The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction - German Part 23

"Thanks, father!" said Hauke, and climbed up to his sleeping place in the garret. There he sat down on the edge of the bed and pondered why his father had shouted at him so when he had mentioned Elke Volkerts.

To be sure, he knew the slender, eighteen-year-old girl with the tanned, narrow face and the dark eyebrows that ran into each other over the stubborn eyes and the slender nose; but he had scarcely spoken a word to her. Now, if he should go to old Tede Volkerts, he would look at her more and see what there was about the girl. Right off he wanted to go, so that no one else could s.n.a.t.c.h the position away from him--it was now scarcely evening. And so he put on his Sunday coat and his best boots and started out in good spirits.

The long rambling house of the dikemaster was visible from afar because of the high mound on which it stood, and especially because of the highest tree in the village, a mighty ash. The grandfather of the present dikemaster, the first of the line, had in his youth planted an ash to the east of the house door; but the first two had died, and so he had planted a third on his wedding morning, which was still murmuring as if of old times in the increasing wind with its crown of foliage that was growing mightier and mightier.

When, after a while, tall, lank Hauke climbed up the hill which was planted on both sides with beets and cabbage, he saw the daughter of the owner standing beside the low house door. One of her somewhat thin arms was hanging down languidly, the other seemed to be grasping behind her back at one of the iron rings which were fastened to the wall on either side of the door, so that anyone who rode to the house could use them to hitch his horse. From there the young girl seemed to be gazing over the dike at the sea, where on this calm evening the sun was just sinking into the water and at the same time gilding the dark-skinned maiden with its last golden glow.

Hauke climbed up the hill a little more slowly, and thought to himself: "She doesn't look so dull this way!" Then he was at the top. "Good evening to you!" he said, stepping up to her. "What are you looking at with your big eyes, Miss Elke?"

"I'm looking," she replied, "at something that goes on here every night, but can't be seen here every night." She let the ring drop from her hand, so that it fell against the wall with a clang. "What do you want, Hauke Haien?" she asked.

"Something that I hope you don't mind," he said. "Your father has just discharged his hired man; so I thought I would take a job with you."

She glanced at him, up and down: "You are still rather lanky, Hauke!"

she said, "but two steady eyes serve us better than two steady arms!"

At the same time she looked at him almost sombrely, but Hauke bravely withstood her gaze. "Come on, then," she continued. "The master is in his room; let's go inside."

The next day Tede Haien stepped with his son into the s.p.a.cious room of the dikemaster. The walls were covered with glazed tiles on which the visitor could enjoy here a ship with sails unfurled or an angler on the sh.o.r.e, there a cow that lay chewing in front of a peasant's house. This durable wall-covering was interrupted by an alcove-bed with doors now closed, and a cupboard which showed all kinds of china and silver dishes through gla.s.s doors. Beside the door to the "best room" a Dutch clock was set into the wall behind a pane of gla.s.s.

The stout, somewhat apoplectic master of the house sat at the end of the well-scrubbed, shining table in an armchair with a bright-coloured cushion. He had folded his hands across his stomach, and was staring contentedly with his round eyes at the skeleton of a fat duck; knife and fork were resting in front of him on his plate.

"Good day, dikemaster!" said Haien, and the gentleman thus addressed slowly turned his head and eyes toward him.

"You here, Tede?" he replied, and the devoured fat duck had left its mark on his voice. "Sit down; it is quite a walk from your place over here!"

"I have come, dikemaster," said Tede Haien, while he sat down opposite the other in a corner on the bench that ran along the wall. "You have had trouble with your hired man and have agreed with my boy to put him in his place!"

The dikemaster nodded: "Yes, yes, Tede; but--what do you mean by trouble? We people of the marshes, thank goodness, have something to take against troubles!"--and he took the knife before him and patted the skeleton of the poor duck almost affectionately. "This was my pet bird," he added laughing smugly; "he fed out of my hand!"

"I thought," said old Haien, not hearing the last remark, "the boy had done harm in your stable."

"Harm? Yes, Tede; surely harm enough! That fat clown hadn't watered the calves; but he lay drunk on the hayloft, and the beasts bellowed all night with thirst, so that I had to make up my lost sleep till noon; that's not the way a farm can go on!"

"No, dikemaster; but there is no danger of that happening with my boy."

Hauke stood, his hands in his pockets, by the door-post, and had thrown back his head and was studying the window frames opposite him.

The dikemaster had raised his eyes and nodded toward him: "No, no, Tede,"--and now he nodded at the old man too; "your Hauke won't disturb my night's rest; the schoolmaster has told me before that he would rather sit with his slate and do arithmetic than with a gla.s.s of whiskey."

Hauke did not hear this encouragement, for Elke had stepped into the room and with her light hand took out the remnants from the table, meanwhile glancing at him carelessly with her dark eyes. Then his glances fell on her too. "By my faith," he said to himself, "she doesn't look so dull now either!"

The girl had left the room. "You know, Tede," the dikemaster began again, "the Lord has not granted me a son!"

"Yes, dikemaster, but don't let that worry you," replied the other, "for they say that in the third generation the brains of a family run out; your grandfather, we all remember, was a man who protected the land!"

The dikemaster, after some pondering, looked quite puzzled: "How do you mean, Tede Haien?" he said and sat up in his armchair; "I am in the third generation myself!"

"Oh, indeed! Never mind, dikemaster; that's just what people say!" And the lean Tede Haien looked at the old dignitary with rather mischievous eyes.

The latter, however, spoke unconcerned: "You mustn't let old women get nonsense like that into your head, Tede Haien; you don't know my daughter yet--she can calculate three times better than I can! I only wanted to say, your Hauke will be able to make some profit outside of his field work in my room with pen and pencil, and that will do him no harm."

"Yes, yes, dikemaster, he can do that; there you are perfectly right;"

said old Haien and then began to demand some privileges with the contract which his son had not thought of the night before. For instance, the latter should receive, besides his linen shirts, eight pair of woollen stockings in addition to his wages; also he wanted to have his son's help at his own work for eight days in spring--and more of the sort. But the dikemaster agreed to everything; Hauke Haien appeared to him just the right servant.

"Well, G.o.d help you, my boy," said the old man, when they had just left the house, "if that man is to make the world clear to you!"

But Hauke replied calmly: "Never mind, father; everything will turn out all right."

Hauke had not been wrong in his judgment. The world, or what the world meant to him, grew clearer to his mind, the longer he stayed in this house--perhaps all the more, the less he was helped by a wiser insight and the more he had to depend on his own powers with which he had from the beginning helped himself. There was someone in the house, however, whom he did not seem to suit; that was Ole Peters, the head man, a good worker and a great talker. The former lazy and stupid but stocky hired man had been more to his liking, whose back he could load calmly with a barrel of oats and whom he could knock about to his heart's content.

Hauke, who was still more silent, but who surpa.s.sed him mentally, he could not treat in the same way; Hauke had too strange a way of looking at him. Nevertheless he managed to pick out tasks which might have been dangerous for the young man's yet undeveloped body; and when the head man would say: "You ought to have seen fat Nick, he could do it without any trouble at all," then Hauke would work with all his might and finish the task, although with difficulty. It was lucky for him that Elke usually could hinder this, either by herself or through her father. One may ask what it is that binds people who are complete strangers to each other; perhaps--well, they were both born arithmeticians, and the girl could not bear to see her comrade ruined by rough work.

The conflict between head man and second man did not grow less when after Martinmas the different dike bills came in for revision.

It happened on a May evening, but the weather was like November; inside the house one could hear the surf roar outside from behind the dike.

"Hey, Hauke," said the master of the house, "come in; now is your chance to show if you can do arithmetic!"

"Master," Hauke replied; "I'm supposed to feed the young cattle first."

"Elke!" called the dikemaster; "where are you, Elke? Go and tell Ole to feed the young cattle; I want Hauke to calculate!"

So Elke hurried into the stable and gave the order to the head man who was just busy hanging the harness used during the day back in place.

Ole Peters whipped the post beside which he had been busying himself with a bridle, as if he wanted to beat it to pieces: "The devil take that cursed scribbler!"

She heard these words even before she had closed the stable door again.

"Well?" asked the old man, as she stepped into the room.

"Ole was willing to do it," said his daughter, biting her lips a little, and sat down opposite Hauke on one of the roughly carved chairs which in those days were still made at home on winter evenings. Out of a drawer she had taken a white stocking with a red bird pattern on it, which she was now knitting; the long-legged creatures might have represented herons or storks. Hauke sat opposite her, deep in his arithmetic; the dikemaster himself rested in his armchair and blinked sleepily at Hauke's pen. On the table, as always in the house of the dikemaster, two tallow candles were burning, and behind the windows with their leaden frames the shutters were closed and fastened from within; now the wind could bang against them as hard as it liked. Once in a while Hauke raised his head and glanced for a moment at the bird stockings or at the narrow, calm face of the girl.

Suddenly from the armchair there rose a loud snore, and a glance and smile flew back and forth between the two young people; gradually the breathing grew more quiet, and one could easily talk a little--only Hauke did not know about what.

But when she raised her knitting and the birds appeared in their whole length, he whispered across the table: "Where have you learned that, Elke?"

"Learned what?" the girl returned.

"This bird knitting?" said Hauke.

"This? From Trin Jans out there on the dike; she can do all sorts of things. She was servant here to my grandfather a long time ago."

"At that time I don't suppose you were born?" said Hauke.

"I think not; but she has often come to the house since then."

"Does she like birds?" asked Hauke; "I thought only cats were for her."

Elke shook her head: "Why, she raises ducks and sells them; but last spring, when you had killed her Angora cat, the rats got into the pen at the back of the house and made mischief; now she wants to build herself another in front of the house."