XIXAbout my Mother

XIXAbout my MotherIItwas high carnival in Gratz city. In the evenings, a mad thronging in the streets, a well-nigh deafening rattling of carriages, a yelling and shouting, a flaring and glaring from the shops and stalls and from the hundreds of lamps and numberless transparencies in the windows. Gold and silver, silks and damasks gleamed in the shop-fronts. Masks of every hue and shape grinned beside them. Ha, what a mad thing life can be!I hurried through the crowd. The clock on the castle hill struck six: six strokes so clear that they outrang all the din and re-echoed from the tall, light-pierced walls of the houses. The summons of the clock is a stern admonisher: let man play as childishly as he will with tinsel pleasures and light dalliance, it counts the hours out to him and gives him not a minute's grace.I went home to my quiet room and was soon in bed.Next morning, the winter sun lay shining on the snow-clad roofs; and I was jotting down the fairy-tale of the Lost Child, when someone knocked at my door. A man entered and handed me a telegram:"Dear son, yesterday evening, at six o'clock, our dear mother passed away. Come home, we are expecting you in the greatest affliction. Your father."Last evening it had happened, in the poor cottage,while I was striding through the worldly turmoil. And at six o'clock!Early next morning, I was in the parish village. I entered on the road alone, over hills glittering with snow and through long woods, far into the lonely mountain valley. I had walked that road endless times before, had always delighted in the glistening snow, in the sparkling icicles, in the snowy mantles of the boughs, or, if it was summer, in the green leaves and the blossoms and the fragrance, in the song of the birds, in the drops of light that trickled through the branches, in the profound peace and loneliness. How often had I gone that way with mother, when she was still well and in her prime, and, later, when, crippled through illness, she tottered along on my arm! And, on this forest road, I thought of my parents' life.He had come to the forest farm a young man.People called him Lenz, not because he was young and blooming and joyful as theLenz, or spring, but because his name was Lorenz.His father had been severely wounded in a brawl, lain ill for but a little while and died an early death.So now Lenz was the owner of the forest farm. To recover in a measure from his sadness for his father's sake, he did a capital thing: he looked about him for a wife. He took almost the poorest and the most disregarded that the forest valley contained: a girl who was frightfully black all through the week, but had quite a nice little white face on Sundays. She was the daughter of a charcoal-burning woman and worked for her aged mother, but had never seen her father.One year after the wedding, in the summer, the young woodman's wife presented her Lenz with a first-born. He received the name of Peter and now runs all over the world with it, an everlasting child.Her life was so peculiar, her life was so good, her life had a crown of thorns.Our farm was no small one and its days were well-ordered; but my mother did not play the grand farmer's wife: she was housewife and servant-maid in one.My mother was an educated woman: she could "read print"; she had learnt that from a charcoal-burner. She knew the story of the Bible by heart; and she had no end of legends, fairy-tales and songs from her mother. Moreover, she was always ready with help in word and deed and never lost her head in any mishap and always knew the right thing to do."That's how my mother used to do, that's what my mother used to say," she was constantly remarking; and this continued her rule and precept, long after her mother was laid to rest in the churchyard.No doubt, there was at times a little bigotry, what we call "charcoal-burner's faith," mixed up with it, yet in such a way that it did no harm, but rather spread a gentle poetry over the poor life in the houses in the wood.The poor knew my mother from far and wide: none knocked at her door in vain; none was sent hungry away. To him whom she considered really poor and who asked her for a piece of bread she gave half a loaf; and, if he begged for a gill of flour, she handed him a lump of lard with it. And "God bless you!" she said, in addition: that she always said."What will be the end of us, if you give everything away wholesale?" my father often said to her, almost angrily."Heaven, perhaps," she answered. "My mother often used to say that the angels register every 'God reward you' of the poor before God's holy throne. How glad we shall be one day, when we have the poor to intercede for us with Our Lord!"My father believed in fasting on Saturdays and often did not take a morsel of food before the shadows began to lengthen. He did this in honour of the Blessed Virgin.[20]"I tell you, Lenz, that sort of fasting serves no useful purpose!" my mother would sometimes say, in protest. "What you go without to-day, you simply eat to-morrow. My mother always used to say, 'What you have through fasting left, give to the poor so sore bereft.' I somehow think it does no good otherwise."My father used to pray in the evenings, especially at "rosary-time," and on Saturdays prayed long and loud, but often did odd jobs at the same time, such as nailing his shoes, patching his trousers or even shaving himself. In so doing, he not seldom lost the thread of his prayers, until my mother would snatch the things from his hands and cry:"Heavens alive, what manner of praying is this! Kneeling beside the table and saying three Our Fathers with application is better than three rosaries during which the evil one steals away your good thoughts while you're playing about!"At times of hard work, my mother was fond of a good table:"Who works with a will may eat with a will," she said. "My mother used always to say, 'Who dares not risk to lose a tittle, dares not either win a little.'"My father was content with scanty fare; he was always fearing that the home would be ruined.These were the only differences in their married life; and even those did not go deep. They uttered them only to each other: when father talked to strangers, he praised mother; when mother talked to strangers, she praised father.They were of one mind as regarded the bringing-up of children. Work and prayer, thrift and honesty, were our main precepts.I only once received a proper thrashing. In front of the house was a young copse of larch—and fir-trees, which gradually grew up so high that it shut out the view of the mountains on that side. Now I loved this view and Ithought that father would be sure to thank me if I—who was an enterprising lad in those days—cut down the little trees. And, true enough, one afternoon, when everyone was in the fields, I stole into the little wood with an axe and began to cut down young trees. Before long, my father appeared upon the scene; but the thanks which he gave me had a very queer look."Lend me the hatchet, boy!" he said, quietly.I thought, "Now he'll tackle to himself: so much the better"; and I passed him the axe.He used it to chop off a birch-switch and flattened it across my back."Wait a bit!" he cried. "Do you want to do for the young wood? It has more rods for you, where this came from!"I had a thrashing just once from my mother too. I liked sitting by the hearth when mother was cooking; and, one day, I knocked over the stock-pot full of soup, half putting out the fire and nearly burning my little bare feet. My mother was not there at the moment; and, when she came running in at the sound of the mighty hissing, I cried out, crimson in the face:"The cat, the cat has upset the stock-pot!""Yes, that same cat has two legs and tells lies!" mother retorted.And she took me and thrashed me for a long time with the rod."If ever you tell me a lie again," she cried, when she had done, "I'll cut you to pieces with the flue-rake!"A serious threat! Thank goodness, it never had to be fulfilled.On the other hand, when I was good and obedient, I was rewarded. My reward took the form of songs which she sang to me, tales which she told me, when we walked through the forest together or when she sat by my bedside in the evening. All that is best in me I have from her. She had a worldful of poetry within her.When my brothers and sisters came one after the other, mother loved us all alike and favoured none. Afterwards, when two died in their childhood, I saw mother for the first time crying. We others cried with her and thenceforth always cried whenever we saw mother shedding tears.And this was quite often, from that time onwards. Father lay sick for two years on end. We had ill-luck in the farm and in the fields; hail and murrain came; our corn-mill was burnt down.Then mother wept in secret, lest we children should see her. And she worked without ceasing, fretted, and ended by falling ill. The doctors of the whole neighbourhood around were called in to advise: they could do nothing but charge fat fees; only one of them said:"I won't take payment from such poor people."Yes, in spite of all our jollity, we had become poor people. The goods and chattels were all gone; of the once big property nothing remained to us but the taxes. My father now resolved to sell the encumbered farm as well as he could. But mother would not have it: she worked on, ill as she was, with trouble and zeal, and never gave up hope. She could not bear to think of giving up her home, the house where her children were born. She denied her illness, said that she had never felt better in her life and that she would work for three.My brothers and sisters also considered that they could not leave the homestead; besides, none of them had one good pair of shoes left to put on. And mother, when, once in a way, she wished to go to the parish church, had to borrow a jacket free from patches from some journeyman-woodman's wife or other. And the greatest pain of all was people's arrogance and their scorn if ever they did lend any assistance. They had forgotten the kindnesses which my mother had once shown to one and all according to her power. At that time, she was the most honoured farmer's wife in all the houses in theforest. But—misfortune destroys friendship! As, indeed, her mother, the charcoal-burner, had often said.I will relate an experience of that sad time, when my mother was ailing. It begins with a bright and sunny Whitsuntide.That bright and sunny Whit Monday was her thirty-ninth birthday. It was a gladsome day. The crops were green in the fields; and the herds grazed in the high meadow: true, they did not belong to us, but to our neighbour; and yet we delighted in them, because they were fat and jolly. My father had already paid last year's taxes; the financial position, which had been disturbed during father's long illness, seemed gradually coming to rights; and consequently we were once more rising in people's opinions. On this day, we walked through the meadows together; and the little ones picked flowers and the grown-ups praised God's works with a cheerful word or a song. Then mother sat down on a stone and was like to die.We dragged her home, we put her to bed, where she lay for long: weeks long, months long. All the neighbours came and brought their well-meant sympathy; all the doctors from near and far came and brought their well-meant medicine. The patient, as they admitted behind her back, had had a stroke; she was languishing. But, when the cool autumn came, she grew better: she now no longer lay in bed by day, but sat on the bench by the fire or at the table, where the children played, or by the hearth, where she instructed clumsy father in the art of cooking. She was not cheerful, nor was she cast down; she took things as they came and did not complain: only, between whiles, when she was alone, she heaved a deep sigh. Thus winter passed. The delightful Whitsuntide came again and mother was ill.At this festival, the old woman from the Riegelberg came to see us and brought a few rolls with her. She suggested all sorts of household remedies and reckonedup a number of hale and hearty people who had become hale and hearty through taking the aforesaid remedies. And at last she asked, hadn't we been to Stegthomerl—Tom of the Footpath—yet?No, we confessed, we had not been to him as yet.Then how could we have been so remiss and however could we have neglected to go to Tom of the Footpath? He was the very first to whom one ought to send in that sort of illness!But it was such a distance to get there, father objected. "And, if it was a three days' journey, it is not too far for health's sake.""That's very true, I grant you: it would not be too far for health," said father. "And think you, Riegelbergerin, that he could cure her?""Curing, my dear woodman, is in God's hands," answered the woman from the Riegelberg, with her wonted superiority. "Even the best doctors cannot work miracles. But he knows, does Tom of the Footpath, and he'll tell you whether a cure is still possible or not." The very next day, a messenger was sent over the mountains to the valley where Tom of the Footpath lived. He went off early and he came home late and he brought the answer that Tom of the Footpath had said he could say nothing at all as long as he did not see the invalid for himself.The next day, another messenger went off (for the first had gone lame on the long road) to fetch Tom of the Footpath. He came back late at night alone and brought the news that Tom of the Footpath didn't visit patients: Thomas himself was not as young as he had been; also he did not wish to be locked up again because the qualified doctors suffered from an infernal professional jealousy and wanted to bury everybody themselves. If the sick woodman's wife cared to come to him, there might be something to be done. But he did not go running after sick people.This was manfully spoken, after all, and we all of us understood that a man who knows his own value does not exactly care to make himself cheap. But now came a great embarrassment. The weather, to be sure, was fine and warm; the days were long, and mother was quite ready to go. But how were we to carry her on that many-hours' road to Tom of the Footpath? It was impossible. Drive? We had no cart; and the last pair of draught-oxen had been taken from us by the creditors to whom we had had to apply once more during mother's illness. The neighbours were using their oxen just now for ploughing the fields. The jobbing farmer had two horses: he was willing to let them out to us, but his charge for the day—father struck his hands together at the thought—was five florins and their oats.And, as we were all sitting in deep distress around our sick mother, seeking for a way out of the difficulty and finding none, the door opened and the lad from the road-side tavern walked in."What do you want, my boy?" asked my father.The boy stood dangling his arms."Ay," he said, "it's this way: Samersteffel sends word to say that, if the woodman likes to have his horse and cart, he can have them."Samersteffel was what Stephen, the local carrier, was called."Where is Carrier Steve?""He's with us and he's put up his horse and cart at our place."My father thought over what he had better say; then he said:"Steve is sure to want a good price; tell him from me, no, but I'm obliged to him."The boy went away; and, in an hour's time, Carrier Steve came round in person. He was a little fat man, who, in the old days, before the road was made, used to carry all sorts of things over the mountain-path with apack-horse. Now that the road was there, he had set up a little light cart, in which he conveyed corn, salt, cider and so on, but all for money, of course, as that was what he lived by; and not only that, but he wanted to get rich, so as to build a big inn on the new road. To be an innkeeper was the dream of his life; and he had the making of one in him, for he was always in a good temper and would certainly know how to entertain his visitors.But to-day, when he walked into our parlour, he was in anything but a good temper."You're making a lot of useless trouble for one of us," he said, and sat down puffing and panting on the bench against the wall. "Have you ever heard, woodman, that I have pressed myself on anyone for the sake of gain? You can't have heard such a thing said about me, for, thank God, I don't need it. Once I myself propose to carry anything, I carry it gratis. I heard that your wife wanted to go to Tom of the Footpath and that she had no trap of any kind. My mother, God rest her soul, was also ill for a long time; I know what it means: it's a misery. If you like, woodman, I'll drive your wife over to Tom of the Footpath to-morrow."Then we all felt really glad. We did not give a further thought to the question whether the long drive would do good or harm, or whether the new physic would take effect, or how the illness would turn out afterwards. To Tom of the Footpath, just to Tom of the Footpath: that would put everything right.I was awakened early next day, when the morning star peeped through the great black ash-trees. Father had to stay behind to look after the farm; and I, the thirteen-year-old lad, must go with mother to see that nothing happened to her. Mother was already at her breakfast and did as if she thoroughly relished the milk-porridge. Carrier Steve and I ate a bowl of curds and whey and then we drove off. Steve sat on the little driver's seat and talked out loud to his nag, telling it tobe a good horse and trot over the mountains briskly "so that we can bring woodman's wife home again before the day is out." My mother sat, wrapped up in all her clothes, and my father's storm-cloak into the bargain, on a leather cushion, with straw at her feet and a heavy blanket over all, allowing only a part of her head to show above it. I sat beside this sick-bed and was heavy at heart.It was still chilly night; the sky began to turn a little pale over the Wechselberg. The road led across the meadows. Now the birds woke; now the glory of the dawn commenced; now the great sun rose in the heavens. My mother drew back the blanket a little and gazed up at the sun:"I feel full of hope," she whispered and felt for my hand, "if only the summer helps a bit and Tom of the Footpath too. After all, I'm not so old yet. What do you think, my child? Shall I be able to look at the world again a hale woman?"I was as confident as she; I felt quite relieved. The morning sun! The dear warm morning sun!Mother became chatty."It's silly, when you come to think of it," she said, suddenly, and laughed almost aloud, "how fond a body is of being in the world. Of course, I should be sorry to leave my folk. And it would be a pity for my Lenzel, your father, to be left all alone; the children are so small yet.""But I'm getting pretty big now," I protested.Then mother turned her face right round to me and said:"It's just you, my Peter, it's just you about whom I'm most anxious. You see, you appear to me quite different from other boys of your age. You've no real mind for work, that is to say, you have the mind, perhaps, but you take no honest pleasure in it. Yes, yes, deny it as you may, I know you, you don't care about farming, youhang around and you want something else, you yourself don't know what. You see, that's really the worst of it. And so I should like to pray to God and ask Him to leave me with you, so that I can keep a hold on you until I know what's to become of you.""Will you be a carrier? How would that suit you, boy?" cried Steve, over his shoulder, to us in the cart."A good carrier, who takes poor people driving: I wouldn't mind that," remarked my mother, whereupon Steve gave a little smirk.The road led straight up and became stony; Steve and I got down and walked beside the creaking cart. The sun had become hot. It was a tiring drive and we only got on slowly.When we were up at the top and driving along through the almost level, but dark woods of the Fischbacheralpe, we no longer heard the cart-wheels, for the ground was thickly strewn with pine-needles, save that, every now and again, the wheels struck against a root. The birds had become silent, for the hot day lay over the tree-tops. My mother had fallen asleep. I looked at her pale face and thought:"Tom of the Footpath is sure to know of something that will do her good; it's a lucky thing that we were able to drive to Tom of the Footpath.""Like a bit of bread, Peter?" asked Steve."I should be glad of a bit."And, when I got my piece of bread, there was a piece of bacon on it; and now my distress began. I held the thing in my hand for ever so long and looked at it and looked up at my mother: she was asleep. I did not want to offend Steve, who meant so well by us. As, however, I could not leave the thing as it was, lying in my hand, I at last began, first quite softly, but gradually louder, to call out:"Steve!""What do you want?" he asked, at last."I should only like to beg as a favour," I said, quite despondently, "just as a favour, that I need not eat the bacon. For indeed I don't like bacon.""You don't know what's good," said the driver, laughing, and relieved me of my difficulty.At last, we began to go downhill; and now the cart jolted over the burning stones and shook the invalid out of her sleep; and the sun burnt into her marrow; and she felt chilled all the same.Steve muttered:"Tom of the Footpath must be the devil of a good doctor to make a drive like this worth while. Hold up, Sorrel: we've not much further to go."It was late in the afternoon when we reached the valley and stopped at the little house where Tom of the Footpath lived.We carried mother into the musty, stuffy parlour, in which all the little windows were tight shut. There we let her down on the bench and asked for Tom.A grumpy old woman answered that Tom was not there."We can see that," said Steve, "but might we ask where he is?""Can't say.""When's he coming in?""Maybe he won't stay out long, maybe he won't be back till night, maybe he's gone to the ale-house."The old woman left the room; and there we sat. My mother drew a deep breath.Steve went after the old woman and asked her for a spoonful of hot soup for the invalid."Where should I get hot soup from at this time of day? The fire's been out on the hearth this long since."That was the answer. Thereupon the driver himself set to and lit the fire, looked for milk and boiled it.Mother ate only a little of the soup and pushed the bowl to us, so that we should have some warm food too.When that was done, Steve gave the woman a silver ten-kreuzer for the milk and for the hay which the sorrel ate.After a time, during which it turned quite dark in the parlour, once or twice, because clouds were passing in front of the sun outside, Tom of the Footpath walked into the room. He was a short, spindle-shanked man, but had a big head, broad shoulders, a very high chest and a great hump on his back. And his head was sunk into his shoulders, so that the mannikin had to turn right round, with his whole body, whenever he wanted to turn his head. I can see him plainly to this day, as he stepped in through the door and looked at us, first sharply and then smilingly, with his wandering, vacant face.My mother at once became fidgety and tried to rise from her seat, in order to put her request to him in a respectful fashion.Tom made a sign with his hand that she need not trouble and presently said, in a rather sing-song voice:"I know, I know, you're the woodman's wife from the Alpel; you had a stroke a year ago.""I had a stroke?" asked the invalid, in dismay."You've been doctoring all round the place, far and wide; and now, because no one else can do you any good, you come to me. They're all alike: they come to me when they're dying; and if, after that, Tom of the Footpath's physic doesn't work a miracle and the patient goes the way of all flesh, then they say that Tom of the Footpath has been the cause of his death."These words were terrible to listen to, in themselves, but still they were bearable because they were spoken with a smiling face and because Tom went on to add:"Hope it'll prove an exception in your case, woodman's wife. I'll just examine you now."First of all, of course, he felt her pulse:"It hops," he muttered, "it hops."Then, with his broad fingers, he pushed her eyebrows apart and looked into the whites—and said nothing.Next, she had to bare her neck and he put his ear to it—and said nothing. Furthermore, he attentively studied the lines of her hand, then asked after the sick woman's actual state of health and went on to examine the arteries and the respiration, so that I at once conceived a high opinion of the man's conscientiousness.And, when he had finished his examination, he sat down on a chair opposite my mother, who was slowly wrapping herself up again in her clothes, spread out his legs, sank his chin into his body and, with his arms crossed over his chest, said:"Yes, my dear woodman's wife, you've got to die."My mother gave a light start, I sprang to my feet. Steve, however, remained sitting quite calmly in his seat, looked hard at Tom of the Footpath for a while and then said, suddenly:"And you haven't, I suppose? No, you old camel, your day's coming too, God damn it all!"It was now high time to go. We hurriedly packed up and drove off homeward.It was sultry and shady; the sky was covered with clouds; there was not a living thing in sight; not a tree-top stirred; our cart rattled heavily along. My mother lay silently in her corner and gazed at the darkling world with her great, black eyes.Steve sat fuming on his box, but gradually became quieter; and he now grunted:"To think of a man being as drunk as all that!""Who?" I asked."Such a drunken bout is really worth making a day's journey to go and have a look at," Steve continued. "True enough, I'd heard tell that the old camel was seldom sober; and he'd come straight from the ale-house to-day.""I dare say it was just as well," my mother said. "If he had been sober, perhaps he would not have told me the truth."And so we drove away in great sadness. The thunder rolled over the mountains, quite hoarse and dull; the Fischbach storm-bell rang in the distance. Then my mother sat upright and said:"You must do something to please me, Peter; and I'll ask Steve as well: it's no use telling father, my husband, what Tom of the Footpath said.""Indeed, it would never do to repeat such fool's talk," cried the driver, very loudly, "but I'm going to the magistrate! I shall inform against him! That's what I shall do!""I beg of you, Steve, let it be," my mother asked. "You mustn't think that I take it so much to heart. I myself have often thought that the thing will end with me as it ends with all ailing people. What can Tom of the Footpath do against that! We did not go to him to get him to tell us lies. I'm only sorry that we never once asked what we owed him for his straightforwardness."Now Steve burst out laughing and sent the whip whizzing once or twice through the air, notwithstanding that the horse was doing its best.When we drove along over the heights, the threatening storm had dispersed entirely; the setting sun shone with a faint golden gleam over the wide landscape, over wood and meadows; and a cool breeze blew in our faces.A bright tear lay on my mother's pale cheeks.As, silent and tired, we drove through our home meadows, the stars appeared in the sky. On every side, the song of the crickets purled and chirped in the grass. By the fence, where our hillside began, stood a black figure that accosted us and asked if it was we.It was my father, who had come to meet us. My mother called him by name; her voice was weak and trembling.Father took us indoors, without asking a question.Not until we were in the parlour and the rushlight was burning did he ask how we had fared."Not badly," said Steve, "not at all badly: we have been very cheerful.""And Tom of the Footpath: what did he say?""He said that, like other people, woodman's wife wouldn't live for ever, but that she has plenty of time before her, oh, plenty of time. Only you're to take care: give her lots of good air in the summer, not too much work and no excitement, good food and drink and no physic, no physic at all, he said. And then she'll get all right again."A time elapsed after that. My father tried to nurse mother according to Steve's dictum, which he believed to be Tom of the Footpath's dictum; and, when winter came, she sat at the spinning-wheel and span. The mouse had not bitten the thread in two.That same winter brought the news that Tom of the Footpath had been found frozen to death in the snow, not far from the ale-house on the Fischbacheralpe. We said an Our Father for his soul.Carrier Steve, who came to see us now and then and always remained the good, cheerful man he was, had also forgiven Thomas: true, it was wholly and solely because he had proved wrong that time.III failed—to return to our other circumstances—to take any pleasure in the peasant's life and also I really lacked the strength for it. I then took up a trade, but was not able to help my parents; I wanted to pay my father for my Sunday board, which I had at home, but he would take nothing from me, said that I was just as much his child as before, only I must not burn so many rushes when I was home on Saturday nights."Oh, goodness me, let him have that pleasure: he hasn't so many!" my mother would say and intercede for me.Then things altered with me. I went into the world. It was hard parting with my mother; but, in a short time, she was able to see that my life had become happier.And, now that happiness had come, envy soon came hobbling along—or was it stupidity? A rumour passed through the forest hills:"So far, it's all right with Peter; but, as always happens in town, he is sure to fall away from the Christian faith."And soon the talk grew:"A nice story that! All of a sudden, he finds honest work too hard for him and righteous fare not good enough, goes to town and eats flesh-meat on Our Lady's day and falls away from the faith."My mother laughed at first, when she heard that, for she knew her child. But then the thought came to her: suppose it were true after all! Suppose her dear child were forgetting God and going astray!She knew no peace. She went and borrowed clothes from blind Julia and borrowed three florins from a good-natured huckstress and travelled—sick and infirm as she was, leaning with either hand on a stick—to the capital. She wanted to see for herself what was true in people's talk. She found her child a poor student in a black coat, which he had had given him, and with his hair combed off his forehead. None of this pleased her greatly, it is true; it succeeded, however, in appeasing her. But, in the two days of her stay in town, she saw the mad, frivolous doings on every side, saw the neglect of old customs which she revered and the mocking of things that were sacred to her, and she said to me:"You will never be able to stay among people like those, child; they would drag you down with them and ruin your soul.""No, mother," I answered, "a man can think as he wishes; and people can't take away good thoughts."She said no more. But, when she returned to the foresthills and heard the talk again, she was more dejected than ever.It was all up now with the homestead. House and farm were sold, made over to the creditors; my brothers and sisters engaged as servants with strange farmers. The destitute parents were given a cottage that, until then, had belonged to the property. My youngest brother, who was not yet able to earn his bread, and one sister remained with them and nursed poor mother. Father kept on going over the mountains to the doctors', and all but promised them his own life, if they could save the life of his wife.In the cottage, things looked very wretched. The ailing woman suffered in silence. The light of her eyes threatened to fail her, her mental faculties appeared to fade. Death knocked at her heart with repeated strokes. She often seemed to endure severe pain, but said nothing; she no longer took any interest in the world, asked only after her husband, after her children. And she lay years a-dying.I often came to see her during that time. She hardly knew me, when I stood by her bedside; but then again she would say, as in a dream:"Is that you, Peterl? Praise and thanks be to God that you are here again!"During midsummer, we would carry her, once in a way, with bed and all, out of the stuffy room into the air, so that she might see the sunshine once more. I do not know if she saw it: she kept her eyes open and looked up at the sun; her optic nerves seemed dead.Then, suddenly, days came when she was different. She was cheerful and longed to go out into the open."Do get quite well again, Maria," said her husband, "and we shall remain together a long while yet.""Yes," she answered.I thought of all this on my way through the forest—and now it was all over with this poor rich life.When, at last, after walking for hours through the woods along the mountain-path, I saw the thatched cottage on the hill-side, then it was as though a misty shadow covered woods and plains and all; and yet the sunlight hung over it. A puff of grey smoke rose from the little chimney. Does she suspect my coming? thought I. Is she cooking my favourite dish? No, strangers are preparing a funeral feast.You stood long, Peterl, outside the half-open door; and your hand trembled when at last it touched the latch. The door opened, you walked in, it was dark in the narrow passage, with only a dim little oil-lamp flickering in a glass, and yet you saw it clearly: against the wall, under the smoky stairs, on a plank lay the bier, covered entirely with a big white cloth. At the head stood a crucifix and the holy-water stoup, with a sprig of fir in it….You fell upon your knees…. And the tears came at last. The tears which the mother's heart once gave us to take with us into this world for our relief in sorrow and for our only consolation in the hour when no other comfort reaches the soul, when strangers cannot understand us and when the mother's heart has ceased to beat. Hail, O rich and eternal legacy!Now the door of the parlour opened softly and Maria, the younger sister, stepped out. The girl at once began to cry when she saw the brother of whom they had all spoken so often, for whom mother's last glance had asked and who was far away when she closed her eyes. Now he lay there on his knees and cried over the memory of her life.Even her children here at home had slept through the night of the death. Not till the glow of early morning lit up the little windows did father go to the girls in the bedroom and say:"Open your eyes and look out. The sun is already rising over the Wechsel; and the Blessed Virgin is sitting on the mountain-top, with the Child Jesus on her knee;and your mother is sitting on the stool at her feet, with a spinning-wheel before her, weaving her heavenly garment."Then they knew at once that mother was dead."Would you like to look at her?" my sister now asked.And she went to the head of the bier and slowly raised the shroud.I saw my mother. Heaven's bliss still lay on the stiff, stark visage. The load was gone from my heart, relieved and comforted; I looked upon the dear features as though I were contemplating a white flower. It was no longer the poor, sick, weary woman that lay before me: it was the face lit up with a ray from the youthful days long past. She lay there slumbering and was strong and well. She was young again and white and gentle; she wore a little smile, as she often did when she looked at the merry little fellow playing about with his toys at her feet. The dark and glossy hair (she had no grey hairs yet) was carefully braided and peeped out a little at the temples from under the brown kerchief, the one which she loved best to wear upon her head when she went to church on holidays. She held her hands folded over her breast, with the rosary and the wax candle between them. She lay there just as though she had fallen asleep in church on Whit Sunday, during the solemn High Mass; and thus, even in death, she comforted her child. But the rough hands clearly showed that the slumberer had led a hard and toilful life.And so you stood before this sacred image, nearly as still and motionless as the sleeper.At last, you whispered to your little sister, who stood softly weeping by your side:"Who closed her eyes?"A sound of hammering came from the parlour. The carpenter was knocking together the last dwelling-house.After a while, Maria drew the shroud over the headagain, as softly and carefully as when she used to cover up our little mother, hundreds and hundreds of times, in the long period of sickness.Then I went into the small, warm parlour. Father, my elder sister, my two brothers, of whom the younger was still a boy, came up to me with mournful looks. They hardly spoke a word, they gave me their hands, all but the little fellow, who hid himself in the chimney-corner, where we could hear his sobbing.Joseph the carpenter was calmly planing away at the coffin, which he had now finished joining, and smoked his pipe as he did so.Later, when the afternoon shadows had lengthened outside, far over the glittering snow-clad meadow-land, when, in the parlour, Joseph was painting the black cross on the coffin-lid, father sat down beside it and said, softly:"Please God, after all, she has a house of her own again."On the first day after mother's death, no fire had been lit on the cottage-hearth. One and all had forgotten that a mortal man wants a basin of hot soup in the morning and at mid-day. On the other hand, a blazing fire had been kindled on the field behind the little house, to burn the straw bedding on which she had died, even as, long ago, the forefathers had fanned their Odin fires, commending the beloved dead to the Goddess Hella, the great concealer.[21]I had sat down on the bench and lifted my little brother up to me. The little man glanced at me quite fearsomely: I had a black coat on and a white scarf round my neck and I looked very grand in his eyes. I held his little hand, which already had horny blisters on it, in mine. Then I asked father to tell us something of mother's life."Wait a little," answered father and looked on at the drawing of the cross, as in a dream.At last, he heaved a deep sigh and said:"So it's finished now. Her cross and suffering lasted long, that's true; but her life was short. Children, I tell you, not everyone has a mother like yours. For you, Peter, she nearly gave up her life, when you came into the world. And so they followed one after the other: joys and sorrows, care and want, poverty and wretchedness! And, when I was sick unto death and the doctors agreed that I must go the way of all flesh, that there was no remedy for it, my wife never gave up hope, never abandoned me. Day and night she stayed by my side, forgetting to sleep, forgetting to eat a bit of bread. She almost poured life back into me with her own breath—my dear, good wife."His voice seemed about to break; he wiped the moisture from his eyes with his coat-sleeve."No one would believe what good nursing can do," he continued. "I became quite hale again. We lived on, faithfully and fondly; and that you, Peter, found success and happiness away from home, that was your mother's greatest joy. You yourselves know how she lay sick and dying for seven years and more, how they turned us out of house and home, how spitefully people talked and how, nevertheless, we had the greatest trust in you children. For fully thirty years, we lived together in wedlock. I always prayed that God might takemefirst; now He has chosen rather to takeher. You mustn't cry like that, children: you were always a help and a comfort to your mother."He said no more.When the carpentering of the coffin was done, father put shavings inside it as a pillow. He had always had the habit, when he had done his work, of going to his wife and saying:"I've finished now."And so, when he had put the shavings straight and made the other preparations, he went out to the bier in the passage and said:"I've finished now."Late in the evening, when the crescent moon stood in the dark, clear sky and shed its twilight over the woods and gleaming, snow-clad meadows and over the little house in the forest on the hill-side, the snow creaked continually on the roads and people came up from farmsteads and distant cottages. Even though they had carried on loud and cheerful conversations with one another on the paths by which they had come, they became silent now that they were nearing the cottage and we heard only the crackling of their footsteps on the snow.In the small front passage, which was dimly lit by the little lamp, everyone knelt on the cold clay floor and prayed silently before the bier and then sprinkled it with holy water. After that, he went into the parlour to the others, who sat round the table and the fireplace, singing hymns and uttering pious reflections. They were all there to accompany the poor woman of the house to her last resting-place.I would have kept on standing by the bier, if the people had not been there, so that I might look at my mother. I read my childhood and my youth in her features. I thought that the bright eyes must open once more and smile to me, that the word must once more come from those lips which, in her loving-kindness, had been so soft and tender. But, though I was her dear son and however long I might stand beside her—she now slept the eternal sleep.I went into the low-ceilinged kitchen, where the neighbours' wives were cooking the funeral meal; I looked round in the smoke for my brothers and sisters, that I might comfort them.Inside, in the parlour, all were now as still as mice and in great tension. Mathias, the old chamois-hunter,who wore a brown shirt and a white beard, sat at the table and told a story:"There was once a farmer," he began, "who had a wife, just a poor sick wife. And, one day, one holy Easter morning, the wife died. The soul departed from her body and stood there all alone in dark Eternity. No angel was willing to come and lead her and show her in to the heavenly Paradise. 'They are celebrating Christ's resurrection in Heaven'—so the story ran—'and, at such times, no saint or angel has time to show a poor soul the way.' But the poor soul was in inexpressible fear and terror, for she reflected that, because of her illness, it was long since she had been to church. And she already heard the devil whining and whimpering and whistling and she thought that she was lost. 'O my holy guardian angel and patron saint!' she cried. 'Come to my help in this my need, or I must depart into hell-fire!' But they were all in Heaven together, celebrating Our Lord's resurrection. Thereupon the poor woman was nigh to fainting away, without comfort or support; but suddenly Our Lady stood by her side, draped in a snow-white garment with a wreath of roses as a beautiful ornament in her hand. 'Hail to thee and comfort, thou poor woman!' she said, gently, to the departed soul. 'Thou hast been a pious sufferer all thy life long and every Saturday thou hast fasted, for my sake, and what thou hadst left over through the fasting thou hast given to the poor, for my sake. This I will never forget to thee; and, though my dear Son is commemorating His glorious resurrection this day, yet will I think of thee and carry thee to His golden throne and to thy joyful place in the rose-garden by the angels, which I have prepared for thy sake and where thou canst wait for thy husband and thy children.' And then Our Lady took the poor woman by the hand and carried her up to Heaven. That is why I say that fasting and alms-giving in honour of Our Lady are a right good work."So spake Mathias in his brown shirt."Our dear woodman's wife, whom we are burying to-morrow, was also fond of fasting," said one little woman, "and very fond of giving."Father sobbed for emotion. The thought that his wife was now in Heaven lit a very welcome light in his sad heart.The hands of the old soot-browned clock upon the wall—the same which had faithfully told the hours, the joyful hours and the sorrowful, since the woodman's glad wedding-day; which pointed to the hour of one, early on Sunday morning, when the little boy was born; which, after many years, showed the hour of six, when the delivering angel passed through the room and pressed his kiss on the sufferer's forehead—the hands now met at twelve o'clock.And, when that departed life was thus measured, like a single day, from sunrise to sunset, my father said:"Boy, go outside to the cow-shed and lie down for a while in the straw and rest a bit. I will wake you when the time comes."I went outside, took a last look at the bier in the passage and then stepped out into the free, cold, starry night. The sickle of the moon had sunk behind the woods; it had sent its last beam gliding through the crevice of the door on the shroud that covered the bier: to-morrow, when it rose again, the poor creature would be lying in the dark earth.So now I lay in the shed on the straw, where my two brothers generally slept. The three chained oxen stood or lay beside me, grinding their teeth as they chewed the cud. It was warm and damp in the stable; and the moisture trickled from the half-rotten ceiling down on my straw couch.There was once a time—ay, the drops came quivering down as now—the dew-drops from the trees, when mother was taking you to make your first communion. I see younow, Peterl. You have a new jacket on, with a sprig of rosemary in your hat. Your little snow-white shirt shows round your neck above the waistcoat; and your cheeks are rosy red with scrubbing. Mother is wearing a bright-coloured dress, a brown apron and a black, tight-fitting jacket. Her broad neckerchief is of red silk and shines like fire and flame. A white-and-green spray of flowers sticks out of her bosom. On her head, she wears a high and costly golden cap, as was the fashion thenadays throughout the country; and the curls peep out on either side of the forehead, gleaming black like the two great pupils of her eyes and soft and dainty like the lashes on her lids. Her cheeks are tinged with the pink of the dawn; her chin is white and daintily curved. Her red lips wear a little smile and, at the same time, scold you, my little man, because you are skipping so pertly over the stones and roots and knocking the nails out of your shoes. No child alive has ever seen his mother in the full flower of her beauty; and yet how splendid it is, boy, even now! All's aglow in the wood and alight in the young larches; and the blooms are fragrant and the birds singing in every tree-top.Ah, child-time is May-time!A dull, heavy knocking roused me from my dream; I started up. Now they are laying my mother in the coffin; now they are nailing down the lid.I rushed out of the shed and into the house. There, in the passage, stood the narrow, white, closed coffin; and the dimly-flickering oil-lamp now lit up only the empty, desolate plank on which the bier had stood.I should have liked to see her once more….The people were preparing the litter. Father knelt behind the door and prayed; the sisters wept in their pinafores; and my little brother sobbed terribly. The poor little fellow tried to keep in his tears, for he had heard that all was for the best with mother and that she was now enjoying peace in Heaven: he had smiled alittle at that; but now, when the people were making ready to carry mother away for good and all, there was no comfort left in his sorely-afflicted little heart.I took little brother by the hand and we went into the furthermost dark corner of the room, where no one else was and where only our sick mother had cared to sit. There we sat down on the bench. And there we sat while everything was being prepared outside, while the people sat down to table and shared the funeral repast.They had come to show us sympathy; now they were eating, now they were laughing and then again they acted as was customary; and they actually rejoiced that one more person had died and, in so doing, brought variety into their everyday lives.Suddenly, loud words were heard outside:"Where is theÜberthan? We can't find theÜberthan."TheÜberthanis a thin linen pall which is wrapped round the coffin like a veil and, in the popular belief, serves him or her who has risen from the dead as a garment on the Day of Judgment.Father was roused from his prayers by the shouting; he now staggered around and looked for the linen sheet in his press, on the shelves and in every nook and corner. Why, he had brought it home only yesterday; and now it was nowhere to be found! He had really lost his head: he had to see that all got something to eat; he had to change into his Sunday clothes to go to church; he had to comfort his children; he had to fetch a new candle, because the old one was burnt down to its socket and the people were like to find themselves in the dark; he had to go to the shed and give the cattle fodder enough to last them all day, for there would be no one at home; and now he was expected to say where he had put the pall yesterday, in his confusion. And, in the next few minutes, they would be carrying his wife out of the house!It was one great excitement."So the old man has no pall!" they grumbled. "Such a thing has never been known: carrying out a dead person all naked and bare. But it must be true with the poor woodman's wife: a pauper she lived and a pauper she died!"My two sisters began to hunt in their turn; and Maria exclaimed, plaintively:"Dear Jesus, my mother mustn't be buried without a pall; she would do better than that to stay at home here; and I will give my christening-money and buy her her last dress. Who was it put away the linen sheet? O God, they want to deny her the last thing of all, as well as all the rest!"I tried to calm the girl and said we should be sure to get a linen sheet out in the village and, if not, then she must rest in peace under the bare deal boards."How can you speak like that!" she cried. "Didn't mother in her time buy your clothes for you out of her hard-saved kreuzers? And now you want her to rise on the Day of Judgment in her shabby clothes, when all the others are wearing a white garment!"She burst into loud crying and leant her glowing forehead against the wall.But, soon after, the people breathed again: they had found the pall.And, when they had eaten—we others did not take a bite—and everything was ready, they opened the door of the front passage and knelt down before the coffin and prayed aloud, saying Our Lord's Five Wounds.Then four men placed the coffin on the litter and lifted it up and carried it out of the poor dwelling into the wood and thence over the commons and fields and through mountain forests.And round about was the winter night and over all hung the starry sky.One more look at the empty bier-plank and then Iquickly drew my little brother out with me; and father and sisters also hurried after; and the elder brother locked the door; and then the cottage in the wood lay there in the dark and in the deepest stillness. Life had left it—and death had left it: there is no greater loneliness possible.We heard the hum of the praying funeral procession, we saw the flicker of the two or three lanterns among the trunks of the trees. The bearers walked at a quick pace; those who followed and prayed could hardly keep up with them on the rough, snow-covered paths. I was a long way behind with my little brother: the boy could not walk so fast. Mother would never have left us behind like that, when living: she would have waited, laughing a little and chiding a little, and led the child by the hand. Now, however, she only longed for rest.Outside the parish village stands a tall cross, with a life-size figure of the Saviour. Here, after a many-hours' progress up and down hill, they set the coffin on the ground and waited for the doctor, who came from the village to view the corpse and give the death-certificate. But, by the time that we two, who had lagged behind, came up, the coffin-lid was hammered down again. And so I was never able to see you again on earth, my mother!They entered the parish church in the morning twilight.The clear bells rang out together. A great catafalque was set up in the middle of the dark church; many candles gleamed; and a solemn funeral service began. The parish priest, an old, blind man, with snow-white hair, a venerable figure, intoned the requiem, surrounded by priests in rich vestments. His voice was clear and solemn; a choir chanted the responses; and trumpets and sackbuts echoed through the church.I looked at father and he at me; we knew not who had ordered all this so. To-day I know that it was my friends at Krieglach who gave us this beautiful token of their love.When the funeral service was over, the catafalque was removed, all the festal candles on the high-altar were lit and three priests, no longer clad in the hue of mourning, but in red, gold-stitched chasubles, climbed the steps of the altar and a grand High Mass was celebrated, with gay bell-ringing and joyous music."That is because she is released from her suffering," said I to the boy.At last, the coffin, richly decked with flowers, swayed out of the parish church, where, in the old days, the woodman's wife had been baptised and married, on its way to the cemetery. The priests and the choir sang the loud, clear requiem, the bells tolled over the village far out into the woods and the candles flickered in the sunlight. A long train of men and women passed through the broad village street. We walked behind the coffin, carrying lighted candles in our hands and praying as we went.The cemetery lies outside the village, on a gentle eminence, between fields and meadows. It is far from small, for the parish stretches to a great distance over hill and dale. It is enclosed with a plank fence and contains many crosses of wood and rusty iron; and in the middle rises the image of Christ crucified.Before this image, on the right, was the deep grave, at the exact spot where, years ago, they had buried our mother's two children who had died. A mound of freshly-dug earth lay on either side of the grave.Here the bearers let the coffin down to the ground and stripped it of all its finery; and it slid down into the pit as poor as it had left the cottage in the wood."Thou to-day, I to-morrow; and so I am content," murmured father.And the priest said:"May she rest in the Lord!"Then they cast clods of earth into the grave and went away, went to the inn, tasted bread and wine and talkedof everyday things. When it was twelve o'clock and, according to custom, the bells began to toll once more, as a last farewell to the departed, the men and women of the forest set out to return to their mountain valley.We who belonged to one another sat together for a while longer and spoke sadly of the time that must now come and how to arrange for it. Then we took leave of one another: my father and brothers and sisters went home to the cottage in the wood, to live and die where mother had lived and died.Footnotes:[20]Fasting or abstaining from flesh-meat on Saturdays, in honour of Our Lady, is a custom, an act of voluntary discipline, prevailing almost exclusively in the German and Austrian Highlands.—Translator's Note.[21]Hella, daughter of Laki and goddess of the dead, is the Persephone of Norse mythology.—Translator's Note.THE END

Itwas high carnival in Gratz city. In the evenings, a mad thronging in the streets, a well-nigh deafening rattling of carriages, a yelling and shouting, a flaring and glaring from the shops and stalls and from the hundreds of lamps and numberless transparencies in the windows. Gold and silver, silks and damasks gleamed in the shop-fronts. Masks of every hue and shape grinned beside them. Ha, what a mad thing life can be!

I hurried through the crowd. The clock on the castle hill struck six: six strokes so clear that they outrang all the din and re-echoed from the tall, light-pierced walls of the houses. The summons of the clock is a stern admonisher: let man play as childishly as he will with tinsel pleasures and light dalliance, it counts the hours out to him and gives him not a minute's grace.

I went home to my quiet room and was soon in bed.

Next morning, the winter sun lay shining on the snow-clad roofs; and I was jotting down the fairy-tale of the Lost Child, when someone knocked at my door. A man entered and handed me a telegram:

"Dear son, yesterday evening, at six o'clock, our dear mother passed away. Come home, we are expecting you in the greatest affliction. Your father."

"Dear son, yesterday evening, at six o'clock, our dear mother passed away. Come home, we are expecting you in the greatest affliction. Your father."

Last evening it had happened, in the poor cottage,while I was striding through the worldly turmoil. And at six o'clock!

Early next morning, I was in the parish village. I entered on the road alone, over hills glittering with snow and through long woods, far into the lonely mountain valley. I had walked that road endless times before, had always delighted in the glistening snow, in the sparkling icicles, in the snowy mantles of the boughs, or, if it was summer, in the green leaves and the blossoms and the fragrance, in the song of the birds, in the drops of light that trickled through the branches, in the profound peace and loneliness. How often had I gone that way with mother, when she was still well and in her prime, and, later, when, crippled through illness, she tottered along on my arm! And, on this forest road, I thought of my parents' life.

He had come to the forest farm a young man.

People called him Lenz, not because he was young and blooming and joyful as theLenz, or spring, but because his name was Lorenz.

His father had been severely wounded in a brawl, lain ill for but a little while and died an early death.

So now Lenz was the owner of the forest farm. To recover in a measure from his sadness for his father's sake, he did a capital thing: he looked about him for a wife. He took almost the poorest and the most disregarded that the forest valley contained: a girl who was frightfully black all through the week, but had quite a nice little white face on Sundays. She was the daughter of a charcoal-burning woman and worked for her aged mother, but had never seen her father.

One year after the wedding, in the summer, the young woodman's wife presented her Lenz with a first-born. He received the name of Peter and now runs all over the world with it, an everlasting child.

Her life was so peculiar, her life was so good, her life had a crown of thorns.

Our farm was no small one and its days were well-ordered; but my mother did not play the grand farmer's wife: she was housewife and servant-maid in one.

My mother was an educated woman: she could "read print"; she had learnt that from a charcoal-burner. She knew the story of the Bible by heart; and she had no end of legends, fairy-tales and songs from her mother. Moreover, she was always ready with help in word and deed and never lost her head in any mishap and always knew the right thing to do.

"That's how my mother used to do, that's what my mother used to say," she was constantly remarking; and this continued her rule and precept, long after her mother was laid to rest in the churchyard.

No doubt, there was at times a little bigotry, what we call "charcoal-burner's faith," mixed up with it, yet in such a way that it did no harm, but rather spread a gentle poetry over the poor life in the houses in the wood.

The poor knew my mother from far and wide: none knocked at her door in vain; none was sent hungry away. To him whom she considered really poor and who asked her for a piece of bread she gave half a loaf; and, if he begged for a gill of flour, she handed him a lump of lard with it. And "God bless you!" she said, in addition: that she always said.

"What will be the end of us, if you give everything away wholesale?" my father often said to her, almost angrily.

"Heaven, perhaps," she answered. "My mother often used to say that the angels register every 'God reward you' of the poor before God's holy throne. How glad we shall be one day, when we have the poor to intercede for us with Our Lord!"

My father believed in fasting on Saturdays and often did not take a morsel of food before the shadows began to lengthen. He did this in honour of the Blessed Virgin.[20]

"I tell you, Lenz, that sort of fasting serves no useful purpose!" my mother would sometimes say, in protest. "What you go without to-day, you simply eat to-morrow. My mother always used to say, 'What you have through fasting left, give to the poor so sore bereft.' I somehow think it does no good otherwise."

My father used to pray in the evenings, especially at "rosary-time," and on Saturdays prayed long and loud, but often did odd jobs at the same time, such as nailing his shoes, patching his trousers or even shaving himself. In so doing, he not seldom lost the thread of his prayers, until my mother would snatch the things from his hands and cry:

"Heavens alive, what manner of praying is this! Kneeling beside the table and saying three Our Fathers with application is better than three rosaries during which the evil one steals away your good thoughts while you're playing about!"

At times of hard work, my mother was fond of a good table:

"Who works with a will may eat with a will," she said. "My mother used always to say, 'Who dares not risk to lose a tittle, dares not either win a little.'"

My father was content with scanty fare; he was always fearing that the home would be ruined.

These were the only differences in their married life; and even those did not go deep. They uttered them only to each other: when father talked to strangers, he praised mother; when mother talked to strangers, she praised father.

They were of one mind as regarded the bringing-up of children. Work and prayer, thrift and honesty, were our main precepts.

I only once received a proper thrashing. In front of the house was a young copse of larch—and fir-trees, which gradually grew up so high that it shut out the view of the mountains on that side. Now I loved this view and Ithought that father would be sure to thank me if I—who was an enterprising lad in those days—cut down the little trees. And, true enough, one afternoon, when everyone was in the fields, I stole into the little wood with an axe and began to cut down young trees. Before long, my father appeared upon the scene; but the thanks which he gave me had a very queer look.

"Lend me the hatchet, boy!" he said, quietly.

I thought, "Now he'll tackle to himself: so much the better"; and I passed him the axe.

He used it to chop off a birch-switch and flattened it across my back.

"Wait a bit!" he cried. "Do you want to do for the young wood? It has more rods for you, where this came from!"

I had a thrashing just once from my mother too. I liked sitting by the hearth when mother was cooking; and, one day, I knocked over the stock-pot full of soup, half putting out the fire and nearly burning my little bare feet. My mother was not there at the moment; and, when she came running in at the sound of the mighty hissing, I cried out, crimson in the face:

"The cat, the cat has upset the stock-pot!"

"Yes, that same cat has two legs and tells lies!" mother retorted.

And she took me and thrashed me for a long time with the rod.

"If ever you tell me a lie again," she cried, when she had done, "I'll cut you to pieces with the flue-rake!"

A serious threat! Thank goodness, it never had to be fulfilled.

On the other hand, when I was good and obedient, I was rewarded. My reward took the form of songs which she sang to me, tales which she told me, when we walked through the forest together or when she sat by my bedside in the evening. All that is best in me I have from her. She had a worldful of poetry within her.

When my brothers and sisters came one after the other, mother loved us all alike and favoured none. Afterwards, when two died in their childhood, I saw mother for the first time crying. We others cried with her and thenceforth always cried whenever we saw mother shedding tears.

And this was quite often, from that time onwards. Father lay sick for two years on end. We had ill-luck in the farm and in the fields; hail and murrain came; our corn-mill was burnt down.

Then mother wept in secret, lest we children should see her. And she worked without ceasing, fretted, and ended by falling ill. The doctors of the whole neighbourhood around were called in to advise: they could do nothing but charge fat fees; only one of them said:

"I won't take payment from such poor people."

Yes, in spite of all our jollity, we had become poor people. The goods and chattels were all gone; of the once big property nothing remained to us but the taxes. My father now resolved to sell the encumbered farm as well as he could. But mother would not have it: she worked on, ill as she was, with trouble and zeal, and never gave up hope. She could not bear to think of giving up her home, the house where her children were born. She denied her illness, said that she had never felt better in her life and that she would work for three.

My brothers and sisters also considered that they could not leave the homestead; besides, none of them had one good pair of shoes left to put on. And mother, when, once in a way, she wished to go to the parish church, had to borrow a jacket free from patches from some journeyman-woodman's wife or other. And the greatest pain of all was people's arrogance and their scorn if ever they did lend any assistance. They had forgotten the kindnesses which my mother had once shown to one and all according to her power. At that time, she was the most honoured farmer's wife in all the houses in theforest. But—misfortune destroys friendship! As, indeed, her mother, the charcoal-burner, had often said.

I will relate an experience of that sad time, when my mother was ailing. It begins with a bright and sunny Whitsuntide.

That bright and sunny Whit Monday was her thirty-ninth birthday. It was a gladsome day. The crops were green in the fields; and the herds grazed in the high meadow: true, they did not belong to us, but to our neighbour; and yet we delighted in them, because they were fat and jolly. My father had already paid last year's taxes; the financial position, which had been disturbed during father's long illness, seemed gradually coming to rights; and consequently we were once more rising in people's opinions. On this day, we walked through the meadows together; and the little ones picked flowers and the grown-ups praised God's works with a cheerful word or a song. Then mother sat down on a stone and was like to die.

We dragged her home, we put her to bed, where she lay for long: weeks long, months long. All the neighbours came and brought their well-meant sympathy; all the doctors from near and far came and brought their well-meant medicine. The patient, as they admitted behind her back, had had a stroke; she was languishing. But, when the cool autumn came, she grew better: she now no longer lay in bed by day, but sat on the bench by the fire or at the table, where the children played, or by the hearth, where she instructed clumsy father in the art of cooking. She was not cheerful, nor was she cast down; she took things as they came and did not complain: only, between whiles, when she was alone, she heaved a deep sigh. Thus winter passed. The delightful Whitsuntide came again and mother was ill.

At this festival, the old woman from the Riegelberg came to see us and brought a few rolls with her. She suggested all sorts of household remedies and reckonedup a number of hale and hearty people who had become hale and hearty through taking the aforesaid remedies. And at last she asked, hadn't we been to Stegthomerl—Tom of the Footpath—yet?

No, we confessed, we had not been to him as yet.

Then how could we have been so remiss and however could we have neglected to go to Tom of the Footpath? He was the very first to whom one ought to send in that sort of illness!

But it was such a distance to get there, father objected. "And, if it was a three days' journey, it is not too far for health's sake."

"That's very true, I grant you: it would not be too far for health," said father. "And think you, Riegelbergerin, that he could cure her?"

"Curing, my dear woodman, is in God's hands," answered the woman from the Riegelberg, with her wonted superiority. "Even the best doctors cannot work miracles. But he knows, does Tom of the Footpath, and he'll tell you whether a cure is still possible or not." The very next day, a messenger was sent over the mountains to the valley where Tom of the Footpath lived. He went off early and he came home late and he brought the answer that Tom of the Footpath had said he could say nothing at all as long as he did not see the invalid for himself.

The next day, another messenger went off (for the first had gone lame on the long road) to fetch Tom of the Footpath. He came back late at night alone and brought the news that Tom of the Footpath didn't visit patients: Thomas himself was not as young as he had been; also he did not wish to be locked up again because the qualified doctors suffered from an infernal professional jealousy and wanted to bury everybody themselves. If the sick woodman's wife cared to come to him, there might be something to be done. But he did not go running after sick people.

This was manfully spoken, after all, and we all of us understood that a man who knows his own value does not exactly care to make himself cheap. But now came a great embarrassment. The weather, to be sure, was fine and warm; the days were long, and mother was quite ready to go. But how were we to carry her on that many-hours' road to Tom of the Footpath? It was impossible. Drive? We had no cart; and the last pair of draught-oxen had been taken from us by the creditors to whom we had had to apply once more during mother's illness. The neighbours were using their oxen just now for ploughing the fields. The jobbing farmer had two horses: he was willing to let them out to us, but his charge for the day—father struck his hands together at the thought—was five florins and their oats.

And, as we were all sitting in deep distress around our sick mother, seeking for a way out of the difficulty and finding none, the door opened and the lad from the road-side tavern walked in.

"What do you want, my boy?" asked my father.

The boy stood dangling his arms.

"Ay," he said, "it's this way: Samersteffel sends word to say that, if the woodman likes to have his horse and cart, he can have them."

Samersteffel was what Stephen, the local carrier, was called.

"Where is Carrier Steve?"

"He's with us and he's put up his horse and cart at our place."

My father thought over what he had better say; then he said:

"Steve is sure to want a good price; tell him from me, no, but I'm obliged to him."

The boy went away; and, in an hour's time, Carrier Steve came round in person. He was a little fat man, who, in the old days, before the road was made, used to carry all sorts of things over the mountain-path with apack-horse. Now that the road was there, he had set up a little light cart, in which he conveyed corn, salt, cider and so on, but all for money, of course, as that was what he lived by; and not only that, but he wanted to get rich, so as to build a big inn on the new road. To be an innkeeper was the dream of his life; and he had the making of one in him, for he was always in a good temper and would certainly know how to entertain his visitors.

But to-day, when he walked into our parlour, he was in anything but a good temper.

"You're making a lot of useless trouble for one of us," he said, and sat down puffing and panting on the bench against the wall. "Have you ever heard, woodman, that I have pressed myself on anyone for the sake of gain? You can't have heard such a thing said about me, for, thank God, I don't need it. Once I myself propose to carry anything, I carry it gratis. I heard that your wife wanted to go to Tom of the Footpath and that she had no trap of any kind. My mother, God rest her soul, was also ill for a long time; I know what it means: it's a misery. If you like, woodman, I'll drive your wife over to Tom of the Footpath to-morrow."

Then we all felt really glad. We did not give a further thought to the question whether the long drive would do good or harm, or whether the new physic would take effect, or how the illness would turn out afterwards. To Tom of the Footpath, just to Tom of the Footpath: that would put everything right.

I was awakened early next day, when the morning star peeped through the great black ash-trees. Father had to stay behind to look after the farm; and I, the thirteen-year-old lad, must go with mother to see that nothing happened to her. Mother was already at her breakfast and did as if she thoroughly relished the milk-porridge. Carrier Steve and I ate a bowl of curds and whey and then we drove off. Steve sat on the little driver's seat and talked out loud to his nag, telling it tobe a good horse and trot over the mountains briskly "so that we can bring woodman's wife home again before the day is out." My mother sat, wrapped up in all her clothes, and my father's storm-cloak into the bargain, on a leather cushion, with straw at her feet and a heavy blanket over all, allowing only a part of her head to show above it. I sat beside this sick-bed and was heavy at heart.

It was still chilly night; the sky began to turn a little pale over the Wechselberg. The road led across the meadows. Now the birds woke; now the glory of the dawn commenced; now the great sun rose in the heavens. My mother drew back the blanket a little and gazed up at the sun:

"I feel full of hope," she whispered and felt for my hand, "if only the summer helps a bit and Tom of the Footpath too. After all, I'm not so old yet. What do you think, my child? Shall I be able to look at the world again a hale woman?"

I was as confident as she; I felt quite relieved. The morning sun! The dear warm morning sun!

Mother became chatty.

"It's silly, when you come to think of it," she said, suddenly, and laughed almost aloud, "how fond a body is of being in the world. Of course, I should be sorry to leave my folk. And it would be a pity for my Lenzel, your father, to be left all alone; the children are so small yet."

"But I'm getting pretty big now," I protested.

Then mother turned her face right round to me and said:

"It's just you, my Peter, it's just you about whom I'm most anxious. You see, you appear to me quite different from other boys of your age. You've no real mind for work, that is to say, you have the mind, perhaps, but you take no honest pleasure in it. Yes, yes, deny it as you may, I know you, you don't care about farming, youhang around and you want something else, you yourself don't know what. You see, that's really the worst of it. And so I should like to pray to God and ask Him to leave me with you, so that I can keep a hold on you until I know what's to become of you."

"Will you be a carrier? How would that suit you, boy?" cried Steve, over his shoulder, to us in the cart.

"A good carrier, who takes poor people driving: I wouldn't mind that," remarked my mother, whereupon Steve gave a little smirk.

The road led straight up and became stony; Steve and I got down and walked beside the creaking cart. The sun had become hot. It was a tiring drive and we only got on slowly.

When we were up at the top and driving along through the almost level, but dark woods of the Fischbacheralpe, we no longer heard the cart-wheels, for the ground was thickly strewn with pine-needles, save that, every now and again, the wheels struck against a root. The birds had become silent, for the hot day lay over the tree-tops. My mother had fallen asleep. I looked at her pale face and thought:

"Tom of the Footpath is sure to know of something that will do her good; it's a lucky thing that we were able to drive to Tom of the Footpath."

"Like a bit of bread, Peter?" asked Steve.

"I should be glad of a bit."

And, when I got my piece of bread, there was a piece of bacon on it; and now my distress began. I held the thing in my hand for ever so long and looked at it and looked up at my mother: she was asleep. I did not want to offend Steve, who meant so well by us. As, however, I could not leave the thing as it was, lying in my hand, I at last began, first quite softly, but gradually louder, to call out:

"Steve!"

"What do you want?" he asked, at last.

"I should only like to beg as a favour," I said, quite despondently, "just as a favour, that I need not eat the bacon. For indeed I don't like bacon."

"You don't know what's good," said the driver, laughing, and relieved me of my difficulty.

At last, we began to go downhill; and now the cart jolted over the burning stones and shook the invalid out of her sleep; and the sun burnt into her marrow; and she felt chilled all the same.

Steve muttered:

"Tom of the Footpath must be the devil of a good doctor to make a drive like this worth while. Hold up, Sorrel: we've not much further to go."

It was late in the afternoon when we reached the valley and stopped at the little house where Tom of the Footpath lived.

We carried mother into the musty, stuffy parlour, in which all the little windows were tight shut. There we let her down on the bench and asked for Tom.

A grumpy old woman answered that Tom was not there.

"We can see that," said Steve, "but might we ask where he is?"

"Can't say."

"When's he coming in?"

"Maybe he won't stay out long, maybe he won't be back till night, maybe he's gone to the ale-house."

The old woman left the room; and there we sat. My mother drew a deep breath.

Steve went after the old woman and asked her for a spoonful of hot soup for the invalid.

"Where should I get hot soup from at this time of day? The fire's been out on the hearth this long since."

That was the answer. Thereupon the driver himself set to and lit the fire, looked for milk and boiled it.

Mother ate only a little of the soup and pushed the bowl to us, so that we should have some warm food too.

When that was done, Steve gave the woman a silver ten-kreuzer for the milk and for the hay which the sorrel ate.

After a time, during which it turned quite dark in the parlour, once or twice, because clouds were passing in front of the sun outside, Tom of the Footpath walked into the room. He was a short, spindle-shanked man, but had a big head, broad shoulders, a very high chest and a great hump on his back. And his head was sunk into his shoulders, so that the mannikin had to turn right round, with his whole body, whenever he wanted to turn his head. I can see him plainly to this day, as he stepped in through the door and looked at us, first sharply and then smilingly, with his wandering, vacant face.

My mother at once became fidgety and tried to rise from her seat, in order to put her request to him in a respectful fashion.

Tom made a sign with his hand that she need not trouble and presently said, in a rather sing-song voice:

"I know, I know, you're the woodman's wife from the Alpel; you had a stroke a year ago."

"I had a stroke?" asked the invalid, in dismay.

"You've been doctoring all round the place, far and wide; and now, because no one else can do you any good, you come to me. They're all alike: they come to me when they're dying; and if, after that, Tom of the Footpath's physic doesn't work a miracle and the patient goes the way of all flesh, then they say that Tom of the Footpath has been the cause of his death."

These words were terrible to listen to, in themselves, but still they were bearable because they were spoken with a smiling face and because Tom went on to add:

"Hope it'll prove an exception in your case, woodman's wife. I'll just examine you now."

First of all, of course, he felt her pulse:

"It hops," he muttered, "it hops."

Then, with his broad fingers, he pushed her eyebrows apart and looked into the whites—and said nothing.Next, she had to bare her neck and he put his ear to it—and said nothing. Furthermore, he attentively studied the lines of her hand, then asked after the sick woman's actual state of health and went on to examine the arteries and the respiration, so that I at once conceived a high opinion of the man's conscientiousness.

And, when he had finished his examination, he sat down on a chair opposite my mother, who was slowly wrapping herself up again in her clothes, spread out his legs, sank his chin into his body and, with his arms crossed over his chest, said:

"Yes, my dear woodman's wife, you've got to die."

My mother gave a light start, I sprang to my feet. Steve, however, remained sitting quite calmly in his seat, looked hard at Tom of the Footpath for a while and then said, suddenly:

"And you haven't, I suppose? No, you old camel, your day's coming too, God damn it all!"

It was now high time to go. We hurriedly packed up and drove off homeward.

It was sultry and shady; the sky was covered with clouds; there was not a living thing in sight; not a tree-top stirred; our cart rattled heavily along. My mother lay silently in her corner and gazed at the darkling world with her great, black eyes.

Steve sat fuming on his box, but gradually became quieter; and he now grunted:

"To think of a man being as drunk as all that!"

"Who?" I asked.

"Such a drunken bout is really worth making a day's journey to go and have a look at," Steve continued. "True enough, I'd heard tell that the old camel was seldom sober; and he'd come straight from the ale-house to-day."

"I dare say it was just as well," my mother said. "If he had been sober, perhaps he would not have told me the truth."

And so we drove away in great sadness. The thunder rolled over the mountains, quite hoarse and dull; the Fischbach storm-bell rang in the distance. Then my mother sat upright and said:

"You must do something to please me, Peter; and I'll ask Steve as well: it's no use telling father, my husband, what Tom of the Footpath said."

"Indeed, it would never do to repeat such fool's talk," cried the driver, very loudly, "but I'm going to the magistrate! I shall inform against him! That's what I shall do!"

"I beg of you, Steve, let it be," my mother asked. "You mustn't think that I take it so much to heart. I myself have often thought that the thing will end with me as it ends with all ailing people. What can Tom of the Footpath do against that! We did not go to him to get him to tell us lies. I'm only sorry that we never once asked what we owed him for his straightforwardness."

Now Steve burst out laughing and sent the whip whizzing once or twice through the air, notwithstanding that the horse was doing its best.

When we drove along over the heights, the threatening storm had dispersed entirely; the setting sun shone with a faint golden gleam over the wide landscape, over wood and meadows; and a cool breeze blew in our faces.

A bright tear lay on my mother's pale cheeks.

As, silent and tired, we drove through our home meadows, the stars appeared in the sky. On every side, the song of the crickets purled and chirped in the grass. By the fence, where our hillside began, stood a black figure that accosted us and asked if it was we.

It was my father, who had come to meet us. My mother called him by name; her voice was weak and trembling.

Father took us indoors, without asking a question.

Not until we were in the parlour and the rushlight was burning did he ask how we had fared.

"Not badly," said Steve, "not at all badly: we have been very cheerful."

"And Tom of the Footpath: what did he say?"

"He said that, like other people, woodman's wife wouldn't live for ever, but that she has plenty of time before her, oh, plenty of time. Only you're to take care: give her lots of good air in the summer, not too much work and no excitement, good food and drink and no physic, no physic at all, he said. And then she'll get all right again."

A time elapsed after that. My father tried to nurse mother according to Steve's dictum, which he believed to be Tom of the Footpath's dictum; and, when winter came, she sat at the spinning-wheel and span. The mouse had not bitten the thread in two.

That same winter brought the news that Tom of the Footpath had been found frozen to death in the snow, not far from the ale-house on the Fischbacheralpe. We said an Our Father for his soul.

Carrier Steve, who came to see us now and then and always remained the good, cheerful man he was, had also forgiven Thomas: true, it was wholly and solely because he had proved wrong that time.

I failed—to return to our other circumstances—to take any pleasure in the peasant's life and also I really lacked the strength for it. I then took up a trade, but was not able to help my parents; I wanted to pay my father for my Sunday board, which I had at home, but he would take nothing from me, said that I was just as much his child as before, only I must not burn so many rushes when I was home on Saturday nights.

"Oh, goodness me, let him have that pleasure: he hasn't so many!" my mother would say and intercede for me.

Then things altered with me. I went into the world. It was hard parting with my mother; but, in a short time, she was able to see that my life had become happier.

And, now that happiness had come, envy soon came hobbling along—or was it stupidity? A rumour passed through the forest hills:

"So far, it's all right with Peter; but, as always happens in town, he is sure to fall away from the Christian faith."

And soon the talk grew:

"A nice story that! All of a sudden, he finds honest work too hard for him and righteous fare not good enough, goes to town and eats flesh-meat on Our Lady's day and falls away from the faith."

My mother laughed at first, when she heard that, for she knew her child. But then the thought came to her: suppose it were true after all! Suppose her dear child were forgetting God and going astray!

She knew no peace. She went and borrowed clothes from blind Julia and borrowed three florins from a good-natured huckstress and travelled—sick and infirm as she was, leaning with either hand on a stick—to the capital. She wanted to see for herself what was true in people's talk. She found her child a poor student in a black coat, which he had had given him, and with his hair combed off his forehead. None of this pleased her greatly, it is true; it succeeded, however, in appeasing her. But, in the two days of her stay in town, she saw the mad, frivolous doings on every side, saw the neglect of old customs which she revered and the mocking of things that were sacred to her, and she said to me:

"You will never be able to stay among people like those, child; they would drag you down with them and ruin your soul."

"No, mother," I answered, "a man can think as he wishes; and people can't take away good thoughts."

She said no more. But, when she returned to the foresthills and heard the talk again, she was more dejected than ever.

It was all up now with the homestead. House and farm were sold, made over to the creditors; my brothers and sisters engaged as servants with strange farmers. The destitute parents were given a cottage that, until then, had belonged to the property. My youngest brother, who was not yet able to earn his bread, and one sister remained with them and nursed poor mother. Father kept on going over the mountains to the doctors', and all but promised them his own life, if they could save the life of his wife.

In the cottage, things looked very wretched. The ailing woman suffered in silence. The light of her eyes threatened to fail her, her mental faculties appeared to fade. Death knocked at her heart with repeated strokes. She often seemed to endure severe pain, but said nothing; she no longer took any interest in the world, asked only after her husband, after her children. And she lay years a-dying.

I often came to see her during that time. She hardly knew me, when I stood by her bedside; but then again she would say, as in a dream:

"Is that you, Peterl? Praise and thanks be to God that you are here again!"

During midsummer, we would carry her, once in a way, with bed and all, out of the stuffy room into the air, so that she might see the sunshine once more. I do not know if she saw it: she kept her eyes open and looked up at the sun; her optic nerves seemed dead.

Then, suddenly, days came when she was different. She was cheerful and longed to go out into the open.

"Do get quite well again, Maria," said her husband, "and we shall remain together a long while yet."

"Yes," she answered.

I thought of all this on my way through the forest—and now it was all over with this poor rich life.

When, at last, after walking for hours through the woods along the mountain-path, I saw the thatched cottage on the hill-side, then it was as though a misty shadow covered woods and plains and all; and yet the sunlight hung over it. A puff of grey smoke rose from the little chimney. Does she suspect my coming? thought I. Is she cooking my favourite dish? No, strangers are preparing a funeral feast.

You stood long, Peterl, outside the half-open door; and your hand trembled when at last it touched the latch. The door opened, you walked in, it was dark in the narrow passage, with only a dim little oil-lamp flickering in a glass, and yet you saw it clearly: against the wall, under the smoky stairs, on a plank lay the bier, covered entirely with a big white cloth. At the head stood a crucifix and the holy-water stoup, with a sprig of fir in it….

You fell upon your knees…. And the tears came at last. The tears which the mother's heart once gave us to take with us into this world for our relief in sorrow and for our only consolation in the hour when no other comfort reaches the soul, when strangers cannot understand us and when the mother's heart has ceased to beat. Hail, O rich and eternal legacy!

Now the door of the parlour opened softly and Maria, the younger sister, stepped out. The girl at once began to cry when she saw the brother of whom they had all spoken so often, for whom mother's last glance had asked and who was far away when she closed her eyes. Now he lay there on his knees and cried over the memory of her life.

Even her children here at home had slept through the night of the death. Not till the glow of early morning lit up the little windows did father go to the girls in the bedroom and say:

"Open your eyes and look out. The sun is already rising over the Wechsel; and the Blessed Virgin is sitting on the mountain-top, with the Child Jesus on her knee;and your mother is sitting on the stool at her feet, with a spinning-wheel before her, weaving her heavenly garment."

Then they knew at once that mother was dead.

"Would you like to look at her?" my sister now asked.

And she went to the head of the bier and slowly raised the shroud.

I saw my mother. Heaven's bliss still lay on the stiff, stark visage. The load was gone from my heart, relieved and comforted; I looked upon the dear features as though I were contemplating a white flower. It was no longer the poor, sick, weary woman that lay before me: it was the face lit up with a ray from the youthful days long past. She lay there slumbering and was strong and well. She was young again and white and gentle; she wore a little smile, as she often did when she looked at the merry little fellow playing about with his toys at her feet. The dark and glossy hair (she had no grey hairs yet) was carefully braided and peeped out a little at the temples from under the brown kerchief, the one which she loved best to wear upon her head when she went to church on holidays. She held her hands folded over her breast, with the rosary and the wax candle between them. She lay there just as though she had fallen asleep in church on Whit Sunday, during the solemn High Mass; and thus, even in death, she comforted her child. But the rough hands clearly showed that the slumberer had led a hard and toilful life.

And so you stood before this sacred image, nearly as still and motionless as the sleeper.

At last, you whispered to your little sister, who stood softly weeping by your side:

"Who closed her eyes?"

A sound of hammering came from the parlour. The carpenter was knocking together the last dwelling-house.

After a while, Maria drew the shroud over the headagain, as softly and carefully as when she used to cover up our little mother, hundreds and hundreds of times, in the long period of sickness.

Then I went into the small, warm parlour. Father, my elder sister, my two brothers, of whom the younger was still a boy, came up to me with mournful looks. They hardly spoke a word, they gave me their hands, all but the little fellow, who hid himself in the chimney-corner, where we could hear his sobbing.

Joseph the carpenter was calmly planing away at the coffin, which he had now finished joining, and smoked his pipe as he did so.

Later, when the afternoon shadows had lengthened outside, far over the glittering snow-clad meadow-land, when, in the parlour, Joseph was painting the black cross on the coffin-lid, father sat down beside it and said, softly:

"Please God, after all, she has a house of her own again."

On the first day after mother's death, no fire had been lit on the cottage-hearth. One and all had forgotten that a mortal man wants a basin of hot soup in the morning and at mid-day. On the other hand, a blazing fire had been kindled on the field behind the little house, to burn the straw bedding on which she had died, even as, long ago, the forefathers had fanned their Odin fires, commending the beloved dead to the Goddess Hella, the great concealer.[21]

I had sat down on the bench and lifted my little brother up to me. The little man glanced at me quite fearsomely: I had a black coat on and a white scarf round my neck and I looked very grand in his eyes. I held his little hand, which already had horny blisters on it, in mine. Then I asked father to tell us something of mother's life.

"Wait a little," answered father and looked on at the drawing of the cross, as in a dream.

At last, he heaved a deep sigh and said:

"So it's finished now. Her cross and suffering lasted long, that's true; but her life was short. Children, I tell you, not everyone has a mother like yours. For you, Peter, she nearly gave up her life, when you came into the world. And so they followed one after the other: joys and sorrows, care and want, poverty and wretchedness! And, when I was sick unto death and the doctors agreed that I must go the way of all flesh, that there was no remedy for it, my wife never gave up hope, never abandoned me. Day and night she stayed by my side, forgetting to sleep, forgetting to eat a bit of bread. She almost poured life back into me with her own breath—my dear, good wife."

His voice seemed about to break; he wiped the moisture from his eyes with his coat-sleeve.

"No one would believe what good nursing can do," he continued. "I became quite hale again. We lived on, faithfully and fondly; and that you, Peter, found success and happiness away from home, that was your mother's greatest joy. You yourselves know how she lay sick and dying for seven years and more, how they turned us out of house and home, how spitefully people talked and how, nevertheless, we had the greatest trust in you children. For fully thirty years, we lived together in wedlock. I always prayed that God might takemefirst; now He has chosen rather to takeher. You mustn't cry like that, children: you were always a help and a comfort to your mother."

He said no more.

When the carpentering of the coffin was done, father put shavings inside it as a pillow. He had always had the habit, when he had done his work, of going to his wife and saying:

"I've finished now."

And so, when he had put the shavings straight and made the other preparations, he went out to the bier in the passage and said:

"I've finished now."

Late in the evening, when the crescent moon stood in the dark, clear sky and shed its twilight over the woods and gleaming, snow-clad meadows and over the little house in the forest on the hill-side, the snow creaked continually on the roads and people came up from farmsteads and distant cottages. Even though they had carried on loud and cheerful conversations with one another on the paths by which they had come, they became silent now that they were nearing the cottage and we heard only the crackling of their footsteps on the snow.

In the small front passage, which was dimly lit by the little lamp, everyone knelt on the cold clay floor and prayed silently before the bier and then sprinkled it with holy water. After that, he went into the parlour to the others, who sat round the table and the fireplace, singing hymns and uttering pious reflections. They were all there to accompany the poor woman of the house to her last resting-place.

I would have kept on standing by the bier, if the people had not been there, so that I might look at my mother. I read my childhood and my youth in her features. I thought that the bright eyes must open once more and smile to me, that the word must once more come from those lips which, in her loving-kindness, had been so soft and tender. But, though I was her dear son and however long I might stand beside her—she now slept the eternal sleep.

I went into the low-ceilinged kitchen, where the neighbours' wives were cooking the funeral meal; I looked round in the smoke for my brothers and sisters, that I might comfort them.

Inside, in the parlour, all were now as still as mice and in great tension. Mathias, the old chamois-hunter,who wore a brown shirt and a white beard, sat at the table and told a story:

"There was once a farmer," he began, "who had a wife, just a poor sick wife. And, one day, one holy Easter morning, the wife died. The soul departed from her body and stood there all alone in dark Eternity. No angel was willing to come and lead her and show her in to the heavenly Paradise. 'They are celebrating Christ's resurrection in Heaven'—so the story ran—'and, at such times, no saint or angel has time to show a poor soul the way.' But the poor soul was in inexpressible fear and terror, for she reflected that, because of her illness, it was long since she had been to church. And she already heard the devil whining and whimpering and whistling and she thought that she was lost. 'O my holy guardian angel and patron saint!' she cried. 'Come to my help in this my need, or I must depart into hell-fire!' But they were all in Heaven together, celebrating Our Lord's resurrection. Thereupon the poor woman was nigh to fainting away, without comfort or support; but suddenly Our Lady stood by her side, draped in a snow-white garment with a wreath of roses as a beautiful ornament in her hand. 'Hail to thee and comfort, thou poor woman!' she said, gently, to the departed soul. 'Thou hast been a pious sufferer all thy life long and every Saturday thou hast fasted, for my sake, and what thou hadst left over through the fasting thou hast given to the poor, for my sake. This I will never forget to thee; and, though my dear Son is commemorating His glorious resurrection this day, yet will I think of thee and carry thee to His golden throne and to thy joyful place in the rose-garden by the angels, which I have prepared for thy sake and where thou canst wait for thy husband and thy children.' And then Our Lady took the poor woman by the hand and carried her up to Heaven. That is why I say that fasting and alms-giving in honour of Our Lady are a right good work."

So spake Mathias in his brown shirt.

"Our dear woodman's wife, whom we are burying to-morrow, was also fond of fasting," said one little woman, "and very fond of giving."

Father sobbed for emotion. The thought that his wife was now in Heaven lit a very welcome light in his sad heart.

The hands of the old soot-browned clock upon the wall—the same which had faithfully told the hours, the joyful hours and the sorrowful, since the woodman's glad wedding-day; which pointed to the hour of one, early on Sunday morning, when the little boy was born; which, after many years, showed the hour of six, when the delivering angel passed through the room and pressed his kiss on the sufferer's forehead—the hands now met at twelve o'clock.

And, when that departed life was thus measured, like a single day, from sunrise to sunset, my father said:

"Boy, go outside to the cow-shed and lie down for a while in the straw and rest a bit. I will wake you when the time comes."

I went outside, took a last look at the bier in the passage and then stepped out into the free, cold, starry night. The sickle of the moon had sunk behind the woods; it had sent its last beam gliding through the crevice of the door on the shroud that covered the bier: to-morrow, when it rose again, the poor creature would be lying in the dark earth.

So now I lay in the shed on the straw, where my two brothers generally slept. The three chained oxen stood or lay beside me, grinding their teeth as they chewed the cud. It was warm and damp in the stable; and the moisture trickled from the half-rotten ceiling down on my straw couch.

There was once a time—ay, the drops came quivering down as now—the dew-drops from the trees, when mother was taking you to make your first communion. I see younow, Peterl. You have a new jacket on, with a sprig of rosemary in your hat. Your little snow-white shirt shows round your neck above the waistcoat; and your cheeks are rosy red with scrubbing. Mother is wearing a bright-coloured dress, a brown apron and a black, tight-fitting jacket. Her broad neckerchief is of red silk and shines like fire and flame. A white-and-green spray of flowers sticks out of her bosom. On her head, she wears a high and costly golden cap, as was the fashion thenadays throughout the country; and the curls peep out on either side of the forehead, gleaming black like the two great pupils of her eyes and soft and dainty like the lashes on her lids. Her cheeks are tinged with the pink of the dawn; her chin is white and daintily curved. Her red lips wear a little smile and, at the same time, scold you, my little man, because you are skipping so pertly over the stones and roots and knocking the nails out of your shoes. No child alive has ever seen his mother in the full flower of her beauty; and yet how splendid it is, boy, even now! All's aglow in the wood and alight in the young larches; and the blooms are fragrant and the birds singing in every tree-top.

Ah, child-time is May-time!

A dull, heavy knocking roused me from my dream; I started up. Now they are laying my mother in the coffin; now they are nailing down the lid.

I rushed out of the shed and into the house. There, in the passage, stood the narrow, white, closed coffin; and the dimly-flickering oil-lamp now lit up only the empty, desolate plank on which the bier had stood.

I should have liked to see her once more….

The people were preparing the litter. Father knelt behind the door and prayed; the sisters wept in their pinafores; and my little brother sobbed terribly. The poor little fellow tried to keep in his tears, for he had heard that all was for the best with mother and that she was now enjoying peace in Heaven: he had smiled alittle at that; but now, when the people were making ready to carry mother away for good and all, there was no comfort left in his sorely-afflicted little heart.

I took little brother by the hand and we went into the furthermost dark corner of the room, where no one else was and where only our sick mother had cared to sit. There we sat down on the bench. And there we sat while everything was being prepared outside, while the people sat down to table and shared the funeral repast.

They had come to show us sympathy; now they were eating, now they were laughing and then again they acted as was customary; and they actually rejoiced that one more person had died and, in so doing, brought variety into their everyday lives.

Suddenly, loud words were heard outside:

"Where is theÜberthan? We can't find theÜberthan."

TheÜberthanis a thin linen pall which is wrapped round the coffin like a veil and, in the popular belief, serves him or her who has risen from the dead as a garment on the Day of Judgment.

Father was roused from his prayers by the shouting; he now staggered around and looked for the linen sheet in his press, on the shelves and in every nook and corner. Why, he had brought it home only yesterday; and now it was nowhere to be found! He had really lost his head: he had to see that all got something to eat; he had to change into his Sunday clothes to go to church; he had to comfort his children; he had to fetch a new candle, because the old one was burnt down to its socket and the people were like to find themselves in the dark; he had to go to the shed and give the cattle fodder enough to last them all day, for there would be no one at home; and now he was expected to say where he had put the pall yesterday, in his confusion. And, in the next few minutes, they would be carrying his wife out of the house!

It was one great excitement.

"So the old man has no pall!" they grumbled. "Such a thing has never been known: carrying out a dead person all naked and bare. But it must be true with the poor woodman's wife: a pauper she lived and a pauper she died!"

My two sisters began to hunt in their turn; and Maria exclaimed, plaintively:

"Dear Jesus, my mother mustn't be buried without a pall; she would do better than that to stay at home here; and I will give my christening-money and buy her her last dress. Who was it put away the linen sheet? O God, they want to deny her the last thing of all, as well as all the rest!"

I tried to calm the girl and said we should be sure to get a linen sheet out in the village and, if not, then she must rest in peace under the bare deal boards.

"How can you speak like that!" she cried. "Didn't mother in her time buy your clothes for you out of her hard-saved kreuzers? And now you want her to rise on the Day of Judgment in her shabby clothes, when all the others are wearing a white garment!"

She burst into loud crying and leant her glowing forehead against the wall.

But, soon after, the people breathed again: they had found the pall.

And, when they had eaten—we others did not take a bite—and everything was ready, they opened the door of the front passage and knelt down before the coffin and prayed aloud, saying Our Lord's Five Wounds.

Then four men placed the coffin on the litter and lifted it up and carried it out of the poor dwelling into the wood and thence over the commons and fields and through mountain forests.

And round about was the winter night and over all hung the starry sky.

One more look at the empty bier-plank and then Iquickly drew my little brother out with me; and father and sisters also hurried after; and the elder brother locked the door; and then the cottage in the wood lay there in the dark and in the deepest stillness. Life had left it—and death had left it: there is no greater loneliness possible.

We heard the hum of the praying funeral procession, we saw the flicker of the two or three lanterns among the trunks of the trees. The bearers walked at a quick pace; those who followed and prayed could hardly keep up with them on the rough, snow-covered paths. I was a long way behind with my little brother: the boy could not walk so fast. Mother would never have left us behind like that, when living: she would have waited, laughing a little and chiding a little, and led the child by the hand. Now, however, she only longed for rest.

Outside the parish village stands a tall cross, with a life-size figure of the Saviour. Here, after a many-hours' progress up and down hill, they set the coffin on the ground and waited for the doctor, who came from the village to view the corpse and give the death-certificate. But, by the time that we two, who had lagged behind, came up, the coffin-lid was hammered down again. And so I was never able to see you again on earth, my mother!

They entered the parish church in the morning twilight.

The clear bells rang out together. A great catafalque was set up in the middle of the dark church; many candles gleamed; and a solemn funeral service began. The parish priest, an old, blind man, with snow-white hair, a venerable figure, intoned the requiem, surrounded by priests in rich vestments. His voice was clear and solemn; a choir chanted the responses; and trumpets and sackbuts echoed through the church.

I looked at father and he at me; we knew not who had ordered all this so. To-day I know that it was my friends at Krieglach who gave us this beautiful token of their love.

When the funeral service was over, the catafalque was removed, all the festal candles on the high-altar were lit and three priests, no longer clad in the hue of mourning, but in red, gold-stitched chasubles, climbed the steps of the altar and a grand High Mass was celebrated, with gay bell-ringing and joyous music.

"That is because she is released from her suffering," said I to the boy.

At last, the coffin, richly decked with flowers, swayed out of the parish church, where, in the old days, the woodman's wife had been baptised and married, on its way to the cemetery. The priests and the choir sang the loud, clear requiem, the bells tolled over the village far out into the woods and the candles flickered in the sunlight. A long train of men and women passed through the broad village street. We walked behind the coffin, carrying lighted candles in our hands and praying as we went.

The cemetery lies outside the village, on a gentle eminence, between fields and meadows. It is far from small, for the parish stretches to a great distance over hill and dale. It is enclosed with a plank fence and contains many crosses of wood and rusty iron; and in the middle rises the image of Christ crucified.

Before this image, on the right, was the deep grave, at the exact spot where, years ago, they had buried our mother's two children who had died. A mound of freshly-dug earth lay on either side of the grave.

Here the bearers let the coffin down to the ground and stripped it of all its finery; and it slid down into the pit as poor as it had left the cottage in the wood.

"Thou to-day, I to-morrow; and so I am content," murmured father.

And the priest said:

"May she rest in the Lord!"

Then they cast clods of earth into the grave and went away, went to the inn, tasted bread and wine and talkedof everyday things. When it was twelve o'clock and, according to custom, the bells began to toll once more, as a last farewell to the departed, the men and women of the forest set out to return to their mountain valley.

We who belonged to one another sat together for a while longer and spoke sadly of the time that must now come and how to arrange for it. Then we took leave of one another: my father and brothers and sisters went home to the cottage in the wood, to live and die where mother had lived and died.

Footnotes:[20]Fasting or abstaining from flesh-meat on Saturdays, in honour of Our Lady, is a custom, an act of voluntary discipline, prevailing almost exclusively in the German and Austrian Highlands.—Translator's Note.[21]Hella, daughter of Laki and goddess of the dead, is the Persephone of Norse mythology.—Translator's Note.

Footnotes:

[20]Fasting or abstaining from flesh-meat on Saturdays, in honour of Our Lady, is a custom, an act of voluntary discipline, prevailing almost exclusively in the German and Austrian Highlands.—Translator's Note.

[21]Hella, daughter of Laki and goddess of the dead, is the Persephone of Norse mythology.—Translator's Note.

THE END

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