The Silent Mill Part 4

Next day Johannes fetches down his working-clothes. They are a bit tight across the shoulders. But then, one gets broader.

The sun is already high in the heavens. As if it could shine so brightly, right into one's heart, anywhere else!--The sun of home is a wonderful thing. What it looks upon, it gilds, and when it touches one's lips, they begin to sing.

"It is lovely at home--hurrah!"

"Now I have a nest of merry birds in the house," laughs Martin, coming to greet him. "Go on singing. I am used to that from Trude--but what are you doing in that white coat?"

"I suppose you think I am going to be idle here?"

"At least just for a day!"

"Not for an hour! My lazy times are over!"

Martin has meanwhile noticed the flowers at the bed-side and says with a grumbling laugh: "Now there's a little witch for you! I have forbidden it for myself, and now she begins the same nonsense with others. That's why you look so pale this morning.

"I, pale? Not in the least!"

"Don't say a word! I'll cure her of her tricks."

With that they go downstairs.

Trude is nowhere to be seen.

"She has been in the garden since five o'clock," says Martin with a pleased smile. "Everything goes like clock-work since she's at the head of affairs. As quick as a weasel, up at peep of day and always merry, always ready with a song and a laugh."

On their way to the mill a young turnip whizzes past the brothers', heads. Martin turns round and laughingly threatens with his finger.

"Who was that?" asks Johannes, peering in bewilderment round the empty yard.

"Who but she?"

"But can you see her anywhere?"

"Not a trace of her! Oh, she's a teasing elf who can become invisible at will." And with a beaming face he follows his brother to the mill.

The hours pa.s.s by. Johannes wants to show what he can do and works with twofold energy.

While he is superintending the storing of the grain on the gallery, some one from below gently pulls his coat-tail. He looks down;--Trude, with sun-heated face and sparkling eyes, stands on the steps and invites him to come to breakfast. "In a minute," he says, finishes his task and jumps down.

"Brr!" she says, shaking herself, "how you look!

"What's the matter?

"Well--yesterday I liked you better." Then she gives him her hand with a "good-morning," and trips down the stairs in front of him, strewing the flour about for fun as she goes.

When they get to the door of the part.i.tion that Martin called his office, she pulls a mysterious face and raises her hand silently as if to lay a ghost.

Then after a moment she asks: "I say, what has he got in there!"

"I don't know."

"Mayn't you go in either?"

"No."

"Thank goodness! Then I am not the only one who's kept in the dark. In there he sits, and every stranger is allowed to go in to him, only not I. If I want him, I have to ring.--Say yourself whether that's nice of him? Surely I am no longer such a child that he should--well, I won't say anything,--one oughtn't to speak ill of one's husband--but you are his own brother--do put in a good word for me, so that he tells me what is in there. For I am dying to know."

"Do you suppose he has told me?"

"Well, then we must comfort each other. Come along."--And in one jump she flies up the three steps leading to the entrance.

During breakfast she suddenly puts on a serious air and speaks grandly of her weighty household cares. Of course, she says, she had to be independent at home already, for her poor little mother died many years past, and she had to superintend her father's household long before she was confirmed; but it was only a small one, for her father had to manage with one apprentice and almost worked himself to death--poor father!

Her eyes are full of tears. She is ashamed and turns away. Then she jumps up and asks: "Have you had enough?" And when he says "Yes," she continues: "Come along into the garden. There's an arbor which is splendid for a chat."

"That one at the end of the long path?--that is my favorite place too."

Side by side they stroll through the mazy garden walks, all bathed in glowing sunlight, and both feel relieved when they reach the cool shade of the leafy recess.

She throws herself down carelessly on the gra.s.sy bank and puts her plump, sun-burnt arms under her head. Through the dense foliage stray gleams of sunlight break, painting her dress with golden patches, playing on her neck and face, and pa.s.sing over her head till they make her curly brown hair all aglow.

Johannes sits down opposite her and gazes at her with undisguised admiration. He is convinced that never before in his life has he seen so much loveliness as there in the half-reclining figure of his charming young sister-in-law, and he thinks of his brother's saying: "Was it possible for me not to love her?"

"I don't know why I feel so inclined to talk about myself to-day," she says with her sympathetic smile, while she shifts her head to a more comfortable position. "Do you care to listen?" He nods his head.

"I am glad of that, Johannes! Well, you may imagine that at home bread was not over plentiful--not to speak of the b.u.t.ter which by rights belongs to it--and if I had not had my little garden, the produce of which we could sell in the town, we should not have managed at all.

'Why does everyone take all their grain to the Rockhammer mill, without thinking that the poor wind-miller wants to live too?' That is what we often thought, and we positively hated your place. Then all of a sudden comes Martin--says he wants to be neighborly--and is kind and good to father and kind and good to me--and brings toffee and sugar-candy for the boys, so that we are all mad on him. And in the end he informs father that he absolutely must have me for his wife. 'But she hasn't a penny,' says my father, and fancy--he took me without a farthing!

You may imagine how glad I was, for father had often said to me: 'Now-a-days men only marry for money; you are a poor girl, Trude, so make up your mind to be an old maid. And now I was engaged before my 17th birthday.--And then, you know, I had liked Martin very much for a long time already--for even if he is rather shy and quiet I could see by his eyes what a kind heart he has! Only he can't let himself go, as he would perhaps like to. I know how good he is, and even if he growls ever so much and scolds me, I shall be fond of him all my life!" She is silent for a moment and pa.s.ses her hand across her face as if to wipe away the sunbeam which is gilding her lashes and making her eyes glisten. "And fancy how good he is to my family," she then resumes eagerly, as if she could not find enough love to heap on Martin's head.

"He absolutely wanted to give them a yearly allowance--I don't know how much--but I would not allow that--for I did not wish to induce my father in his old days to take alms, even though it was from his son-in-law. But one thing I asked for--for permission to continue the gardening as I had done at home and to use the proceeds as pocket-money. What I do with it is my own business." She smiles across at him slyly and then continues: "They really do want it though, at home, for you see, there are three boys who all want to be fed and clothed, and they have to keep a servant too now, since I left home."

"Have you no sisters?" he asks.

She shakes her head; then she says, suddenly bursting out laughing.

"It's really too bad. Not even one for a wife for you."

He joins in her laughter and observes: "I don't seem to want a wife so much now."

"As what?"

"As a sister."

"Well, she is here," says she, jumping up and stepping up to him; then, as if ashamed of her impetuosity, she drops down again on to the gra.s.s, blushing.

"Yes, will you be that?" he says with beaming eyes.

She pulls a little face and observes carelessly. "That's nothing much to be! Sister-in-law is in itself already as much as half a sister."

Then, smilingly looking him up and down, she remarks: "I think one might put up with you as a brother."

"Five foot ten--been Uhlan of the Guard--does that suffice?"