A SAD HOUSE, BUT THE LAKE GETS A NAME.
Rico did not find his cousin in the sitting-room; so he went to the
kitchen, and opened the door. There she stood; but before he could
enter, she raised her finger, saying, "Sch! sch! Do not open and shut
the doors, and make a noise, as if there were four of you. Go into the
other room, and keep still. Your father is lying in the bedroom up
there. They brought him home in a wagon: he is sick."
Rico went into the room, seated himself on a bench, and did not stir.
He sat there for at least a half-hour. Presently he heard the cousin
moving about in the kitchen. Then he thought that he would go up very
softly, and peep into the bedroom. Perhaps his father would like
something to eat: it was long past the meal-time.
He slipped behind the stove, mounted the little steps, and went very
softly into the bedroom. After a while he returned, went at once into
the kitchen, approached quite close to his cousin, and said softly,--
"Cousin, come up."
The woman was about to strike him angrily, when she happened to glance
at his face. He was perfectly colorless,--cheeks and lips as white as
a sheet, and his eyes looked so black that the cousin was almost
afraid of him.
"What is the matter with you?" she asked hastily, and followed him
almost involuntarily.
He mounted the little steps softly, and entered the chamber. His father
lay on the bed with staring, wide-open eyes,--he was dead.
"Oh, my God!" screamed the cousin, and ran crying out of the door that
opened upon the passage on the other side of the room, went down the
staircase, and across into the opposite house, where she called out to
tell the neighbor and the grandmother the sad news; and thence she ran
on to the teacher and to the mayor.
One after another they came, and entered the quiet room until it was
full of people; for the news spread from one to another of what had
taken place. And in the midst of all the tumult, and of all the clamor
of the crowd of neighbors, Rico stood by the bedside speechless,
motionless, and gazed at his father. All through the week the house
was filled with people who wished to look at the man, and hear from
the cousin how it had all happened; so that the lad heard it repeated
over and over, that his father had been at work down in St. Gall on
the railroad.
He had received a deep wound on the head when they were blasting a rock;
and, as he could not work any longer, he wished to go home to take care
of himself until the wound was healed. But the long journey--sometimes
on foot, sometimes in an open wagon--was too much for him; and when he
had reached his home on Sunday, towards evening, he had lain down on
the bed never to rise again. Without any one knowing it, he had passed
away; for he was already stiff when Rico had found him. On the following
Sunday the burial took place. Rico was the only mourner to follow the
coffin. Several kind neighbors joined in, and thus the little procession
went on to Sils. In the church, Rico heard the pastor when he read out,
"The deceased was called Henrico Trevillo, and was a native of Peschiera
on the Lake of Garda."
These words brought the feeling to Rico that he had heard something that
he knew perfectly well before, and yet could not recollect. He had
always seen a picture of the lake before his eyes when he had sung,--
"One evening
In Peschiera,"
with his father, but he had never known the reason. He repeated the name
softly to himself, while one old song after another arose in his memory.
As he came back from the burial all alone, he saw the grandmother
seated on the log of wood, and Stineli by her side. She beckoned him to
come over to them. She gave the lad a bit of cake and another to
Stineli, and said now they might go off together for a walk. Rico ought
not to be alone.
So the children rambled off together, hand in hand. The grandmother
remained seated on her log, sadly gazing after the black-haired lad
until they had wandered slowly up the hillside and passed out of sight.
Then she said softly to herself,--
"Whate'er He does, or lets be done,
Is always for the best."