Dame Care Part 39

"Where have you left them?"

"They are talking to father."

"Ah! that is a very different thing. Run to your room--I will come in a moment."

"And what a price it cost," he murmured, looking after them; then he gave a glance at Helenenthal, and went into the shed where "Black Susy"

stood. "It is time that you should come back to life," he said, stroking her black body; "we shall have to work bravely, you and I, if we want to procure the dowry for the girls."

When he stepped into the house he heard the loud-sounding voice of his father coming out to him.

"I am curious all the same to see how they will behave," he thought, and listened.

"Yes, he is a simpleton, and will remain a simpleton, gentlemen. What I have imagined on a big scale, he accomplishes on a small one in his petty, mercenary manner. It went to my heart when I saw him fidgeting about the machine, as if it were nothing more than a willow-pipe, and meanwhile the farm goes to ruin. Oh, gentlemen! you see me here a cripple, but if I still bore the sceptre, gentlemen, I would coin thousands of thalers out of the ground, no less than Vanderbilt, the American, whose life is written in this almanac in a very instructive manner."

"Couldn't you manage to direct the affairs from your chair?" inquired Ulrich's voice.

"Oh, gentlemen, behold my tears! I shed them for the most ungrateful, the most degenerate child which this earth has ever seen. In this almanac there is the story of a son who, at the risk of his life, fetches draughts of water from the hands of robbers for his parents languishing in the desert. I am not able to offer you even a little liquor, a little ginger brandy with aniseed, which I am so fond of drinking myself."

"In future we will bring some for you," Fritz answered him.

"Oh, why has not G.o.d given me two such sons as you are? And fancy, he never consults me, he locks me out of the kitchen. I wonder that I have not been starved out. Well, you know him from a child; was he not always a rough, spiteful creature?"

"Oh yes; there was always something violent about him," said Ulrich.

"And he was always handling pistols and whips, especially behind one's back," Fritz added.

"Especially behind one's back--ha! ha! ha! that is characteristic, that is his way. Ah, gentlemen, secret malice never brings good, as the proverb in this almanac says, and if Heaven permits me to recover again, you shall see how I will take my revenge--first on the rogue, the incendiary, the villainous fellow, to whom all my misery is due, and then on my dear son who treats his father so badly. I shall disinherit him, hunt him away from the farm. Shall I be right, gentlemen, if I do this?"

"Quite right," both declared.

"How do you do?" said Paul, coming forward.

All three started. His father crouched shyly down in his arm-chair, like a dog who fears the whip, and the brothers stretched out their hands, very embarra.s.sed and very humble, and begged him to let by-gones be by-gones.

"Why not?" he answered, combating his repugnance; "you know the right way now."

When the two brought forward their suit, the old man's boastfulness broke out stronger than ever.

"Gentlemen," he said, repressing his voice so that it might sound more dignified, "your proposal is a great honor naturally, but I am not able to answer it with 'Yes.' First, I must ask for a sufficient guarantee, that I may know what future awaits my daughters, who, by their beauty and amiability, as well as by stainless virtue, are destined for a high position. I have educated them most carefully, and watched over them so lovingly that my fatherly heart cannot decide to give them away without serious consideration."

In this tone he went on boasting till Paul quietly said, "Let it be, father, the matter is already settled." Then he was silent, secretly highly elated to have made such a magnificent speech.

In the afternoon Paul went into his sisters' room and said:

"Children, say a prayer for Frau Douglas, who was buried to-day."

They looked at him with eyes sparkling with joy, and a dreamy smile pa.s.sed over their faces.

"Have you not understood me?"

"Yes," they said, softly, and looked terrified--they clung to each other as if they feared the rod. He left them alone in their happiness, and stepped out into the clear, cold winter air. "How is it," he thought, "that everybody now fears me and no one understands what I mean?"

The same day he dismissed all the servants, and wrote to the foreman to come back on the morrow to resume work again.

During the same week it began to thaw, the work went on quickly, and one Friday evening at the beginning of March "Black Susy" stood there, smart and shiny in her newly-mended garment. Next day the boiler was to be tried, and the wood and coal lay heaped up by the walls of the shed.

Paul, unable to sleep, tossed on his bed. The hours crept slowly by, and a short eternity of the most painful expectation elapsed between midnight and dawn.

"Will she come to life? Will she?"

The clock struck one. He could not stand it any longer; he dressed and crept out into the cold, wet March night, a flickering lantern in his hand. The wind caught his clothes and the icy drizzling rain scourged his face.

"Black Susy" glared sulkily out of the dark shed as if she resented being deprived of her last night's rest.... The lantern threw a ghostly light over the inhospitable place, and each time it flickered the shadow of the machine danced in grotesque forms on the yellow deal wall.

"Shall I wake up the foreman?" thought Paul. "No, let him sleep; I will have the first pain or the first joy all to myself."

Heaps of coal sank rattling into the great iron jaws. A little blue flame leaped up, flickered all round, and soon a red glow filled the dark interior.... The lantern on the wall shone dimly, as if jealous of the warm, cheerful fire-light.

Paul seated himself upon a coal-heap and watched the play of the flames.... The oven-door began to glow and half-burnt cinders to fall, throwing out sparks all round.

Paul could hear his heart beat, and as he pressed his hand upon it to still its tumult he felt Elsbeth's flute in his breast-pocket. He had found it lying on the locomobile the day the work was begun again, and had carried it about with him ever since.

"I wonder if I shall ever learn that, too?" he asked himself, in tumultuous joy at what he had already accomplished. He put the flute to his mouth and tried to blow it--the minutes pa.s.sed so slowly that he was forced to try and while away the time. But the sounds which he produced sounded hollow and squeaky--still less could he squeeze out a melody.

"I shall never learn it," he thought. "Whatever I do for myself fails--that is a law in my life; I must sow for others if I want to reap."

But in spite of this he put the flute to his lips again.

"It would have been nice," he thought, "if, instead of heating engines here, I had become an artist, as Elsbeth used to prophesy." A thrill of excitement went through him. "Will she live again? Will she?"

He extracted another shrill sound from the flute.

"B-r-r," he said, "that goes through one's nerves! I shall have to leave love and flute-playing to others."

But at this moment there arose in the body of "Black Susy" that mysterious singing which had remained faithfully in his memory all these years. It sounded as if the fates were singing beneath the ash-tree.

"Ah, that is far better music!" he cried, springing up and throwing the flute away from him.... The iron door rattled.... The glowing jaws swallowed new heaps of coal. The shovel fell clattering to the ground.

"It will wake them up in the house," he thought, startled for a moment.

"But let it, let it," he continued; "their happiness and their future are at stake."

The singing grew louder and louder; then his joy came to a climax, so that he began to whistle aloud. "How nice that sounds! Yes, we understand how to make music; we are brave musicians, Susy." The chimney sent forth mighty clouds of black smoke, which disseminated itself under the ceiling like a canopy, heaving and sinking as though a storm were driving it.... One of the valves sent forth a hissing sound, and a white cloud of steam spirted up, which quickly mixed with the black smoke....

The hissing grew louder and louder, the hand of the manometer went on and on....

"Now is the time!"