Landolin Part 6

"Your name is Vetturi, isn't it?" asked Anton. "Come here. Is there anything you want?"

"I won't take alms like a beggar, I'd rather strike my mouth against a stone," replied Vetturi in a hoa.r.s.e voice; and turning to his mother as though she had contradicted him, said: "Mother, you shan't take anything."

Then in an entirely different tone he said to Thoma: "May I wish you joy?"

"No, you may not. n.o.body who speaks so disrespectfully of my father shall wish me joy. Own up to stealing the oats. If you do, I will go to father and get him to forgive you."

"I won't do it."

"Then abuse me, not my father. My father might, perhaps, have given up to you, but I won't let him as long as you keep on lying."

"But I can wish you joy, Anton," cried Cushion Kate; "I hope your wife will be like your mother. She was a good woman; there isn't her like in the whole country. I was in your house when you came into the world.

You are just eight days older than my oldest daughter would be now.

Now, get your father-in-law to take my Vetturi again, and straighten everything out. We are poor people. We don't want to quarrel with such a powerful farmer as he is, but he must not squeeze us until the blood runs out from under our nails."

"Come along," cried Thoma, taking hold of Anton's arm, "don't let her talk to you so."

She walked away. Anton did not follow her, but said to Vetturi that he would employ him as a wood-cutter up in the forest.

"My Vetturi cannot do that," interrupted the mother. "He cannot work up there from Monday morning to Sat.u.r.day night, and have no decent food, and no decent bed."

"Come! come!" urged Thoma from a distance. Anton obeyed, and Vetturi called after them all kinds of imprecations against Landolin.

With a frown Thoma said to Anton, in a reproachful tone:

"That Vetturi is no comrade of yours, and why do you stop and talk with him? I do not like it in you. You are not proud enough. Such people should not speak to us unless they are spoken to."

Anton looked at her with astonishment. There was a sharpness in her words and voice which surprised him. She noticed it, perhaps, for she gave him a bewitching smile, and continued:

"See, I am proud of you, and you must be proud of yourself. Such a man as you are! People ought to take off their hats when they speak to you.

I wouldn't say good-day to a rascal, and you ought not to either.

Perhaps you think I'm angry. Don't think that for an instant. It's only that I have no patience with a liar. Whatever a man does, if he confesses it, you feel like helping him; but a liar, a hypocrite----"

"But, Thoma dear," interrupted Anton, "lying belongs to badness; a man who is bad enough to steal, must be bad enough to lie."

"I understand everything at once. You need not always explain a thing to me twice. I could see a liar or a hypocrite perishing before my eyes and not help him until he----"

"Oho! You're getting excited."

"Yes, I always do when I'm on this subject. But enough of this. What are the cottagers to us! See there, it was there by the pear-tree that you said good-by to me, when you went to the war. See, it is the finest tree of all. It looks like a great nosegay."

"And before the flowers become fruit you will be mine."

CHAPTER XIV.

Anton asked about their neighbor's daughter, Thoma's old playmate.

Sadly she told him how she had broken with her only friend. Anger and shame reddened her cheeks as she related to him how her old playmate had, on her wedding day, worn a wreath which she had no right to wear.

Thoma's lips quivered when she said:

"They say that Cushion Kate's mother was forced to stand at the church door with a straw wreath on her head, and a straw girdle round her waist. That was hard, but just. But for the girl to lie so, before G.o.d and man; to accept an honor to which she had no right. To know it herself and yet be so bold----. There, that is just like Vetturi. I have no patience nor friendship with a liar, whether rich or poor, man or woman. He who will not take the responsibility of his own acts may go to perdition. Indeed, it is not necessary to tell him so, for he has already gone there. You laugh? You are right! Such an honorable man as you are doesn't need to be lectured. Now I don't need my playmate nor anything else while I have you and father. No princess could be happier than I."

They went on hand in hand. When they reached the farm-house, her mother, who had come straight home, called to them from the window to wait until everything should be ready for the visitors, who would soon be there with their congratulations.

So the two seated themselves in the garden back of the house, on the terrace beyond the cherry-tree, and the blossoms on the tree were not richer than the happy thoughts of the young couple.

While they were here under the cherry-tree, Cushion Kate was sitting by her son; he said:

"Mother, I must get away from here. I will go to Alsace, into a factory."

"And you will leave me alone," complained the mother for the hundredth time; and for the hundredth time related, as though it were a comfort, that Vetturi's grandfather had been one of the Reutershofen family; and though he received his portion as a younger son, neither he nor his descendants had ever been able to get along. Vetturi let his mother talk, but still insisted that he would go.

"Mother, I'm a burden to you. It makes me ashamed."

"You're not a burden to me, and you shouldn't be ashamed to stay with your mother. What have I left in the world if you go away? I shall never want to get up again. I shall never want to make the fire. If you go away you must take me along."

"We'll see, mother. But first, I will have my pay from Landolin; this very day I will have it."

With these words he tore himself away, and hurried to the farm-house.

CHAPTER XV.

Just as the farmer's wife had expected, many people returning from the fair, and many too who had not been there, came to offer their good wishes upon Thoma's betrothal. She made them welcome, and invited them to eat and drink.

When Landolin reached home his greeting to the guests was cool and careless, and he did not look at all like the father of a girl who had just been happily betrothed to her lover.

People said afterward that they knew then from his manner what he was likely to do. But who knows whether they were really so wise?

Landolin said to his wife:

"Stop feeding these people. Start them off. Don't be so friendly and talkative with the herd. It's impudence for them to come to me with good wishes. I don't want their good wishes."

He then went across the yard and stood awhile by the dog. Yes, he even spoke to him. "You're right, you should have been with me. Such fellows don't deserve a word. They ought to have a dog set on them."

Then Vetturi rushed into the yard, bareheaded, and called out: "Farmer!

for the last time I say, I want my pay, my money."

"What? You want anything from me! March out of this yard at once. Off with you! What? You're standing there yet? Once for all, go, or I'll make you!"

"I won't go."