Maren threw her apron over Rasmus’ head. She didn’t want him to hear talk like that. Then she carried the child out to the woodshed, where she burst into tears.
“That was not your father speaking,” she explained to the frightened boy. “That was the Devil who walked through the room, and he pretended to have your father’s voice. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Come, we shall say it together.” And both mother and child folded their hands and prayed.
“Now I am happy again,” Maren said, and dried her eyes. “Trust in God and yourself.”
The year of mourning was over. The widow now wore “half” mourning, but her heart was all happiness. Some said that she had a suitor and was thinking about getting married again. Maren knew a little about it; the minister knew more.
On Palm Sunday, after the sermon, the banns were read for the widow and her suitor. He was a wood carver or a stone carver. Few of the people in the congregation had ever heard of a sculptor. He wasn’t of the nobility, but he carried himself well. He was a “something”—though no one knew exactly what. He “carved pictures,” they said, and did it well; besides, he was young and handsome.
“What’s the use?” was all the good tailor said. He had been in church with his family on Palm Sunday. Maren and Ivar had taken holy communion after the sermon, while Rasmus waited in the pew; he wasn’t confirmed yet.
For a long time the clothes of the family had been in very bad condition. There was hardly a place for any more patches. But that day they all three had new clothes on. They were dressed in black as if they were now in mourning. Ivar’s new pants and jacket, Maren’s high-necked dress, and even little Rasmus’ clothes, which were a little too big, so that he would be able to use them for his confirmation, had all been made from the cloth that had covered the nobleman’s carriage at the funeral. No one need have known where the material came from, but everyone did. Stine—the “wise woman”—and a few other women who thought themselves wise, though they were not wise enough to earn a living by it, prophesied that the new wardrobe would bring sickness and death to the house of the tailor. “If one dresses in the curtains of a hearse, one is bound for the grave,” Stine said.
Johanna cried when she heard it, for she feared for little Rasmus. But it was Ivar, his father, who got sick. And the old women nodded their heads. The tailor grew weaker and weaker.
On the first Sunday after Trinity, he died. Now Maren was alone; she had to take care of everything, and she needed both her faith in God and herself.
The next year Rasmus was confirmed and apprenticed to a tailor in the city, not so great a one that he employed ten journeymen, but he kept one and a half. Rasmus was the half.
Rasmus was satisfied and he looked happy. Little Johanna wept. She cared for him even more than she knew herself. His mother stayed in the little house by the pond and carried on as before.
It was about that time that the new King’s Highway was opened. The old one, which went past the tailor’s house and the old willow tree, became just a field track. No cows came to drink from the pond and duckweed covered it. The milestone fell; there was no reason for it to stand any more. Only the willow tree remained as before and the wind sang through its leaves and its branches.
The swallows and the starlings flew away, but they came back in the spring. When they returned for the fourth time, Rasmus also came home. He had served his apprenticeship and was now a journeyman tailor. He was a handsome but delicately built lad; now he wanted to travel and see foreign lands. But Maren, his mother, kept him home. He was the last of her children; all the others were far away. He would inherit the house. As a journeyman tailor, there was enough work for him in the district. He could go from farm to farm, working a week or so at each; that, after all, was a kind of traveling, too. Rasmus followed his mother’s advice and stayed. Again he slept in the bed he had slept in as a child and sat under the willow tree and listened to the wind.
He was handsome and he could whistle like a bird, and sing the latest songs from the city. He was welcome wherever he went, but especially at Klaus Hansen’s. He was the second richest farmer in the district. His daughter Else was like a beautiful flower: gay, always laughing. Evil tongues said that she laughed just to show off her beautiful teeth. She was full of fun and ready to play tricks on anyone. She fell in love with Rasmus and he with her, but neither of them spoke of love to the other.
Rasmus grew melancholy, for he had more of his father’s disposition than he had of his mother’s. Only when he was together with Else did he laugh.
Although he had many opportunities to talk to her of his love, he never did. He would think, “What’s the use? Her parents will want her to marry well, and I am poor. It would have been better if I had never come to the farm.”
But he could not keep away, it was as if Else held him on a string. He was a tame bird that had to sing and whistle to please his mistress when she demanded it.
Johanna, the clogmaker’s daughter, was a servant on the farm; she did the most menial work. She drove the milk cart out to the field when it was milking time; she sometimes even had to cart manure when that was needed. Into the parlor of the farmhouse, where Rasmus and Else sat, she never came. She heard from the other servants that the two of them were almost engaged.
“Then Rasmus will be rich,” she said. “That makes me happy.” But her eyes got all glassy with tears as she spoke, though there was nothing to cry about.
There was a fair on market day in the nearby town. Klaus Hansen was taking his family to it, and he invited Rasmus to join them. Both on the way to town and on the way home, he and Else sat close together. Never had Rasmus been so much in love, but he did not speak of it.
“He ought to say something to me. He must declare his feelings first,” said the girl to a friend; and in that she was right. “If he doesn’t do it soon, then I’ll scare him into it.” And she laid her plans.
Soon it was rumored that the richest farmer in the district had proposed marriage to Else; and this was true, but no one knew what her answer had been. Poor Rasmus felt quite confused and did not know what to do.
One evening Else had a gold ring on her finger. She asked the young man if he knew what that meant.
“It means you are engaged!” Rasmus grew pale.
“And can you guess to whom?” Else asked.
“To the rich farmer,” answered Rasmus.
“You guessed it,” Else lied, and ran away.
But Rasmus ran away too, straight home to his mother’s house. There he packed his knapsack. He was leaving and it did not matter how much his mother cried.
He cut a walking cane from a branch of the willow tree, and he whistled while he did it, as though he were happy to be going out into the world.
“For me this is a sorrowful moment,” said his mother. “But maybe it is best for you to leave; and then, I will have to bear it. If you trust in God and yourself, I am sure you will come home again safe, sound, and happy.”
He walked down to the new King’s Highway. There he saw Johanna come driving with a load of dung. She had not seen him and he did not want to see her, so he hid behind the hedge and Johanna drove by.
Out into the wide, wide world he went; no one knew where he had gone. His mother thought that he would be home before the year was over. It would be good for him to see something new and different; it would give him something else to think about. But she was worried that there were “creases” in his soul that no amount of pressing could iron smooth. “There is too much of his father in him, poor boy!” she thought. “He should have been more like me. But he will come back; he won’t forget his home or his mother.”
His mother would wait patiently for years, but Else had not waited a month before she went secretly to the “wise woman,” Stine Mads-daughter, who was not only good at “doctoring” but could read the future in coffee grounds and cards and knew other prayers besides the Lord’s. She knew, too, where Rasmus was; she read it in the coffee grounds. He was in a foreign cit
y, she couldn’t quite make out the name. There were a lot of soldiers in the town and young girls; he was thinking about becoming a soldier and wondering which girl to choose for himself. Else covered her ears with her hands; she didn’t want to hear any more. If Rasmus had become a soldier, she would buy him free with her own savings, but no one was to know about it.
Old Stine promised that she would bring Rasmus back. She knew a remedy that was powerful, but it was also so dangerous that it was never used except as a last resort. She would put a caldron over the fire and cook him home. Wherever he was in the world, he would have to return. It might take a month, but he would come home to the boiling pot and the girl who loved him. He would not be able to rest, either night or day, and it would not matter whether the weather was fair or foul, he would continue on his way homeward and not stop, however tired he was, until he arrived.
The moon was in its first quarter, and that was just right, Stine declared. The wind blew a storm from the northeast and whipped the boughs of the old willow tree. Stine cut a twig from it and tied it into a knot, and put it in a caldron with some moss and thatch from the roof of his mother’s house. They needed a leaf from a hymnbook. Else had torn the last page out; it was the one that listed the printer’s errors, but Stine said that it didn’t matter, for all the pages had equal power. Stine’s own rooster lost its red comb. Else’s gold ring went into the vessel too—the old woman told the girl that she would never get it back. She was very wise, Stine. Many other things were dumped in that caldron, and there it stood over the fire, or over the glowing embers, or over the white-hot ash, but it did not stop boiling.
The moon was full and then again new. Each time Else went to Stine and asked, “When is he coming, do you see him?”
“Much do I know,” answered Stine, looking very wise. “And much do I see. But how far away he is I cannot make out. He has traveled over the mountains and sailed across some stormy seas, but he has still to go through a great forest. He is tired and feverish and his feet are filled with blisters.”
“No! No!” exclaimed Else. “I feel so sorry for him.”
“We can’t let him stop now,” said Stine. “If we do, he will drop dead upon the road.”
A year and a day went by, and then one night, when the moon was full and the wind played in the old willow tree, a rainbow appeared in the night sky. “It is a sign, an affirmation!” cried Stine. “Now he is coming.”
But Rasmus did not come.
“Time passes slowly when you are waiting for someone,” Stine explained.
“Yes,” said Else. And she visited Stine less and less, and she brought her no more gifts.
Her soul grew gay again and soon everyone in the district knew that Else had become engaged to the rich farmer. She had visited him and looked at his fields and cows. Everything was in the best of order, there was no reason to wait with the wedding.
Three days they celebrated, and danced to the music of two violins and a clarinet. It was a grand party and no one in the county was forgotten. Maren was invited too. When, finally, the festivities were over and the trumpet had blown a last fanfare, she went home with a basket of leftovers on her arm.
She had latched the door when she left; now it was open. Inside sat Rasmus. He had come home that day, poor man. He was as thin as a scarecrow, his skin yellow and pale.
“Rasmus!” said the mother. “Is it you? How wretched you look! But I am glad that you have come home.” And she fed him with the food she had taken home from the feast. There was even a piece of wedding cake.
He told her that lately he had dreamed about her, the house, and the willow tree. It was strange how often in his sleep he had seen that tree and Johanna, with her bare feet.
Else he did not mention. He was sick and had to go to bed. We do not believe that it was the caldron that had called him home; only old Stine and Else believed that, but they told no one about it.
Rasmus’ fever was high, and his illness was contagious, therefore, no one came to the tailor’s cottage except Johanna. She cried when she saw how weak Rasmus was. The doctor prescribed medicine but the patient wouldn’t take it. “What’s the use?” he would say.
“I will make you well.” His mother sat by his bed. “You must trust in God and yourself. If only I could see you well again, whistling and singing, then I would gladly give my own life.”
Rasmus did get well, but his mother caught the fever; it was she, not he, whom God called.
It was lonely in the house, and soon poverty and hopelessness sat at the table. “He is finished,” they all agreed. “There’s no hope for Rasmus,” they said.
It was the wild life he had led on his journey that had drained his will power and strength, and not the caldron that had boiled them away. His hair became thin and gray. He would not work. “What’s the use?” he would say. His legs carried him oftener to the inn than to the church.
One evening he was stumbling home from the inn. It was late autumn; the swallows and starlings had long since departed, and his mother had been dead for years. But Johanna, the clogmaker’s daughter, was still there. It was raining and the wind was blowing. Johanna caught up with him.
“You should pull yourself together, Rasmus,” she began.
Rasmus answered as he always did: “What’s the use?”
Johanna shook her head. “That’s a harmful saying! It would be better to remember your mother’s words: ‘Trust in God and yourself.’ That’s what you should do and you never do it! Stop saying, ‘What’s the use?’ For then there’s no reason for doing anything. You pull up the roots of all the deeds you could ever do.”
She walked with him to his house and then she left. He did not go inside but staggered over to the willow tree and sat down on the old milestone.
The wind blew through the branches of the willow; it sounded as if someone were singing a song and telling a story. Rasmus listened and answered. He talked loudly, although no one heard him but the tree and the wind.
“I feel so cold, I must go in and go to bed,” he thought. But he walked not toward the house but toward the pond. Near it he fell. It was raining hard now and the wind was cold. He didn’t feel it, he slept; but when the sun rose and the crows flew over the reeds he woke half dead. Had his head rested where his feet were, then he would never have risen again and the duckweed would have been his winding sheet.
At noon Johanna came to his house. She helped him. She called the doctor, and Rasmus was taken to the hospital.
“We have known each other since we were tiny tots. Many a meal has your mother given me when I was hungry and that I cannot repay her now. You will get well,” Johanna said, “God wants you to live.”
Rasmus came home from the hospital, but both his health and his mind had their ups and downs. The starlings and the swallows came faithfully, and flew away again. Rasmus became old beyond his years.
He lived alone in a house that more and more became a ruin. Now he was poorer than Johanna.
“You have no faith,” she would say when she visited him. “If we did not have God, how would it fare with us? You should go to communion, I am sure you haven’t been there since you were confirmed.”
“What’s the use? How can that help?” he would answer. And she would look away.
“If you feel that way, don’t go. An unwilling guest is not welcome at God’s table. Think of your mother and your youth, you were such a good boy. May I read a psalm for you?”
“And what’s the use of that?” Rasmus said with a crooked smile.
“It always comforts me.” Johanna glanced at her hands.
“Have you become one of the pious ones?” Rasmus looked at Johanna; his eyes were dull and tired.
She read a psalm; that is, she did not read it, for she owned no hymnbook; she knew it by heart.
“They were lovely words,” Rasmus said slowly, “but I did not understand them. My head is so heavy. It feels as though there were a stone inside it.”
Rasmus had become an
old man, but Else was not young either any more. We will mention her, but Rasmus never did. She was already a grandmother; her granddaughter was a sweet, talkative little girl. She was playing with the other children in the village. Rasmus came by, leaning on his stick; he stood watching them. She smiled to him. Memories of his childhood came to his mind. Else’s granddaughter pointed her finger at him and screamed, “Poor Rasmus!” as loudly as she could. The other children took up the cry and chased the old man all the way home.
Gray, dark days came, and more followed; but after gray, dark days, the sun comes out. Finally, on Whitsunday, when the church was decorated with birch branches with tender green leaves, the sun shone through the great windows and the smell of the forest permeated the room. Communion was served. Johanna was among the guests. Rasmus was not. That very morning, God in His grace and mercy had called him to Him.
Many years have gone by. The tailor’s house still stands, though no one lives in it. It will fall during the first winter storm. The pond is overgrown with reeds and duckweed. The wind is blowing through the branches of the old willow; it is as if one were listening to a song: the wind is singing it, the tree is telling it. If you do not understand the words, then ask old Johanna, who lives in the poorhouse.
She is still alive. She still sings the old hymn that she sang for Rasmus. She thinks about him and prays for him. She is faithful. She can tell you about times past: the memories that the wind sings about in the old tree.
154
The Front Door Key
Every key has its history; and there are many of them: the key for winding up the clock, the key to the city, St. Peter’s keys. We could tell about them all, but this story is only about the key that opened the main entrance of the home of a highly respected gentleman. He was a city councilor.
The key had been made by a locksmith, but if one judged by its size and weight, it could have been the work of a blacksmith. It was too big for the councilor’s trousers pocket and could only just be forced into his coat pocket. There it lay in the darkness, but the rest of the time it had its own special place, where it always hung on a nail, beside the framed silhouette of the councilor as a child, in which he looked like a muffin with a frilly shirt on.