VIII
Children of the World in the Forest

Far more intelligent must he be, the peasant of the isolated mountain farm, far more versatile and capable than the villager, and infinitely more so than the townsman—must, or he could not exist!

The townsman has an easy time of it: if he can write, or keep accounts; if, for instance, he has the knack of making leather, or keeps a grocer's shop; or even if he speculates and applies himself to cutting off his coupons, he has all that he requires; and all that a townsman requires everyone who is a townsman knows.

The things which, in the towns, are produced by the divided toil of thousands of heads, hands, and wheels, in other words, the necessaries of life, the peasant in the far-lying mountains must make for himself, in his narrow circle, with his small, unaided means. He is a provider of natural produce, manufacturer, middleman and consumer, all in one. The bread which he eats comes from the corn which he flung into the earth last year with his own hand; the bacon which he enjoys on its bed of cabbage is cut from the pig fattened with the turnips which he has planted in his own ground. The shoe which he wears is made of the cow-hide which he himself has stripped from the animal's body and himself has tanned; the wool that forms his coat he has shorn from his own sheep, spun, woven and milled. The shirt on his back he saw last summer shimmering in the sunny fields in the blue flax-blossom; and the milking-pail into which his cow sends her milk streaming was, but a year ago, hiding in a fir-trunk in his woods. And I could in like manner string out a long list of matters in which the farmer must be his own breeder, gardener, miller, baker, smith, saddler, carpenter, weaver, wheelwright and so on. And a household in which one and all of these trades are put in practice need not even be a very large one: it is the ordinary farmhouse in the mountain valleys to which the world of exchange and barter has not yet fully made its way.

Isn't it true, then, that such a peasant-farmer needs to have a head on his shoulders? This head, again, is of home production, and a good thing too; for the Jew pedlar, who is always prepared to bring any requisite from town for cash, could hardly be expected to supply that.

But nowadays this, like most things, is changing; and, since gold and silver have taken to rolling to and fro, in such a momentous fashion, between the houses of town and country, the peasant no longer has the same joy in his farm, where he must always be labouring for others. Besides, he need not work out in the wilderness nowadays; he can do much better, they tell him, on rented land or in the factories; he sells or lets his property and goes after money. And there at last you have the stupid peasant!

I only speak of these things because my father's house, concerning which I have something to tell, was one of those farms in which we ourselves produced nearly everything that we wanted. And yet, even at that time, money played us a trick. My father was particularly clever at tanning hides, at weaving, at grinding corn and at pressing linseed-oil. In the last case, I assisted him to brave purpose, as a boy of ten, by dipping a slice of white bread into the oil that ran from the gutter of the press and then transferring the bright yellow slice to my mouth.

One day, while we were thus engaged, Clements, the timber-merchant, walked into the pressing-room. He had once been forest-ranger at Alpel; but he had made such a huge amount of money in the timber-trade that he lost all interest in our mountains and went down into the broad Mürzthal, where he displayed a restless activity in acquiring more and yet more money. He had grown quite lean at this unedifying occupation; but otherwise he continued in fairly good fettle.

Well, when Clements saw the oil bubbling in the wooden pail, he asked, was the cider sweet?

My father invited him to taste it; but, when Clements lifted the pail bodily and took a draught from it, he fell back as though someone had struck him in the face and lost no time in spitting out what he had swallowed.

"It can't hurt you," said my father, to console him. "It is pure linseed oil."

"Forest-farmer," said Clements, gradually recovering himself, "here I am, bringing all sorts of good things to your house; and this is the way you treat me!"

"You're the first I ever met that did not like flax-wine," replied my father. "It's just like a wine, so golden and clear. And you couldn't find anything better for one's precious health. I am in the doctor's debt to the price of a couple of oxen; and even then I should be under the sod to-day if Our Father in Heaven had not made linseed-oil to grow."

"And, as you, forest-farmer, are still, thank God, above the sod," drawled Clements, "you'll be needing money, I'm thinking. Look, it's your guardian angel's brought me here: I'm bringing you some."

"Oh, my gracious!" replied my father, leaning his whole weight upon the lever, so that the oil-cake in the press had to yield its last drains, which, however, were received into a separate little pot, for these dregs are not quite so clear and mild as the first stream. "Oh, my gracious!" said he. "I could do with the money well enough; but you can just take it away again: I know what you want for it. You want the six old fir-trees that stand outside my house. Things are a sight worse with me than they were a year ago, when you came and asked to buy the trees, but I have no other answer for you than I gave you then: the six trees outside the house are a memory of the old days; and, if I had to sell field and meadow and the cattle in the stable, those trees shall stay where they are; and, if they have to lay me in the grave without a coffin, those old trees shall stay where they are until God's lightning cracks them or the storm fells them."

The last words were spoken with violence; and, with that, the last drop of oil left the press.

But Clements said:

"Forest-farmer, you shall not sell a field, nor a head of cattle from your stable; you shall have a coffin of good white ash-wood: God grant that you may not need it for a long time to come! You shall have good days yet in this world. You shall not sell the old fir-trees, but you shall sell the larch in your wood that are fit for felling. Have you your pocket-book on you? If so, just open it."

I got a fright, when I saw the figure on the bank-note which the tempter had now drawn from his leather case and which, holding it between his finger-tips, he sent fluttering to and fro, like a little flag, before my father's blinking eyes. Misfortune had cleared the way in our house for the timber-merchant: we were no longer able to get all we wanted for our ten heads and stomachs out of that eighty yoke of mountain land; the doctor was sending us letters which I could not read soft and low enough to make them bearable to my father:

"The forest-farmer is hereby summoned within fourteen days to … failing which…."

"As my patience is at last exhausted, I have placed the matter in the hands of the imperial and royal courts, and if, within eight days … execution and distraint…."

Those were more or less the first sentences which I was given to read in our dear High-German language. And there was a certain book, too, with its "date of debt" and "date of payment," which gave me an idea of the force that lies concealed in the language of Schiller and Goethe.

It was a real live "hundred" which the timber-merchant held by the corner between his two fingers. Did not a chill shudder, at that moment, go over the tops of the larches that were dotted here and there in the pine-woods outside, I wonder? Nor any anxious foreboding trouble the hearts of the little birds that had built their nests there?

My father did not put out his hand for the money, but neither did he hide it in his pocket; he did not busy it with the lever of the oil-press; he just kept it, half-open, as nature had bent it, on his knee, while he sat exhausted with his labour. Clements dropped the rare bit of paper into it; then the lank fingers closed softly—instinctively—and held it tight.

The larch were sold.

"I have only one condition to make," said the timber-merchant, when he saw that the poor small farmer lay duly under the spell of the money. "I shall have the trees felled late in the autumn, when the snow comes. You will be astonished, forest-farmer, when I tell you that the emperor will ride over your larch-trees! Yes, yes, we shall use them for building the railway. My condition is that my wood-cutters shall be allowed to cook their meals and sleep in your house as long as they are working in the woods."

"Why not?" said father. "That'll be all right, if it's good enough for them under my roof."

What mischief those good-natured words brought down upon our peaceful forest home!

Clements went away happy and contented, after presenting me with a bright new groschen for myself. I remember being surprised at this: it was obviously for us to be contented, seeing that we had the money! Father took his up to the loft and hid it in the clothes-press: it was very soon to come out again. Then the days passed, as usual, and the larch stood in the woods and rocked their long branches in the wind, as usual, and got ready their twigs for next spring, as usual.

"They don't know how soon they are to die!" my father said to me once, as we were coming from the meadow through the woods.

But I comforted myself with the hope that Clements the timber-merchant, who lived out in the merry Mürzthal and never came back to our neighbourhood at all, would forget all about the larch. My mother, to whom I confided this view, said sharply:

"Oh, child, that fellow forgets about his soul, but he'll never forget the larches!"

And, one day, when the earth had frozen hard and the moss cracked and broke underfoot, we heard the rasping of the saw in the woods. When we looked across the brown tops of the firs, we saw the yellow spire of a tall larch-tree soar high above them. The rasping of the saw died away, the blows of the axe rang out; then slowly the spire bent over, dipped; and thunder echoed through the forest.

That evening the wood-cutters came to our house. There were only two of them; and, at first sight, we were all pleased with them. One of them was already well on in years and had a long red beard, a bald pate and a sharp, crooked nose. The man's little eyes looked smaller still because the red eyelashes and eyebrows were hardly visible against the colour of his skin; but the eyes were full of fun and devilment. The other was quite twenty years or so younger, had a little brown beard, but otherwise was rather pale and thin in the face. Anyone, however, seeing his powerful neck and his broad chest would take him to be much more of a wood-cutter than the red one, who only looked such a warrior because of his beard, but, in other respects, was much slighter in build than the pale one. Both wore stiff leather aprons and smelt of rosin and shavings.

Our cooking was soon done; so mother left the hearth to them. And, upon my word, they knew how to make use of it! What they cooked was not the regular wood-cutter's game, such as stray foxes, sparrows and such-like dumplings as are prepared with flour and fat, but real meat and bacon and grill; and it all simmered and frizzled in the pans until our stomachs, which had to be satisfied with bread-soup and potatoes, were driven frantic. But the red one tore off a whole piece of bacon for us to taste. They had a wooden jar with them, wound round with straw, out of which one and the other took long draughts. The red one invited my father to try their wine. He did; and his experience was worse than that of Clements with the linseed-oil: the jar contained that hellish stuff, brandy.

The wood-cutters now feasted in our house day after day. We children lost all liking for our daily food, at the sight of luxury and abundance. We became discontented; and our household, consisting of two half-grown servant-girls and a half-blind woman, heaved many a deep sigh. But the red one knew how to amuse us. He talked of towns and other countries; for the two men had been about a good deal and had worked in large factories. Then he regaled us with funny stories and tricks; in the early days also with riddles and droll plays upon words, at which the maids tittered a good deal, while father and mother sat silent and I did not rightly know what to make of it all. Then came songs, in which, to the great delight of our household, country courtship in all its forms found full expression. When this began, it was high time for us children to go to bed; but our straw bundles happened to be in the very room in which these merry things were going on. True, we closed our eyes, and I really had the firm intention to go to sleep; but my ears remained open, and the tighter I closed my eyes, the more I saw in my mind's eye.

The pale wood-cutter was quiet and proper in his behaviour and did not remain so long in the parlour, but always went betimes to his sleeping-place, which was outside in the hay-loft. But even the girls could not follow this decent example: they let the red one go on and were wholly absorbed in his chattering. My father once observed to the red fellow that the younger was more serious than the old one, whereupon the red one asked if the farmer disliked jolly songs: in that case, he would be pious and pray. And he began to recite comic sentences in the tone of the Lord's Prayer; got on to the hearth and, mimicking the preaching of a Capuchin, mocked at the holy apostles, martyrs, and virgins, until my mother went to my father with uplifted hands.

"I do beg and beseech you, Lenzel—throw that godless being out of the door, or I shall have to do it myself!"

"Do it yourself, little woman!" cried the red man and jumped off the hearthstone and tried to catch hold of mother and fondle her.

This was something unheard of. That this should suddenly happen in our house, where, year in, year out, no unseemly word was ever spoken! My father was downright paralysed with astonishment; but my mother seized the frivolous wood-cutter by the arm and cried:

"Now you get out of this, foul-mouth, and never enter my house again!"

The wood-cutter refused to budge an inch.

"If forest-farmer folk are so pious," he continued, still in his preaching tone, "as to forget what they have promised our employer, I shan't leave this roof for all that. Women and wet rags shan't drive me out."

"Perhaps men and dry logs will!" cried my father. And with a swiftness and determination which I had never before beheld in this mild-mannered man, he snatched a log of wood from the stack. The red one made a furious rush at his arms; and they wrestled. Mother tried to protect father; my brothers and sisters in their straw set up a cry of murder; I flew to the door, with nothing on me but my shirt, and called to the maids, who were already sleeping peacefully in their beds, to come and help. The blind one was the first to come hobbling safely across the yard, while one of the two who had the use of their eyes stumbled over the pigs' trough. And the youngest girl, terrified by my cries and the uproar in the house, came clattering down the step-ladder that led from the hay-loft to the yard. Without considering, at the time, the far-reaching effects of this last incident, I rushed back into the house, where the two men were engaged in a violent struggle, panting and groaning and going from one wall of the room to the other. The wood-cutter's long beard was flung in wild strands around my father's head; but father seemed to be gaining the upper hand; then came the younger wood-cutter, clad, it is true, in nothing but his shirt and his blue drawers, but with the full weight of his body. The women did what is their office on such occasions: they wrung their hands and wailed. Only, my mother, when she saw that all was lost, snatched a blazing fire-brand from the hearth.

"I'll drive you out, you ruffians, that I do know!" she cried and flew, with the brand, to the wooden inner wall.

"The fury means to set fire to us! And to the house with us!" yelled the wood-cutters and rushed out at the door, through the curling smoke.

We were rid of the nasty fellows, but the flames were leaping merrily along the wall. In hot haste, we succeeded—I no longer remember by what means—in smothering the fire.

That evening—the most terrible in my life—passed into a still and fearsome night. We had barred and bolted the door of the house; and, when we put out the rushlight, father took a last look at the window, to see if they were still outside.

It remained quiet; and not till the next morning did the young wood-cutter come to fetch his tools and his mate's. Then they built themselves a hut in the woods out of planks and bark; and here they lived half through the winter, until they had finished their work on the larch-trunks.

We felt convinced, however, that they must be plotting some mischief against us, whereupon the youngest of the maids remarked, with an air of great wisdom, that it might be best always to keep on good terms with that kind of people.

"It's easy for you to talk, wench," retorted my father. "What do you know?"

After that … she said no more.

I had a fresh fright at that time. Prompted by curiosity to see the godless fellows once more and to spy out whether the devil, in the guise of a wood-cutter, was helping them with their work, I peeped one day from the forest path and through the thicket at their work-place. Then I saw that they were making coffins.

I announced the fact at home and caused the greatest excitement in consequence.

"As I said, they have some fresh thing in their minds!" said my mother.

Father suggested:

"Boy, you have been dreaming again, in broad daylight. Still, I will go and see."

We went into the woods. My father peered through the thicket at the wood-cutters; and then I saw him turn pale.

"You half-wit!"[8] he said; and then he groaned. "They're burying every peasant of us at Alpel!"

The coffins were stacked in great piles; and the men were still chopping and trimming new ones with their axes. We rushed away to inform the local magistrate, who, at that time, lived on the mountain on the other side of the Engthal, and tell him what we had seen. On the road to his house we met Michel the carpenter, to whom my father said that he had better have all his knives and choppers ready, for it looked as if we were in for bad times. The strangers who were working in his wood did nothing but make coffins.

"Yes," said Michel, "I've noticed that too: it's a good thing the coffins are not hollow!"

And the man of experience told us of the shape of the railway-sleepers, which were usually cut from the block in pairs, before being sawn asunder, and which, with their six corners, looked not unlike a coffin.

We turned back then and there, and as we went along the edge of the field, where the grass was nice and smooth, my father said to me:

"This gives us a good chance of laughing at ourselves, lest others should. That's the way things go: when we've fallen out with a man, we put down everything that's bad to him and are as blind as if Satan had stuck his horns into our eyes. When all is said, even those two wood-cutters are not so black as they appear to be. Still, I shall be glad when they have cleared out. And this much I do know: Clements buys no more larch of me."

"Because you have none left," was my wise comment on that.

Father did not seem to hear.

The wood-cutters went at last and the larch-wood sleepers with them. The red-brown stumps remained behind; and in their pores stood bright drops of rosin.

"It shows that they were not Christians," I remember my father saying, "that they did not cut a cross in a single stump."

For, at that time, it was still the custom, in the forest, for the wood-cutters to carve a little cross with the axe into each stump as soon as the tree had fallen. Why, I was never quite able to discover: it was probably for the same reason that makes the blacksmith give two taps with his hammer on the anvil, after the red-hot iron is removed. These things are intended to thwart the devil, who, as everybody knows, is never idle and interferes in all the works of man.

My father, whose whole life was bound up with the cross, went afterwards and cut crosses in the larch-stumps. And so things in the forest were once more in order and peaceful, as they used to be.

And that is the story of the strange wood-cutters, the children of the world, who had penetrated into our far-away forest-nook like the first wave of the turbulent sea of the world. How small this wave was and what an amount of unrest, discontent, and vexation was washed up with it! Gradually, the strange elements were forgotten: even mother ended by overcoming her indignation. Only our little serving-maid remained restless and wistful, even after the wave had flowed back again, and her eyes were often red with crying.

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