VBARDEK
Kuck-uck! Kuck-uck! Ruft aus dem WaldKuck-uck! Kuck-uck! Ruft aus dem Wald.
Kuck-uck! Kuck-uck! Ruft aus dem Wald.
Kuck-uck! Kuck-uck! Ruft aus dem Wald.
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THE opportunity of making the acquaintance of Bardek came sooner than Blynn had planned, and in a very natural manner.
The instruction of the Williams boy was carried on almost entirely in the open air. That youngster could no more enjoy himself cooped up in a house than a bear-cub. The moment he entered the shadowy door of the school-house his spirits congealed and his mind began to slow up. The rooms of the “Hall” had been planned entirely for adults—so had the discipline—and rather slow-blooded adults at that. The temperature and the ventilation were exactly right for elderly ladies and gentlemen. And they talked to children about draughts! They might just as well have worried them about sclerosis of the arteries.
In his adroit way Blynn had enticed the boy to play a “sort of game” with colloquial German. Call it a “game,” and the lad would play until he dropped; and by letting him shout at the top of his voice he was easily persuaded that it was not “study.”
In one of the wild paths in the Valley, where the sumac and the young poplar made a complete screen, Blynn and “Chuck” Williams, loudly reviewing German phrases, came upon a voice, rich and fine, carollingdeutsche Lieder. It was quite near at hand among the tangle of blackberry vines and elderberry and came booming suddenly at them as if purposely to startle.
“Kuckuck! Kuckuck! Ruft aus dem Wald,Lasset uns singen; tanzen und springen,Frühling! Frühling! wird es nun bald!”
“Kuckuck! Kuckuck! Ruft aus dem Wald,Lasset uns singen; tanzen und springen,Frühling! Frühling! wird es nun bald!”
“Kuckuck! Kuckuck! Ruft aus dem Wald,
Lasset uns singen; tanzen und springen,
Frühling! Frühling! wird es nun bald!”
It was the song of the cuckoo, which every German child knows from the cradle. While it is yet winter the tremulous bird catches premonitions in the air and sings its eager song of spring. “Let us dance and sing,” it cries to all the woods; “Come out! Come out, into the blooming fields and among the budding trees!” Carried away by its own urging desire it flies from its haunts searching for the Spring.
The great voice softened and grew tenderly pathetic. Ah! brave little singer, your song is false, your throbbing heart has lied to you. Winter, stark, chilling winter is around you and within.
“Kuckuck! Kuckuck! Treflicher HeldWas du gesungen ist dir gelungenWinter! Winter! räumet das Feld.”
“Kuckuck! Kuckuck! Treflicher HeldWas du gesungen ist dir gelungenWinter! Winter! räumet das Feld.”
“Kuckuck! Kuckuck! Treflicher Held
Was du gesungen ist dir gelungen
Winter! Winter! räumet das Feld.”
At the end of the song the boy and the teacher applauded vigorously.
“Bravo!” called Blynn. “Once more!Encore!”
The bushes parted, disclosing the round face of Bardek.
“Grüss Gott!” he greeted jovially. “Have I not now heard the German speech? Die süsse Sprache meines Vaterlands?”
“Yes,” rejoined the astonished Blynn; “you did hear us talking German, a sort of German.”
“Och! it was a sort, yes,” the shoulders shrugged cynically; “but it was German, the speech of my country.”
“But you are not German, are you?” persisted Blynn. “Yesterday you were—”
“Ach!Must man be ever the same? Yesterday was I French; gut! Heute bin ich wirklich deutsch. Auch gut! Morgen, vielleicht, bin ich italienisch!Hora è sempre!”
“What does he say?” inquired “Chuck.”
“My good boy,” Bardek explained in clear English. “Yesterday I have been French. Good! It pleased me so to be. The day was French,” flourishing his hands about the sky, “quite French. Today it pleases me to be German. How could anyone be anything but German on a day like this?” waving again toward the thick, white clouds and indicating the cool Northern breeze. “Ein tousand ein hunderd ein und zwanzig! Was!... Now at this moment am I North-German; soon,” he squinted at a gathering darkness in the southwest, “I am becomingBayrischer. It rains ever in München;nicht wahr?Ach!Münchenis a heaven of earth—rain, rain, rain, warmhimmlischerrain on the outside, andbier, bier, cool,dunkels Löwenbraüon the inside!”
His voice was heavy and deep, the bass singing quality always present, and his intonation noticeably distinct like that of the book-read foreigner. He struck his consonants hard, as if he enjoyed them, especially the final t’s and s’s; his l’s trolled along the roof of his mouth; and he breathed his vowels sonorously.
He laughed as he stepped into the path, and added, still addressing the boy,
“When the sky is all of blue and pink, so am I Italian. My skin changes. I am then a new beast. Oh! It is good to change the skin and the mind. Boy, don’t you get sick to be always the American beast?”
“Not on your tin-type!” “Chuck” spoke up promptly. “I don’t want to be a Dutchman. Rather be what I am. But it’s fun talking Dutch with Mr. Blynn.”
“‘Not on your tin-type,’” echoed Bardek, eyes extended in mock surprise. “Was für eine Sprache!What a language!”
Blynn explained. “A ‘tin-type’ is a cheap photograph. ‘Not on your tin-type’ is slang for—for, well, for ‘Gar nichts.’”
“Not on his tin-type,” Bardek rolled his eyes, to the great amusement of “Chuck.” “Nicht auf seiner Photographie!It is the language for peddlers.”
They chatted in mixed English and German for several minutes; at least, Bardek did; that is, when hewasn’t singing, or teaching “Chuck” some good colloquial German.
“Uh!Schweinerei!” he grunted in smiling disgust. “Chuck” had spat, American style, at a passing bee. “‘Schweinerei,’ my boy, means ‘piggy.’ But the pigs, they do not spit. Only the Americans spit. Everywhere in America is the sign, ‘Pray, do not spithere!’ ‘Pray, do not spitthere!’Ach, Schweinerei! Vierte Klasse!That’s a good word for you, ‘Vierte Klasse!’ I, I am of theVierte Klasse, but I, I do not yet spit!”
Blynn studied the man before him. The frank, open manner, the voluble utterance, the great healthy laughter stole into his prejudice and substituted liking. This is a chap one had to be friends with; yet Blynn knew that good fellows are not always harmless. There was something coarse about the man that repelled, the very thing, too, that attracted: his unspoken egoism, his quiet, outspoken self-satisfaction. Unconventionality beamed from him; too frequently, Blynn knew, a sign of selfishness. Would this fellow continue agreeable and jolly under provocation? It did not seem so. Or if his strong desires met with obstacle? Law, order, the rules of decent society, these he probably scoffed at; anything, indeed, that demanded restraint or curbing.
“I tried to talk to you yesterday,” Blynn remarked, “but the horse wouldn’t have it.”
“Yesterday?” Bardek raised his eyes in inquiry. “The horse would not?—Ach!” he roared, “you itwas who—Ho!” he laughed at the memory. “You say, ‘I cannotunderstand’ and then you cannotup-stand!” Bardek imitated by a pretence of flopping to the ground at the syllable “stand.” “I see very well that you could not ‘stand.’ You could not but sit. And it was something hard,nicht wahr, when you did sit!”
His laughter died out suddenly. “Wait,” he raised a hand. “It was the Miss Levering you were with? Yes? Excuse. I must see about something.” He really said, “Som’t’ing,” with just the suggestion of a studied “th,” but one could never indicate his speech phonetically. Sometimes, the “th” was clear, sometimes it was a “t,” sometimes a “z” or “d.” His English varied from right speech to a broken jargon, but always it was rich and clear. “Wait! I come back,auf der Stelle, in one moment.”
The bushes closed in about him. It was as if he had vanished, a fat satyr of the woods.
After a brief moment of silence his face appeared, and it was eloquent with welcome.
“You will come into my cave in the woods?” he beckoned, spreading out the bushes with his high hobnailed boots. “It is not to everyone that I give the invitation. You have come well recommended—by your faces and your good talk. You talk German—Dutch, you called it, you littleSchweinerei!—Dutch it is not. Dutch is good. I can Dutch, but—this is my German day. Today, I welcome you as compatriots. Tomorrow, br-r-r,” scowling beautifully at“Chuck” Williams, “I may be French,” he glanced quizzically at the sky. “Then, you shall be my national enemy and I would—‘Vive la belle France! A bas les All’mands!’” he roared, making mimic charges at the delighted “Chuck.”
They were tramping through the thicket as they talked, shouted, and pantomimed. In a few steps they came upon a cosy clearing.
“Wilkommen alle!Sit down, please!” Bardek pointed to comfortable rocks.
A small portable tent stretched out before them. At the side, smoke curled from a rock-oven, which was at the same time a tiny forge. Bowing before the visitors was an unkempt Frau. She looked forty at first glance; in a little while she seemed not more than twenty-five. Twenty was probably nearer her right age. In her arms nestled a rather overgrown youngster; tugging at her skirts was another.
“My summer house; the lady of the summer house,” Bardek explained ironically. Then he looked expectantly toward the tent.
“Bist du noch nicht fertig, mein Kindschen?” he called eagerly. “Now you can come out. Two gentlemen—entschuldigen!—one gentleman and oneSchweinereiwould make call! Komm’, Liebschen!”
From within a familiar voice responded, but in German: “Just a minute, Bardek, please.... Now I am ready.Können die Herr’n raten wer ich bin?”
“She would know,” translated Bardek, “if the gentlemen can guess who she is.”
Without waiting for the guesses, he lifted the flap of the tent. Gorgas, enclosed head and body in a great green shawl, stepped calmly out and courtesied.
“Gee! This is great!” “Chuck” found voice for his glee. “It’s a dandy ‘hunky.’” “Hunky” is a boy’s secret hiding place. “I had a tent, once. Let’s have a tent out here, too, Mr. Blynn. We can live here and cook,” his greedy eye was devouring the perfect stone oven, “and study ’rithm’tic and things. Can’t we?”
The boy took Gorgas as a matter of course. She was thirteen and a girl; he was eleven and a boy—those differences represent leagues.
“I heard all you said,” Gorgas informed Blynn. “We often hear people going by on that path. Your German started Bardek after you. This is his German day. We—”
“Chuck” was examining things, with Bardek at his side explaining volubly.
“Do you speak German, too?” Blynn asked incredulously.
“Nur ein wenig,” she replied modestly, but her fine tones told much. “Besser sprech’ ich fransösisch und italienisch. Ich versteh’—I understand German, but much better than I speak it. The ‘German days’ don’t come as often as the French days. Bardek is all German today. Listen to him. His English gets German twists in it today.”
It looks almost finished“It looks almost finished”
“It looks almost finished”
“It looks almost finished”
“Why, it’s quite jolly here.” Blynn seated himself on a comfortable stone, and assumed the air of a man who had done this sort of thing every day. “It’s quite a ‘hunky,’ as ‘Chuck’ would call it. I’d like to live this way myself. What man wouldn’t?”
“I’m so glad you like it,” Gorgas whispered. She leaned over and rested her arm on his knee. “Chuck” and Bardek were inside the tent. The wife was grinning at the strangers and singing a gentle lullaby. “We have fine times here. You’re the first person to come by on that path for over a week. We sing and talk languages and Bardek tells stories of his travels. He has been all over the world. Some of them are whoppers,” she dropped her voice still lower, “but you can tell by his eyes that he is making them up. And we—oh, wait till I show you my latest.”
She darted into the tent and returned with a disk of hammered copper, a dinner-plate, partly inlaid along the entire edge with a delicate silver tracery of a strange Byzantine design. “The holes had to be all cut out, and the silver filed and fitted. It must exactly fit, you know, exactly. Bardek scolds if it isn’t right to a millionth of an inch. It looks almost finished, but there are hours of pounding yet.”
“What is it when it is cooked?” he asked, but his tone showed his delight with the workmanship.
“Most anything—a cake plate, a serving tray, a card receiver, a fruit holder—lots of things. But, isn’t it beautiful! Bardek made the design. I couldn’t do that; but I did all the hammering and annealing and filed all the silver. Bardek says he may not throw this one away.”
“It’s a beauty!” admitted Blynn. “A jim-dandy! By George, Gorgas, I certainly do admire this. But how will you ever take it home?”
The shadow of disappointment rested for a moment on her face; then she seemed to shake it off resolutely.
“He will sell it. It is only practice for me. I am learning. He uses it to teach me hammer strokes. I made the Varri stroke on that,” pointing proudly to the hundreds of soft hammer marks, “with the big hammer. It is not so heavy when you learn how to swing it. If I ever get to know how—well, I’ll have it in me; no one can take it away. Then I can make beautiful things wherever I am.... It is mean to have to sell things, though—give them to people you never see.”
“Yes, indeed,” he touched her hand lightly in understanding. “I know just how you feel.”
“So!” Bardek pounced upon them. “You are showing it off, eh? It is good; very, very good.” He said “vairy,” but this word, like others of his English vocabulary, had many pronunciations. “I am vairy proud of my pupil. Gorgas—” he emphasized the last syllable as if it were Gorgasse—“Gorgas is a golden child. She has gifts. You will see, some day. I have put some of my art into her. That!—the little marks there!—is harder than it looks! It is the stroke of the best workman and the biggest miser in Milan, G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri. I stole it from him. Ho! I go to him and say, ‘Please, Messer G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri, I am poor, I will carry charcoal andblow your fire and sweep your place and make the beds and cook you good macaroni and cut up cheeses, if you will but give me a place to sleep.’
“G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri, he storm and curse; say he have no room for beggars, and that he will not pay, he will not pay; but his ugly eye watch me and then he say, ‘Blow that fire, you—’ I will not say what he have said I am. On my honor, gentlemen and ladies,” saluting, “I am not that thing that G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri say I have been.
“Ach, Himmelreiche!How I work! I sweat and pull and dig and carry and—I watch! Tip, tip, tappy, tappy, tap—oh, so soft he play music by his hammer, the great hammer he make those soft touches. And he fires much, burns and hammers, burns and hammers. In two day I try, and he near catch me. In t’ree day I say, ‘Goodby, G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri! Your bed, it is too hard. I will just—skeedaddle! and take with me, oh, yes, jus’ a leetle somet’ing of a idea in my head.
“Before I leave I make a little gift of farewell: I make his secret strokes and it comes out a design, a great goose, and the taps on the wings spell ‘Varri.’
“And now the beautiful Gorgas—I give it to her for what I pay G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri, which is t’ gr-r-eat not’ing. If I stole it, well—der Hehler ist so gut wie der Stehler: the second thief is cousin to t’ first thief.... Ah! she do good! Vairy, vairy good!” He held the work up and admired it. “Es gibt nicht schöneres, nicht wahr, Kindschen?”
“Oh, it could be better,” protested Gorgas.
“Wass hör’ ich?” he affected great sternness. “Englisch? Sprich’ Deutsch, bitte!Look at the heavens; it is today the heavens of Deutschland. Sprich’ nur Deutsch, bitte!”
“Oh, not German now, Bardek,” she laughingly begged. “Not before Mr. Blynn and ‘Chuck.’ I couldn’t.”
“So scheu!” murmured Bardek admiringly. “So shy and innocent. All right. We take holiday. We leave Deutschland for America and English. But,” sadly, “it is t’ one language I do not speak. Only in English am I foreigner.”
“Not at all,” protested Blynn. “Your English is splendid.”
“Ah!” the flattery touched home. “You are good to say it. But I know. In Europe I am in my home in every land. The Bohemian knows all speeches. They have the gift, as you would know many songs, glad ones and sorrowful. When we are still young we go to countries; it comes to us. But ah! I did go to England never; only by books did I know English, and look! Bah! I feel I must spit, like my little Schweinerei here. Books! They tell all lies. In France, in Germany, in Holland, in Hungary, in Italy, they would know me for compatriot. In America I am a barbarian, a pagan, a ‘Gypsy,’ a ‘Dago.’ Ach! English? Ich hab’ eine schlechte Aussprache. I know! I know!”
For an hour they debated genially. Before the meetingbroke up Bardek dropped on the ground, stretched out full length, propped his head up with one hand, and lapsed into silence. Questions brought only short answers.
“It is time to go,” whispered Gorgas. “When he gets tired of people, he lets them know. Don’t talk to him any more; he has worn himself out with excitement.”
Gorgas led the way through overhanging branches without a word. “Chuck” followed. Blynn sought to soften the abrupt exodus by a simple wave of the hand before he bent low to avoid the briars.
“Kom’ bald wieder,” Bardek grunted. “Sobald als möglich. Come vairy soon again!” It was a sincere invitation, Gorgas assured them—Bardek was always himself—and it was a great tribute.