the distance like an immense black copper on wheels. Something
that appeared to be a chimney stuck out beyond it, and when the wheels
staggered on the uneven ground bent to the right and the left like a
man politely bowing. He gazed at the wonder for a while, then ran to his
mother, whom he eagerly pulled to the door by her dress.
She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked down the road. “That is a
locomobile,” she said at last.
Paul knew as much as before. “What is a locomobile?” he asked.
“A steam-engine which can be moved anywhere, and which great land-owners
use to turn their thrashing-machines; one can also harrow and plough
with it, for such a thing has more strength than ten horses.”
“But why is it drawn by horses, then?” he asked.
“Because by itself it cannot move anywhere,” was the answer.
He did not understand that. “Anyhow,” he thought, “it must be a great
happiness to possess such a thing with that strange name, and if we ever
become rich--”
At this moment his father came rushing out of the house in great
excitement; he had a slipper on one foot, a boot on the other, and his
necktie had turned to the back of his neck.
“They are coming! they are coming!” he cried, clapping his hands; then
he caught his wife round the waist and danced with her into the middle
of the road.
She looked at him with great anxious eyes, as if she wanted to say,
“What fresh nonsense have you contrived now?” But he would not let
her go, and when the twins in their pink cotton frocks and dark little
pigtails came running out of the garden, he made for them, took them in
his arms, let them dance on his shoulders, and pretended to throw them
over the ditch, so that the mother could only stop this nonsense by most
ardent pleading.
“There, you little rogues,” he cried, “rejoice and dance. All poverty
is ended now; next spring we shall measure our money by the bushel.” The
mother looked at him askance, but said nothing.
The monster came nearer and nearer. Paul stood there motionless--all
eyes. Then he looked up at his mother, whose face was care-worn, and a
certain fear came over him as if now the devil had come into the house;
but then he remembered how his wish of a moment ago was fulfilled, and
he resolved to meet the black guest with full confidence.
Meanwhile all the farm-servants and maids came hurrying from the stables
and kitchen. All the inmates of the Howdahs stood in a row by the fence
and gazed at the approaching wonder.
“But tell me, what do you want to do with it?” Frau Elsbeth at last
asked her husband.
He threw a pitying glance at her; then he laughed shortly, and said,
“Drive about in it.”
Frau Elsbeth asked no more. Her husband, turning to the upper
farm-servant, expounded his plans: how he would begin peat-cutting on
a large scale; cutting and pressing machines were also on the way, and
to-morrow, early, work could begin. Then he gave him orders to go to the
village to engage the necessary workmen. Ten men would suffice for the
beginning, but he hoped soon to need as many as twenty or thirty.
Frau Elsbeth mutely shook her head, and went into the house just as
the locomobile arrived before the gate. Paul never tired of looking and
admiring. Behind the yellow screws and crooked handles there seemed
to lie a world of mystery; the place for the fire, with the grate and
ash-box beneath, seemed to him like the entrance to that fiery furnace,
in which the well-known three holy men had once intoned their song of
praise; and the chimney above all, standing threateningly upright, with
its wreath of pine soot at its mouth, which seemed to lead down into
blackness and fathomless depths!
Paul did not heed the little basket-carriage that drove behind the
monster, in which sat Lob Levy, with his shaggy, reddish beard, and his
merry, twinkling eyes; he did not heed the screaming of the carmen, and
the exultation of his two little sisters, who danced like mad round the
wheels. He stood there dazed with wonder, as if he could not understand
yet what was happening around him.
When, later on, he entered the big room, he found his mother crouching
in the corner of the sofa, crying.
He put his arm round her neck; but she kept him gently off, and said,
“Go and look after the little ones, so that they do not get under the
wheels.”
“But why do you cry, mamma?”
“You will see in time, my boy,” she said, stroking his hair. “Lob Levy
is in it--you will see in time.”
Then he felt angry with his mother! When all were joyful why should she
sit moping in a corner and cry? But the joy was now over for him;
and when he saw Lob Levy loiter about the yard, in his long black
“heel-warmer,” he would have liked most to favor Caro with a hint
towards his calves.
The twins were quite beside themselves with joy. They took a cord, and
crying “gee” and “whoa,” raced wildly through the garden. One of them
was the locomobile, the other the horse, but each wanted to be the
locomobile, because then she got father’s black hat put on for the
chimney.
Before going to sleep they had already given a name to the new monster.
They maintained that it resembled the fat servant-girl with a long
neck, who a short time ago had been dismissed on account of her
slatternliness, and they called it, after her, “Black Susy.”
The locomobile kept this name forever after in Meyerhofer’s house.
Next morning the noise began afresh. The ten hired workmen stood in the
yard and did not know what to do. Meyerhofer wanted to have the engine
heated, but Lob Levy, who had passed the night in a shed in order to
be at hand the first thing in the morning, wanted first to receive his
price, as it had been settled in the agreement, because the grain had to
be delivered in town by noon.
“What grain?” the mother asked, turning pale.
Well, it could not be denied any longer: Meyerhofer had sold almost
the whole harvest--the thrashed corn as well as the amount still to
be thrashed--to the Jew for the old worn-out engine. Triumphantly the
latter drove away with the beautiful full sacks. And this was only a
sort of premium; towards Christmas he would come and fetch the rest.
A feeling of discouragement overcame for a moment even the light-minded
Meyerhofer himself when he saw the high-piled carts disappear behind
the woods; but in the next he put his hands defiantly into his
trousers-pockets, and ordered that the machine should be got ready
without delay.
At the same time as the monster a man in a blue blouse and with a
brandy-nose had come to the farm; he called himself “stoker,” and
distinguished himself by constantly eating onions; he said that this was
good for the digestion. This man fancied himself the hero of the
day. Puffed up with pride, he stood near the engine, called it his
foster-child, and stroked the rusty iron walls with his black, knotty
hand, that sounded as if two graters were rubbed together. With a great
show of foreign words he explained to every one who came near him the
inner arrangement of the “lookmanbile,” as he called his foster-child,
only he had to have some drink; otherwise he was abusive. But if he got
the amount of brandy which he wanted, he was deeply moved, and swore he
would rather have his hands and feet cut off than ever separate himself
from his foster-child. He had got to love it like his own flesh and
blood, and thought a thousand times more of it than of any human being
in the world. Meyerhofer walked proudly round him, for this pearl was
now his property, too, and he declared over and over again that here one
could see what German faithfulness meant.
But when the engine was to be heated, the very faithful man could
nowhere be found. At last he was discovered on a hay-stack asleep.
When he was awakened, he called this proceeding ill-treatment of human
beings, and could only with great trouble be induced to come out of his
corner.
The heating of the engine was a new festival. Paul stood before the
fire, and stared with dreamy eyes into the glowing depths which opened
yawning, as if it wished to swallow something alive. He thought of the
old heathenish idol Moloch, about whom he had heard in his biblical
history, and every moment he expected to see a pair of red, glowing
arms stretch themselves forth. And then in the body of the monster there
arose a mysterious singing, at times hollow, like the distant roar of a
forest, then again delicate and high, like soft angels’ voices. Then
it began to hiss in the valves--steam clouds rose, the iron shovel
clattered, and fresh heaps of coal sank rattling into the furnace. There
was such a noise all round that one could hardly hear one’s own voice.
The stoker with the red nose stood there like a king; he drank from a
flat-bodied flask, and from time to time he handled the valves, sending
forth a loud, imperious bellowing like a tamer of wild beasts. And
then the big wheel began to turn--surr, surr, surr--always quicker and
quicker. One became quite giddy by merely looking on, and then there was
a crack--a clatter--a hissing--the great wheel stood still forever.
At first the stoker gave himself great airs, and declared in half an
hour the whole damage would be repaired, but when Meyerhofer, after two
days’ work, urged him to have done with his repairs, he became abusive,
and declared that this old heap of rubbish could not be repaired any
more, and that it was just good enough to be sold to the dealer for old
iron.
“Foster-child?” he thanked you for such a foster-child; he was still a
little too good to look after such a heap of rubbish. And then it came
out: Lob Levy had picked him up three days ago in some low den, and had
asked him whether he would like to live like a king for a week--longer
the joke would not last, anyhow. And only on this assurance he had gone
with him, for to stay in one place longer than eight days was against
his principles.
Hereupon he was driven from the farm.
Next day Meyerhofer sent for the village blacksmith, that he might look
at the damage. He again fumbled about the engine for a few days, ate and
drank for two, and declared in the end that if it was not all right now
the devil was in it.
The heating was repeated; but “Black Susy” was not to be brought to life
again.
When, towards Christmas, Lob Levy came to the farm to fetch the rest of
the grain, Myerhofer thrashed him with the handle of his own whip.
The Jew screamed “Murder!” and drove away hastily. But soon a lawyer’s
messenger with a big red-sealed letter appeared. Myerhofer swore and
drank more than ever, and the end of it all was that he was sentenced
to pay all costs of the case and compensation money as well. Only with
great difficulty he escaped the punishment of imprisonment.
Since that day he would not see “Black Susy” any longer. She was put
into the farthest shed, and stood there in concealment many a year
without anybody ever looking at her.
Only Paul from time to time secretly took the key of the shed and crept
in to the black monster that he loved more and more, and which at last
appeared to him like a dumb, ill-treated friend.