The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Viii Part 31

This put Uli on his feet. He found new courage; but still be could hardly leave the master. A number of things came into his mind, about which he ought to ask; it seemed as if he knew nothing. He asked about the sowing, and how he had best do this or that; whether this plant grew here, and how that one should be raised. There was no end to his questions, until finally Johannes stopped at an inn, drank another bottle with him, and then almost drove him off home.

Encouraged, Uli finally set off, and now for the first time felt his importance to the fullest extent. He was somebody, and his eyes saw quite differently, as he now set foot on the farm that was to get its rightful attention from him alone. With quite a different step he approached the house where he was, in a sense, to govern, and where they were waiting for him as a rebellious regiment awaits its new colonel.

CHAPTER XIII

HOW ULI INSTALS HIMSELF AS OVERSEER

Calmly, with resolution taken, he joined the workers; it was afternoon, shortly after dinner. They were threshing by sixes. The milker and carter were preparing fodder; these he joined and helped. They did not need him, they said, and could do it alone.--He couldn't do anything on the threshing-floor, he said, until they started to clear up, and so today he would help them prepare fodder and manure. They grumbled; but he took hold and with his wonted adroitness mixed the fodder and shook the dust from it, and so silently forced the others to work better than usual. Below in the pa.s.sage he shook out the fodder again, and made the fodder piles so fine and even along the walls, sweeping up with the broom the path between the horse-fodder and the cow-fodder, that it was a pleasure to see him. The milker said that if they did it that way every day, they couldn't prepare in two days what the stock would eat in one. That depended, said Uli, how one was accustomed to prepare, and according to how the stock treated the fodder.

When they went at the manure he had his troubles with the milker, who wanted to take only the coa.r.s.est stuff off the top, as it were the cream from the milk. It was nice and warm outside, said Uli, and the stock wouldn't get cold; they would work thoroughly this time. And indeed it was necessary, for there was old stuff left that almost required the mattock before they could get to the stone floor of the stable. But there was no time left to dig out between the stones. They had to dip out the manure-pit, for the liquid was rising and almost reached the back of the stable; and only with difficulty could he get them to carry what they clipped out into the courtyard and not pour it into the road.

When the manure was outside no one wanted to spread it, and the answer he got to his question was that they had no time today; they must soon fodder; it would be time enough in the morning.--It could easily be done during the foddering, said Uli, and the dung must be spread while still warm, especially in winter. Once frozen, it wouldn't settle any more and one would get no manure from it. With that he went at it himself, and the two men calmly let him work and made fun of him behind the stable-doors and in the fodder-pa.s.sage.

In the house they had long since begun to wonder that the new overseer did not come home, and to fear that he might have driven off and away.

Joggeli had sat down at the window from which he could see the road, almost looked his eyes out, and began to scold: he hadn't thought Johannes was as bad as that, and here he was his cousin, too, and such a trick he wouldn't play on the merest stranger; but nowadays one couldn't place reliance upon anybody, not even one's own children.

While he was in his best vein, Freneli came in and said, "You can look a long time; the new man's out there spreading the manure they've taken out; he probably thinks it's better not to let it pile up. If n.o.body else will do it he probably thinks he must do it himself."

"Why doesn't he show himself when he comes home?" said Joggeli; and "Good gracious, why doesn't he come to supper?" said the mother. "Go and tell him to come in at once, we're keeping something warm for him."

"Wait," said Joggeli, "I'll go out myself and see how he's doing it and what's been done."

"But make him come," said the mother; "I think he must have got good and hungry."

Joggeli went out and saw how Uli was carefully spreading the manure and thoroughly treading it down; that pleased him. He wanted to look for the milker and the carter, to show them how Uli was doing it and to tell them to do it so in the future; he looked into the fodder-pa.s.sage and could not take his eyes from it for a long time, as he saw the handsome, round, appetizing fodder-piles and the clean path between them. He looked into the stable, and as he saw the cows standing comfortably in clean straw and no longer on old manure he too felt better, and so he now went to Uli and told him that it had not really been the intention that he should do all the dirty work himself; that was other people's business. He had had the time for it, said Uli; there was no place for him in the threshing, and so he had done this in order to show how he wanted it done in the future. Joggeli wanted to bid him come in; but Uli said he would first like to watch the cleaning up after the threshing; he wanted to see how they did it. There he saw that the men simply thought of getting through quickly. The grain was poorly threshed; a number of ears could still be seen; it was winnowed still worse. The grain in the bin was not clean, so that he felt like emptying it and beginning the work over; however, he controlled himself and thought he would do it otherwise tomorrow.--But in the house Joggeli was saying that he liked the new man, for he knew his business; but he hoped he wouldn't boss too much--he didn't like that. You couldn't do things in all places just alike, and by and by he wouldn't have any orders to give himself.

After supper Uli came to the master and asked him what was to be done during the winter; it seemed to him that the work should be so arranged that one should be all ready for the new work when the spring came.

Yes, said Joggeli, that might be good; but one couldn't do everything all at once; things had to take their time. The threshing would last about three weeks more; then they could begin to cut wood, and by the time they were through with that the spring would just about be at hand.

If he might say so, said Uli, it seemed to him that they ought to bring in the wood now. It was fine weather and the road good, so it would be twice as easy. In February the weather was generally bad and the ground soft; then you couldn't budge anything and ruined all the wagons.

That wouldn't do very well, thought Joggeli; it was not customary to begin threshing in February.

He hadn't meant that, said Uli. They should continue threshing. He and one more would cut down and get ready all the wood the carter could bring home, and until a load was ready the carter could help them in the woods.

Then they couldn't thresh by sixes any more, said Joggeli, if he took a man from the threshing, and when they all cut wood together they could do a lot in a short time.

"Well," said Uli, "as you will; but I thought this way: couldn't the milker help in the threshing during the morning and the afternoon, too, if the others help with the manure and the foddering at noon? And sometimes two can do more in the woods than a whole gang, when n.o.body wants to take hold."

"Yes," said Joggeli, "sometimes it goes that way; but let's let the wood go: the threshing's more pressing now."--

"As you will," said Uli, and went somewhat heavy-hearted to bed.

"Well, you are the queerest man," said the old woman to her husband. "I liked what Uli said awfully well. It would have been to our advantage; and if those two fine gentlemen, the carter and the milker, don't have time to be drying their noses in the sun all day, it won't hurt 'em a bit, the scamps. Uli will be worth nothing to you, if you go on that way."

"But I won't take orders from a servant. If I let him do that he'd think n.o.body but he was to give orders. You've got to show 'em right from the start how you want to have things." grumbled Joggeli.

"Yes, you're the right one to show 'em; you spoil the good ones, and the bad ones you're afraid of and let 'em do as they please--that's your way," said his wife. "It's always been that way, and it isn't going to be any different now."

The next morning Uli told the mistress that one maid was superfluous on the threshing-floor, and she might keep for the house whichever she wanted. And Uli threshed through to the floor, and held his flail so that it touched his neighbor's and forced him to thresh the whole length of the grain to the wall; and when one section was done, the secondary tasks were quickly finished and they threshed again; and all this Uli effected not by words, but, by the rapidity of his own work. In the house they remarked that it seemed as if they must have different flails for the threshing; these sounded quite different, and as if they went through to the floor. The maid who was released told Freneli how they were going to do for this fellow; he needn't think that he was going to start a new system, for they weren't going to let themselves be tormented by such a fellow. She was sorry for him; he was well-mannered and he certainly could work, she must admit. Everything he put his hands to went well. While they were threshing the carter had ridden off, ostensibly to the blacksmith. The milker had gone off with the cow, but without telling his errand. It was noon before either came back, and neither had worked a stroke.

After dinner Uli helped peel the remaining potatoes, as is customary in well-ordered households if time permits; the others ran out, scarcely taking time to pray. When Uli came out there was an uproar in the barn; two couples were wrestling on the straw of the last threshing, while the others looked on. He called to the milker to come quickly and take out the calves and look to them; probably they needed to be shorn and salved. The milker said that wasn't Uli's business; n.o.body was to touch his calves; they would be all right for a long while. And the carter stepped up to Uli, crying, "Shall we have a try at each other--if you dare?" Uli's blood boiled, for he saw that it was a put-up job; yet he could not well refuse. Sooner or later, he well knew, he would have to stand up to them and show his mettle. And so he said to himself, let it be now; then they would have his measure.

"Ho, if you want to try it, I'm willing," he replied, and twice running he flung the Carter on his back so that the floor cracked. Then the milker said he would like to try too; to be sure, it was scarcely worth while to try falls with a walking-stick, with legs like pipe-stems and calves like fly-specks. With his brown hairy arms he grasped Uli as if he would pull him apart like an old rag. But Uli held his ground and the milker made no headway. He grew more and more angry, took hold with ever greater venom, spared neither arms nor legs, and b.u.t.ted with his head like an animal, until at last Uli had enough of it, collected all his strength, and gave him such a swing that he flew over the grain-pile into the middle of the floor and fell on the further side; there he lay with all fours in the air, and for a long time did not know where he was.

As if by chance Freneli had brought food for the hogs and had seen Uli's victory. In the house she told her G.o.dmother that she had seen something that tickled her. They had wanted to give Uli a beating; he had had to wrestle with them, but he was a match for them all. He had thrown the hairy milker on his back as if he had never stood up. She was glad that he could manage them all; then they would be afraid of him and respect him. But Uli, interrupted in his examination of the calves, seized a flail and merely told the milker that he had no time for the calves today; they would look to them another day. The cleaning of the grain took more time than usual, and yet they were through quicker and the grain was better cleaned; but they had exerted themselves more, too, and in consequence had felt the cold less. When Uli told the master how much grain he had obtained, the latter said that they had never done so much this year and yet today they had been threshing the fallen grain.

In the evening, as they sat at table, the master came and said he thought it would be convenient to cut wood now; the horses weren't needed, the weather was fine, and it seemed to him that the threshing and the wood-cutting could go on together if properly arranged. The carter said the horses' hoofs were not sharpened; and another said that they couldn't go on threshing by sixes, but at most by fours, and would never get done. Uli said nothing.

Finally, when Joggeli had no further answers to give, and was out-talked by the servants, he said to Uli, "Well, what do you think?"

"If the master orders it's got to be done," answered Uli. "Hans, the carter, and I will bring the wood in, and if the milker helps in the threshing and the others help him with fodder and manure, the threshing won't suffer." "All right, do it so," said Joggeli, and went out.

Now the storm broke over Uli's head, first in single peals, then in whole batteries of thunder. The carter swore he wouldn't go into the woods; the milker swore he wouldn't touch a flail; the others swore they wouldn't thresh by fours. They wouldn't be howled at; annoyed; they weren't dogs; they knew what was customary, etc. But they knew where all this came from, and he had better look out for himself if he was going to have the evening bells ring at six here (in the winter three o'clock is the hour, six in summer). Many a fellow had come along like a district governor, and then had had to make tracks like a beaten hound.

It was a bad sort of fellow who got his fellow-servants into trouble in order to put the master's eyes out. But they would soon give such a fellow enough of it. Uli said little in reply, only that the master's orders had to be carried out. The master had ordered, not he, and if none of them got off worse than he they ought to thank G.o.d for it. He wasn't going to torment anybody, but he wouldn't be tormented either; he had no cause to fear any of them. Then he told the mistress to be kind enough to put up lunch for three, for they would scarcely come back from the woods to dinner.

The next morning they went out into the woods. Much as the carter growled and cursed, he had to go along. The milker would not thresh and the master did not appear. Then the mistress plucked up courage and went out and said that she thought he needn't be too high and mighty to thresh; better folks than he had threshed before now. They couldn't afford to pay a milker who wanted to dry his teeth in the sun all the morning. So the wood was brought in, they scarcely knew how; and in February weather and roads were so bad that they would have had a hard time with the wood.

Hard as Uli had worked outside (and he had a bad time of it, for he always took the heavy end, wishing to be master not only in giving orders, but in working too), still in the evening he always helped to prepare whatever vegetables the mistress ordered, no matter what they were. He never shirked and he prevented the others from doing so; the more they helped each other, he said, the sooner they would get done, and if they wanted food it was only reasonable that they should help get it ready. He himself always helped wherever he could: when one of the maids had washed a basket of potatoes and did not like to carry it alone because she would get all wet, he would help her carry it himself, or would order the boy (half child, half servant) to do so; and when the latter at first refused, or failed to come at his word, he punished him until the boy learned to obey. It was not right, he said, for one servant to refuse to help another take care of his clothes, or for servants to plague each other; that was just wantonly making service worse than it needed to be. But it was long before they grasped this, for a peculiar atmosphere existed there. The men teased the maids wherever they could; nowhere was there any mutual a.s.sistance. When one of the men was asked to lend a hand he scoffed and cursed and would not budge; even the mistress had to endure this, and when she complained to Joggeli he simply said she was always complaining. He didn't hire servants to help the women-folk; they had something else to do beside hauling flowers around.

The behavior of Uli, who was not accustomed to such discord in a house, attracted attention and brought down upon him the bitter mockery and scorn of the men, which was aggravated intolerably by other causes. On the very first Sat.u.r.day the milker refused, out of sheer wilfulness, to attend to the manure, but let it go till Sunday morning. This Uli would not permit; there was absolutely no reason for putting it off, and it would keep them from cleaning up around the house on Sat.u.r.day, as was customary. Besides, the commandment said men shouldn't work on Sunday "thou nor thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant." Least of all was it becoming to leave the dirtiest tasks for Sunday. The milker said, "Sunday fiddlesticks! What do I care about Sunday? I won't do it today."

Uli's blood boiled hotly; but he composed himself and said merely, "Well then, I will."

The master, who had heard the clamor, went into the house, grumbling to himself, "If only Uli wouldn't insist on bossing and starting new customs; I don't like that. Folks have manured on Sunday time out of mind, and were satisfied with it; it would have been good enough for him too."

CHAPTER XIV

THE FIRST SUNDAY IN THE NEW PLACE

[Uli insists on going to church, but can get no one to accompany him, and all but Freneli ridicule him. The people at church recognize in Uli the new overseer, and wonder how long he will stay; but to his face they tell him to make what profit he can out of Joggeli. He comes home to new ridicule but, facing it down, retires to his cold room to read his Bible. A message is brought from the others to come and join them. They tell him that each new overseer is expected to treat the others to brandy or wine, and all plan to go to the tavern after supper. Freneli is surprised that he is going with them, and cautions him to be on his guard. At the tavern all begin to flatter him at once, but Uli is mindful of what he heard at church and of Freneli's caution. One by one the others all leave, except one man; he offers to take Uli a-courting.

Uli half yields, and is led into a dark alley where the others set upon him. He seizes a cudgel from one of them, lays about him with a will, flings one of them into a court, and vanishes, leaving the discomfited a.s.sailants to nurse their wounds and trail along home, after vainly waiting for him to appear.]

CHAPTER XV

ULI GAINS A PLACE IN HOUSE AND FIELD, AND EVEN IN SOME HEARTS