You were on for a bit of gipsying, were you, Peterkin? Home,
everlastingly home, isn't very cheerful--always having the green-glazed
mug to drink from, always having your face wiped over by the mother
with a wet rag, always having to sleep in the little box-bed by the
stove--it's no fun! One can't help wanting sometimes to gather a dinner
from the whortleberry plants and drink from the brook, to roll on the
ground sometimes, and even to walk about in mud; and now and again one
wants to sleep in an old hay barn, with water never seen before rushing
along outside, in an unknown gorge, with quite strange trees standing
in the red sunshine when you wake up in the morning, and unknown people
mowing the grass in the meadows.
Suppose you long for this, and then your father forbids it! "Children
belong at home!" And, "After school, you will come home by the shortest
way!" The shortest way! There isn't such a thing in our high lands,
especially if Zutrum Simmerl is in school, and if Zutrum Simmerl says,
"Peterl, come with me; at home, in Zutrumshaus, there are all sorts of
jolly things; a spotted white yard-dog, who's got puppies;
cherry-trees, which are all just red and black; and behind the house is
a charcoal-burner's hut with straw that one can lie on, and in the
stream you can catch trout and crayfish with your hand, which your
mother can bake and cook afterwards."
The Zutrum family were far-away cousins of ours, so that when young
Cousin Simmerl said "Come with me," one naturally went. It was a whole
hour's walk from my parents' house there, and as the school where we,
from Alpel and Trabachgraben, met together, lay just half-way, the
world became stranger and stranger to me with each step of my way to
Zutrum. And when the sun sank down over the black saddle of the wooded
range, and the sycamores threw long shadows across the newly mown
meadows, I felt very strange. The hay smelt, the grasshoppers chirped,
the frogs quacked as they did at home, but all else was different, the
mountains much steeper, the coombs much deeper. I was oppressed. We
looked down at last on the grey shingled roofs of the farm, from whose
whitewashed chimneys thin smoke was going up. It was already dusk, and
the homely smell of charcoal-burning, which I knew so well, came from
among the tall pines. On the road we made many halts by ant-heaps,
foxes' holes, hedge-stiles, little streams and puddles; but now Simmerl
hurried up. I did not want to go on, I wanted to turn back. I should be
going into a strange house for the first time in my life--my courage
gave way. But Simmerl gripped me quickly by the arm and led me into the
farmyard and through the great door into the house.
The air was cool in the entrance and scented with fruit; the kitchen
was plastered and had nearly white walls, like an inn. At the open
hearth women were busy with pots and kettles, and to one of them, who
had a pale, pretty, kind face, went Simmerl, gave her his hand and
said, "God greet you, mother!" It was in this house that I first heard
children reverently greeting their parents at coming in and going out,
just as if they were going to a distant country or were coming back
from one. In our district at home we ran out like a calf from its
stall, and the most that I ever said in the morning when I was off to
school was, "I'm going now," and the mother answered, "Well, go, in
God's name." That was certainly something, but it was not so cordial
and fine as when the Zutrum children said "God greet you!" or "God keep
you!" and clasped their parents' hands. In short, this entrance into
the Zutrums' house appeared very splendid to me.
"And that is my school-friend, Peterl, from the Forest farm," so
Simmerl introduced me to his mother.
"Now, that's nice!" she said; wiped her right hand on her blue apron
and held it out to me. I was not quite sure if my little paw ought to
be stretched out too, hesitated, but finally did it.
"Mother," called Simmerl, "we are running down to the brook."
"Not too far--it will soon be supper-time."
We were in the open air again, and it had all gone off very smoothly.
We did not get to the brook that evening, for there was the white,
spotted yard-dog with puppies! These last were all together in mottled
heap, which constantly surged and twisted, while every now and then a
tiny creature hardly bigger than a rat got loose and rolled clumsily
away. These things were absolutely all head, and the head again was all
muzzle, and the muzzles burrowed to the teats which the old white
dapple placed ready for use. All that, and the anxious growling of the
old dog and the frightened whimpering of the young ones, and the doggy
smell which came out of the kennel, nearly stupefied me with sheer
delight.
"Does she bite?" I asked Simmerl; for I wanted to stroke the puppies.
"Not now, so we have taken the chain off her. My father says, 'She has
no enemies now, she is just a mother now.'" But still, when he wanted
to lift one of the young ones, she snapped at his finger.
"Have you got a church?" I asked, for a little bell rang. Simmerl
laughed, for it was the house-bell, and it was calling people to
supper.
In the room, where it was already nearly dark, stood two great square
tables. When grace had been said out loud by everybody and all
together, and the great big soup-tureens were sending up their warm,
savoury clouds, about twelve young men, older men, young girls and old
women sat themselves down to the one table. At the other table right in
the corner the house-father took his place, a stout, comfortable,
cheerful man with a smooth-shaven face and a double chin; then came his
children, from the merry grown-up Sennerl right down to Simmerl, and
still further down to two quite tiny babies, who had their milk-soup
spooned into their little mouths by the servant-maid. I was allowed to
sit by Simmerl, and, because the common bowl was rather a long way from
us, we received a little special basin, out of which we ladled the
pieces. It was wheaten bread, which was not every day to be had at home
with us! The house-mother went to and fro, looking after the tables,
and now and then she sat down with us for a short time, just to eat a
morsel as she passed by. Ah, yes, that was like my mother at home. "Who
cooks needs nothing to eat," say overwise people.
I was obliged to keep thinking of home, where just then they would be
waiting for me with supper, and wondering why that boy didn't come home
and where he could possibly be. Then, probably, it would occur to one
or other of them, "Oh, he has gone home with his school-friend to
Zutrum."
After the milk-soup came a bowl of salad in vinegar. That again was
something new for me; at my home there was only salad in butter-milk,
which is acid and wet and can therefore well take the place of
expensive vinegar. At home we ate the greenstuff with a spoon, here one
did it with a fork. I several times stabbed my mouth with the strange
tool, but dared make no noise; whereas at home if such a thing
happened there would have been a fine outcry.
After the salad came the largest dish of all, and this contained stewed
cherries in their own juice. Now I might use the spoon again. If only
it had been a bit bigger--for this black cherry stew was delicious! The
company was very ceremonious. They squeezed the stones out of their
mouths and put them back either on to a plate or into their fists. At
home we ate the stones with the cherries.
I do not know what was talked about at table, and I was certainly quite
indifferent to it, because mere talk is nothing to eat. They were
louder and gayer at the servants' table than we were over at the
house-father's table, because there was an old man amongst them who
said the strangest things in the gravest manner at which they all
laughed, until a maid said, "No, no; one must not laugh so at Kickel.
It isn't right that Kickel should be laughed at."
"Who's laughing at _him_?" laughed a boy. "We're only laughing because
we please to."
I must have overheard that, as otherwise I should not have known it. I
know also that suddenly the old Kickel jumped up from his place, and
with his shirt-sleeve fluttering from his wide, strong arm, chucked a
cherry-stone at the door opposite, which fell back again into the
middle of the room. At that he cried "Bang!" and shouted with laughter.
He did this several times, whereupon the others said, "It was quite
right, and he must make a hole in the door so that one could look out
into the kitchen to see whether or no stew was being cooked to-day."
Then Kickel raised his other arm, and "Bang!"--he threw the entire
handful at the door, so that it rattled like a hail-storm. At the same
moment the old man wrinkled up his wizened face and shouted out an
angry curse.
Then the house-father got up from our table, went to the infuriated
old fellow and said soothingly, "Now, now, Kickel, don't be so vexed.
Sowing so many cherry-trees in the rooms! None of them will grow, you
know. Be sensible, Kickel." At my home the father would have talked
very differently if such a person had strewn the room full of
cherry-stones!
Then the old servant stood before the house-father with folded hands,
and in a voice of groaning anxiety he cried, "Zutrum, Zutrum, I don't
know how to help myself, it's coming on again!"
"Michel! Natzel!" said the house-father to the other two men, "take
Kickel to bed. It is time for him to go to sleep."
Then they led Kickel away. Whatever did it mean?
"It's time for the children to go to sleep also," added the
house-father. "The Forest-farm boy must sleep in the top room."
The disappointment was bitter. I had thought that Simmerl and I would
have been able to lie near each other on a pile of hay, and this was
actually the reason that I had come with him into this strange house.
Tears came into my eyes in proportion to the anguish of finding out
that it was all up with the hay, and that I had to sleep by myself in a
dark little room. The house-mother must have noticed something, for she
said, "He can very well sleep in the little room with Simmerl; there's
a bed empty there."
"Well and good, but don't talk long, boys." So the house-father, after
which Simmerl went to his parents, kissed their hands and said "Good
night."
This custom pleased me mightily, and I resolved to introduce it also
into my home. I never got so far as that; I had always been ashamed of
being entirely naughty to my parents, but also of being quite good, and
in particular it had been impossible to me to show certain courtesies,
much as I liked them.
I gathered from the order "not to talk long" that we had permission to
talk, and as we lay, each in his little bed, having put out the light,
so that nothing more was to be seen than the two faintly lighted square
windows, I asked Simmerl, "What was wrong with that fellow Kickel?"
"Cherry-stones," answered the lad.
"Why did he get so wild?"
"Oh, poor old Kickel!" said my comrade. "Don't you know that he was in
prison for ten years? Last year they let him out."
"Why?"
"Because the Kaiser was married."
"What, they locked him up for that?"
"No, that's why they let him out."
"But, good Lord, I want to know why they put him in prison," I cried.
"If you shout like that father will come with the strap. He killed his
son."
This was horrible. I did not know whether Kickel or House-father Zutrum
had killed his son. I dared question no farther, and when I did try it
later Simmerl gave no answer, for he was asleep.
Next morning we were awakened by a clear voice, "Schoolboys, it's
time!" A bough of elder swayed about in front of the heart-shaped
opening in the shutter, and through it the sun shone hot and bright on
to our snow-white beds, and the house-spring splashed outside. I should
have liked to dress at the same time as Simmerl, but was shy about
drawing my legs from under the coverlet. With a long arm I drew my
trousers from the bench into bed, and slipped them on to my limbs with
a suggestive slickness, and so out to the spring. After the washing the
morning prayers. Simmerl, out of consideration for his guest, would
have gone out during these, suggesting that he would then take me to
the grey horse in the stable; but his mother said, "He will see enough
grey horses during his life; you need the Holy Spirit in school. Now
say your morning prayer. Both kneel together."
We knelt on the bench before the table, and each said an Our Father to
himself, while it occurred to me, "We are not so strict at home."
Certainly, our mother said one ought to say one's prayers, but she did
not order one straight away on to the bench.
Now I was to see too what came of the prayers. We had hardly raised our
elbows from the table when it was spread with a white cloth, and set
with white platters and with white bread, and a brown soup was poured
out of the spout of a bright tin pot. At home it was just the other way
round, everything else brown and the soup white. There was no milk-soup
for breakfast here, but coffee! I had already heard about it, that the
grand people ate coffee, but that an old charcoal-burner had said, "My
dear people, I am certainly black. Look at me and see if I'm black or
no! But I'm not so black and bad as the black broth from Morocco. The
devil has invented it, and the peasant will come to an end if he eats
it."
I do not know if the charcoal-burner knew how wisely he had spoken, and
I do not know if they had believed him. I only know that everyone was
crazy for coffee, and that I could not help putting my spoon into the
black soup--Ugh! that isn't good, that is as bitter as gall! The devil
has certainly invented it----
"You haven't put any sugar," laughed Simmerl, and threw some pieces out
of a cup into my bowl. Now it was a little different. Simmerl looked at
me and grinned to himself. I should have liked to know why.
After breakfast it was "God keep you!" to the Zutrum people and off to
school. I had become quite brave and held out my right hand when saying
"Good-bye and thank you," just like a well-mannered, grown-up man, and
it occurred to me, "How easy it is to be good when one is not at
home!"
As we went along the hill-meadow old Kickel was to be seen with a
wooden fork spreading haycocks out so that they should dry better in
the new sunshine. To-day I saw, for the first time, that he was very
decrepit, bent double almost to cracking-point, and swaying and limping
at every step. His knee-breeches had certainly once been leather, but
now they had many, many patches of other stuffs stuck on with large,
ungainly stitches. His feet and very brown ankles were bare. Breast and
arms were covered by a coarse brown shirt; the old felt hat sat like a
battered inverted kettle on the little grey head, but all the same it
was decorated by an eagle's feather, which stood up high into the air.
Knees, elbows and fingers were all so terribly bony that one felt as if
the old man would never be able to do anything properly for the rest of
his life; he was like a deformed and twisted oak tree up on the high
land where the storm-wind cripples everything. When he caught sight of
us he raised his hat politely and then he went on working.
"Oh, I say," I questioned my schoolfellow, "what is the matter with
Kickel?"
"When we are higher up I'll tell you," answered Simmerl, and when we
came into the wood, where the ground became more level, he put his arm
in mine, and said, "He had a son, and he shot him."
"By accident? On purpose?" I asked, horrified.
"On purpose--quite on purpose."
"What had he done then--the son?"
"Nothing; he was a thorough good fellow, my father said."
"Good God! And did he hate his son so dreadfully then?"
"He loved his son ever so much; much too much."
"And therefore shot him down?"
"Well, I don't know myself how it was," acknowledged Simmerl.
"So Kickel is mad?" I put in.
"Not mad, but a bit crazy, certainly; a bit crazy all his life, and
people say one can't imagine how sharp he used to be, and what a fine
keeper he was up there, and how well educated! But the people say that
the many books he read must have sent him silly."