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.