her mind all in a moment about such an important thing. Her thoughts
flew to Sepperl of the Mill. He was fond of flowers, she knew; the mill
garden was always full of blue flax, poppies, and lavender, and Sepperl
spent all his spare hours in working over it. Suppose--suppose--the
thing over which she had sometimes shyly glowed and blushed were to
happen, how pleasant it would be to dance flowers all day long for
Sepperl!
Then her mind reverted to the hut, to her mother and the boys, who were
always craving after the luxuries of life which they could not have, and
fiercely envying those who were better off than themselves. Would they
not be happier and better and kinder for the gold which she had it in
her power to give them? They would not forgive her if she lost such a
chance, that she knew. And even so far as Sepperl went, gold never came
amiss to a poor man's door. So many things could be bought with it.
"One cannot eat flowers," said Etelka to herself with a sigh; yet still
she hesitated, and her heart felt heavy within her.
"Choose," repeated the two fairies, each echoing the other.
"I choose the gold-piece," said Etelka. The fairy faces clouded over as
she spoke, and she knew she had chosen wrong.
"Very well," said Pertzal, "have thy wish." He vanished as he spoke.
Etelka sat alone by the bubbling spring, and she rubbed her eyes and
asked herself if it were not all a dream.
"I will put it to the test," she thought; and jumping up she began to
dance beneath the trees, slowly and doubtfully at first, and then with
swift and joyful bounds and steps, for as she danced, ever and anon upon
the ground beneath her feet appeared a glittering coin. She danced so
long that when at last she ceased she sank down exhausted. The beautiful
yellow pieces lay thickly around her, some larger, some smaller, as if
their size depended upon the vigor of her movements. She had never
dreamed of such wealth before, and she gathered them up and tied them in
the corner of her shawl, half-fearing they might turn to brass or
pebbles; but when she neared home and looked at them again they were
still gold.
Her mother was standing at the door with a black look on her face.
"Where hast thou been, thou idle baggage?" she demanded. "I drop asleep
for one moment, and when I wake the fire is well-nigh out."
Etelka glanced at the setting sun. In her excitement she had not marked
the flight of time. It was much later than she had supposed.
"I am sorry," she faltered. Then, to appease her mother's anger, she
untied the corner of her shawl and showed the fairy money.
"See what I have brought," she said; "they are all for thee."
The old woman fairly gasped in her surprise.
"Gold!" she cried, clutching the coins which Etelka held out. "Real
gold! More than I ever saw before. Where didst get it, girl? Who gave it
thee?"
"The fairies!" exclaimed Etelka joyfully. "And they taught me how to get
more when we are again in need."
"Do you dare to make a mock of me?" screamed her mother, aiming a blow
at her with the staff which she held in her hand. "Fairies indeed! A
fine story! Tell the truth, hussy. Didst thou meet some count in the
forest--or the landgrave himself?"
"I met nobody," persisted Etelka, "no one at all except the fairy and
the other fairy, and it was they who gave me the gift."
Her mother's staff descended with a whack on her shoulder.
"Get thee in," she said harshly. "Thou are lying." But she held fast to
the gold all the same, and when Etelka's back was turned she hid it
secretly away.
So the first fruit of the fairy gift was a blow!
Later, when the father came back from the village, there was another
scene of severity and suspicion. Neither of Etelka's parents believed
her story. They treated her like a culprit who will not confess his
guilt. It was worse yet when her brothers returned the following day. In
vain she wept and protested, in vain she implored them to believe her.
"It's easy enough to talk," Jocko declared at last, "but to prove thy
words is not so easy. If thou hast the power to dance gold-pieces into
existence, why, face to work and dance! Then we shall know whether or
not to believe thee."
Strange to say, this method of proving her veracity had not occurred to
Etelka's mind. After her troubled sleep and unhappy day she had begun
to feel that the interview with the fairies was no more than a dream,
and she scarcely ventured on the test, dreading that the strange gift
bestowed upon her might have been withdrawn.
Slowly and fearfully she began to dance, while her family watched every
movement with eyes of scornful incredulity. Suddenly Marc, uttering a
great oath, stooped and picked up something from the hard-trodden
earthen floor. It was a gold-piece!
"By Heavens!" he exclaimed, "the girl spoke true! or"--with a return of
suspicion--"is it one of those she gave thee which thou hast dropped?"
turning to his mother.
But as Etelka, with heart suddenly grown lighter, went on bounding and
twirling, one shining coin after another shone out on the floor beneath
her feet, and with howls and screams of joy her relatives precipitated
themselves upon them. It seemed as if they could never have enough. If
Etelka paused to rest they urged her on.
"Dance thou!" they cried. "Dance, Etelklein, liebchen, susschen,
darling of our hearts, do not stop! Keep on till we are all rich."
One hour, two, passed, and still Etelka obeyed their eager behest and
danced on. The boys' pockets, her father's pouch, her mother's lap were
full, and yet they demanded more.
At last, quite worn out, she sank in a heap on the ground.
"I cannot take another step," she sighed.
"Oh, well," Jocko reluctantly admitted, "that may do for to-night.
To-morrrow we will have some more of it."
From that day all was changed for the family in the forest hut. Every
one, except Etelka, fell to work straightway to squander the fairy gold.
The sons made expeditions to the distant town, and came back laden with
goods of the most incongruous kinds,--silks, velvets, tobacco,
gold-embroidered caps, bonbons, carved pipes, gayly painted china, gilt
clocks, toys of all descriptions; anything and everything which had
pleased their untutored fancy. The father and mother smoked all day
long, till the air of the hut was dense and stifling. Brandy and
_kirsch-wasser_ flowed in streams. Etelka alone profited nothing from
the fairy gift. To be sure she had her share of the dainties which the
others devoured, and her brothers now and then tossed her a ribbon or a
brightly colored handkerchief; but for these she did not much care, and
her liberty, for which she did care, was greatly abridged. No longer was
she suffered to wander at will in the forest. She had become too
precious for that. Something might happen to her, they all declared, a
bear or a wolf might come along and attack her, or she might slip and
sprain her ankle, which, so far as they were concerned, would be just as
bad! No, Etelka must run no risks; she must stay at home, and be ready
to dance for them whenever they needed her.
The slender limbs grew very weary, and the heart which gave them life
was often heavy, as time went on, and more and more gold was needed to
satisfy the exactions of her family. Money easily won is still more
easily spent. The fairy gold melted fast in the rapacious fingers which
clutched it. Soon--for appetite grows by what it feeds upon--the little
hut no longer sufficed the growing ambition of Etelka's brothers. It was
too poor, too lonely, too everything, they declared; they must all
remove to Budweis or Linz; the city was the only fit place for people to
live in who had money to spend.
Etelka was not consulted. She was ordered to pack this and that, and to
leave the other behind, that was all, and was made to dance a few extra
hours to pay the travelling expenses. All the homely old furniture was
left in the hut, as not smart enough for the grand city home they were
going to. They took only the things they had bought since their good
luck began; but these filled a great cart, on the top of which Etelka
and her mother were perched. She cast one last look toward her beloved
forest, to which she had not been allowed a farewell visit. Jocko
cracked his long whip, the oxen slowly moved forward. "Good-by to
everything," said Etelka in her heart, but she dared not say it aloud.
A quick pang shot through her as they passed the mill garden, gay with
flowers, where Sepperl, hoe in hand, was standing. His eyes met hers
with deep and silent reproach, then were averted. She did not
understand, but it made her very sad. No one had told her that a few
weeks before, Sepperl had asked her in marriage of her father, and had
been roughly refused. Such an offer would have been looked upon as
unheard-of good fortune six months previously; now it was regarded
almost as an insult! Marry Etelka! Take their gold-earner away from
them! It was out of the question. What was the fool thinking of? But
Etelka heard nothing of all this.
Haunted by the recollection of Sepperl's wistful glance, she went her
way with the others. Little heart had she for the new home which seemed
to them so fine. It was high up in an old building, overlooking a
crowded street. The rooms seemed very large and empty after the forest
hut, and the first care of the family was to furnish them. With reckless
disregard of good taste as well as of expense, Marc and Jocko and
Hanserl rushed away to the market and the shops, and presently the
stairs began to fill with porters bringing up all manner of
things,--beds and chairs and tables, gaudy carpets for the floors,
ill-painted pictures in showy frames for the walls, a piano on which
none of them knew how to play, a music-box of extraordinary size which
could play without assistance, looking-glasses, lamps, wonderful china
figures, a parrot in a gilded cage, with a dreadful command of profane
language. The rooms were filled and more than filled in no time, and
for the payment of all these things Etelka must dance!
And dance she did, but with a heavy heart and no spring in her feet.
Accustomed to the quiet of the forest neighborhood, the sounds and
smells of the city oppressed her greatly. The crowd and bustle
frightened her, the roar of noise kept her awake at night, she felt as
if she could not breathe. Things grew worse rather than better. Their
extravagance provoked notice, and the fame of their riches and their
ignorance soon brought about them a crew of tempters and needy
adventurers. Men with evil eyes and sly greedy faces began to appear at
all hours, to smoke and drink with Marc and Jocko, to gamble with them
and win their money. Much money did they win, and all that was lost
Etelka must make good. With her will or without it, she must
dance,--dance always to content her rapacious kindred. They could hardly
endure to spare her for the most needful rest. Time and again when she
had sunk exhausted on her bed to sleep, while dice rattled and glasses
clinked in the next room, Hanserl or Jocko had rushed in to awaken her
roughly and demand that she should get up at once and dance. Stumbling
and half blind with drowsiness the poor girl would do her best, but her
movements being less brisk and buoyant, the coins would be of smaller
value, and she would be sworn at for her pains, and threatened with dire
penalties if she did not do better next time.
No wonder that under this treatment she grew pale and thin. The pretty
cheeks lost their roundness, the pink faded from them, her eyes were
dull and lustreless. A great homesickness took possession of her. Night
and day she pined for the forest hut. So wan and unhappy was she, that
even the hard hearts of those who profited by her should have been
touched by it; but no one noticed her looks or cared that she was
unhappy, so long as she would keep on dancing and coin gold for them.
At last came a day when she could not rise from her bed. Marc came and
threatened her, he even pulled her on to her feet, but it was in vain;
she fell down with weakness and could not stand. Alarmed at last, Jocko
hastened after a doctor. He came, felt Etelka's pulse, shook his head.
"What has she been doing?" he asked.
Nothing, they told him, nothing at all! Then he shook his head still
more portentously.
"Ah, well, in that case it is all of no use," he said. "She is all given
out. She must die."
And now indeed those who had let Etelka tire herself to death for them
were thoroughly frightened. With her would perish all their hopes, for
the gold she had earned for them had been spent as fast as made; nothing
had been laid up. They took wonderfully good care of her now. There was
nothing she fancied that they would not willingly have brought her; but
all the poor child asked for was to be left alone and suffered to lie
still, not to be forced to keep on with that weary dancing!
Gradually the spent flame of life flickered feebly upward within her,
and as she gained a little in strength, a longing after the forest took
possession of her. The wish seemed utterly foolish to her family, but
they would not refuse it, for their one desire was to have her get well
and able to earn gold for them again. So the big wagon and the oxen were
hired, Etelka on her bed was laid carefully in it, Marc took the goad,
and slowly, slowly, the sick girl was carried back to her old home.
All was unchanged there. Dust lay thickly on the rude furniture which
had been left behind, on the pots and pans which hung upon the wall, but
no one had meddled with them or lifted the latch of the door since the
family went away. The cool hush and stillness of the place was like a
balm to Etelka's overstrained nerves. She slept that night as she had
not slept for weeks, and on the morrow was visibly stronger. Marc did
not stay with her long. The quiet of the hut disgusted him, and after
enduring it for a day or two he went back to the others in the city,
leaving Etelka alone with her father and mother. He gave strict orders
that he was to be sent for the moment that Etelka was able to use her
feet again. Then, indeed, she must fall to work and dance to make up for
all this wasted time.
Poor Etelka rejoiced to see him go. She had learned to fear her brothers
and almost to dislike them.
The day after he went, she begged her father to carry her in his arms to
the edge of the forest and lay her under a tree. She wanted to feel the
wind in her face again, she said. He consented at last, though grumbling
a little at the trouble. Etelka was comfortably placed on a bear-skin
under the shade of a spreading fir, and after a while, as her eyes were
closed and she seemed to be asleep, her father stole away and left her.
She was in full sight of the hut, so there seemed no danger in leaving
her alone.
But Etelka was not asleep. She was thinking with all her might, thinking
of the fairy, wishing she could see him again and ask him to undo the
fatal gift which had brought such misery into her life.
Suddenly, as she lay thinking these thoughts, her cheek was tickled
sharply. She opened her eyes. There stood the same odd little figure in
green which she had seen before; as then a grass-blade was in his hand,
and leaning over his shoulder was his gossip Thimblerig. Etelka almost
screamed in her joy.
"Thou seemest pleased to see us," remarked Pertzal with a mocking smile.
"Oh, I am glad, indeed I am," cried poor Etelka. "Dear kind Herr Fairy,
have pity! Don't let me dance gold any more!"
"What! Tired already? What queer creatures mortals be!" began Pertzal
teasingly; but the kinder Thimblerig interposed.
"Tired of her gift, of course she is! You knew she would be when you
gave it, Gossip! Don't plague the poor child. Look how thin she has
grown. But, Etelka, I must tell thee that when once a fairy has granted
to a mortal his wish, he has no power to take it back again."
"What!" cried Etelka in despair, "must I then go on dancing forever till
I die?"
"He cannot take it back," repeated Thimblerig. "But do not cry so; there
is another way. A second fairy can grant a wish which will contradict
the first, and so all may be made right. Now, Etelka, I have a kindness
for thee as well as Pertzal here, and like him I have the right to grant
a favor to a mortal. Now, listen. Dance thee never so well or dance thee
never so long, from henceforward shall never gold-piece lie under foot
of thine for all thy dancing! And, furthermore, if ever thou art married
to a man whom thou lovest, I endow thee with this gift, that when thou
dancest with will and because thy heart is light, violets and daisies
and all sweet blossoms shall spring at thy tread, till all about thee is
as a garden."
"Now I will add this piece of advice," said Pertzal, grinning
maliciously. "If ever this does happen, hold thy tongue about thy gift
to thy husband. The best of men can hardly resist the temptation of
making money out of their womenkind,--safety lies in silence."
"Oh, how can I thank you?" sighed Etelka.
"Thank us by being happy," said Thimblerig. Then the fairies faded from
sight, and Etelka was alone.
I have not time to tell of the wrath of Etelka's father and mother and
brothers, when, as she grew strong enough to dance again for their
bidding, it was found that no gold-pieces followed her light steps, and
that the fairy gift had been withdrawn. Their ill-humor and discontent
made the life of the hut worse than ever it had been before. Etelka sank
into her former insignificance. Very willingly and faithfully she worked
for them all, but she could not win them to content. One after another
the boys departed from home. Marc enlisted as a soldier, Jocko joined a
party of smugglers and disappeared over the Italian frontier, Hanserl
took service with the charcoal-burners high up on the mountains. When
Sepperl of the Mill asked again for Etelka's hand in marriage the
following year, there was no question as to what answer should be given
him. Her father was only too glad to say yes. Etelka was made happy at
last.
She had been a wife several months before she made trial of her second
fairy gift. It was one evening when she and Sepperl were in their
garden, and he was telling her his plans with regard to a bit of waste
land which he had lately fenced in.
"It will take many roots and seeds to make it like the rest," he
remarked, "but little by little we can do it without feeling the cost,
and in the end it will be the best of all."
Then, with a sudden flash in her eyes, Etelka left her husband and began
to dance. To and fro over the bare earth she sped with quick graceful
steps, now advancing, now retreating, now describing circles, with her
arm poised above her head like wings and her laughing eyes fixed on
Sepperl. He was puzzled by this freak on the part of his pretty wife,
but stood watching her with great admiration, her cheeks were so
flushed, and her movements so light and dainty.
She stopped at last, came to him, and laid her hand on his arm.
[Illustration: Then with a sudden flash in her eyes, Etelka left her
husband and began to dance.--_Page 202_.]
"Now look," she said.
And lo! where had been bare, brown earth a half-hour before, was now a
green sward enamelled all over with buttercups, violets, pink-and-white
Michaelmas daisies, and pansies of every shade of gold and purple.
Sepperl stood transfixed. "Hast thou commerce with the elves?" he asked.
But Etelka did not reply. The words of Pertzal recurred to her memory,
"Silence is safety," and they were like a wise hand laid on her lips.
She only laughed like a silver bell, shook her head, and left on
Sepperl's cheek a happy kiss!
THE FIR CONES.
AN IDYL OF CHRISTMAS EVE.
"Well, the old tree has gone at last," said the farmer, as he latched
the heavy door and began to stamp the snow from his boots.
"What tree?" cried a girl's voice, as the whir of the busy wheel
suddenly slackened. "Oh, father, not the Lovers' Tree,--the old fir?
Surely thou canst not mean _that_?"
"No other, Hilda; the Lovers' Tree, under which thy mother and I
exchanged our troth-plight more than twenty years back. Hey, dame?" And
he turned with a smile to where his wife sat in the sunset light,
humming a low tune to the accompaniment of her clicking needles. She
smiled back in answer.
"Yes, Paul, and my mother as well; and thine too, I'll be bound, for she
also was a Brelau girl. All Brelau knows the fir,--a hundred years old
it was, they say."
"More than that," said the farmer. "My grandfather courted his lass
under its shade, and his father did the same. Add a hundred and fifty to
your hundred, and it won't be so far amiss, wife. But it has fallen at
last. There'll be no more maidens wooed and won under the Lovers' Tree.
Thou hast lost thy chance, Hilda." And he turned fondly to his girl.
"That was indeed a terrible wind last night," went on the dame. "It
rocked the bed till it waked me from my sleep. Did it rouse thee also,
Liebchen?"
But Hilda responded neither to word nor look. She had left her wheel,
had crossed the room, and now stood gazing from the window to where
across the valley the green obelisk of the old fir had risen. Men were
moving about the spot where once it stood, and the ring of axes on the
frosty air told that already the frugal peasantry were at work; and the
pride of the village, confidant of many secrets, was in process of
reduction to the level of vulgar fire-wood.
In rushed two children. "Hast thou heard the news?" they cried. "The
Lovers' Tree is blown down! All the people are up there chopping. May we
go too, and see them chop? We will bring home all the cones to build the
Christmas fire. Ah, do let us go, mother; fir cones blaze so
magnificently."
"You are such little ones, you will get in the way of the axes and be
hurt," replied their mother, fondling them.
But the farmer said,--
"Yes, let them go; we will all go. Get thy cloak, Ursula, and thy
woollen hood. We will see the old tree once more before it is carried
away. Wilt thou come too, Hilda?"
But Hilda shook her head, and did not turn or answer. The children
rioted about, searching for baskets and fagot strings; but she neither
moved nor spoke. Then the door closed, and all was quiet in the cottage.
But still Hilda stood in the window, looking with dreamy, unseeing eyes
across the valley to the opposite hillside.
She was looking upon a picture,--a picture which nobody would ever see
again; upon the venerable tree, beloved of all Brelau, which for more
years than men could count, had stood there watching the tide of human
life ebb and flow, as some majestic old man might stand with children
playing about his kindly knees. Whole generations of lovers had held
tryst under its shade. Kisses had been interchanged, vows murmured,--the
old, old story of human love, of human joy, of hope, of longing, of
trust, had been repeated and repeated there, age after age, and still
the old tree guarded its secrets well, as in days of greenest youth, and
still bent to listen like a half-human friend. White arms clasped its
trunk, soft cheeks were laid there, as if the rough bark could feel
responsive thrill. Two centuries of loving and listening had mellowed
its heart. The boughs seemed to whisper meanings to those who sought
their shade,--gay songs to the young, counsels to the burdened,
benedictions to those who, bowed down with trouble, came, black-clad and
sorrowful, to look across the valley where once the purple lights of
hope had met their eyes. "Wait," the rustling murmur seemed to say to
such; "only wait--wait, as I have waited, and you shall be made
exceedingly glad. Behold, the day dawns and the shadows fly away!" And
though the heavy heart might not comprehend the whispered words,
something seemed lifted from the weight of sadness, and the mourners
departed comforted, knowing not why.
But not upon a vague picture only did Hilda look. German girls can keep
their own counsel as well as girls of other nations, and for all her
father's joking she had not "lost her chance" under the Lovers' Tree.
Often had she sat there--sat there not alone--and now in thought she was
there again. She heard a voice--she leaned to meet a kiss. "Wilhelm,"
she faltered, and then the vision dissolved in a mist of hot and rushing
tears. In the old fir she seemed to lose a friend, an intercessor. Oh,
why had this unhappy quarrel arisen? Why had she and Wilhelm loved at
all, if only to be so unhappy in the end?