The Forest Farm: Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

  XII

  How I Came to the Plough

  This is one of the very shortest, but also one of the most importantchapters in my story. It takes me out of my first childish youth and myherding time, and brings me to the days of my young manhood and of workfilled with conscious purpose.

  It needed many an artful trick before I managed to get promoted fromcowherd to ploughman. I had to sprain my foot, so that I could not runafter the cattle properly; I had to find birds' nests in the meadow,which inclined my younger brother to take over my herdsman's duties inmy stead; lastly, I had to coax Markus the farm-hand, who had driventhe plough till then, into declaring that it was an easy-goingimplement, as simple to handle as a pocket-knife, and that I--thecallow lad--was fairly strong enough and fit to guide the plough.

  And I stood there and drew myself up until I reached at least as highas long Markus's shoulders, and I shook one of the fence-posts until itgroaned--as a proof of my fitness for the plough. But my father laughedand said:

  "Get out, you're a little swaggerer! What you need is a goodbreeches-dusting given you every day. And now he's pretending to begrown up. Very well, take hold; it won't last long!"

  We were in the fields when he spoke. Markus stood back; and I took theplough by the horns.

  The plough in the neighbourhood of my home is different, certainly,from the bent bough of the savage, but it remains a clumsy, imperfectimplement. The farmer puts it together himself out of birch-wood,fetching only the iron portions from the smith and the wheels from thecartwright. The chief parts of the plough are the coulter, orplough-iron, which cuts the turf vertically, and the share, whichslices it horizontally, thus creating a grassy sod which has four sidesto it, and is about a span wide and half a span thick. Then there isthe mould-board, which lifts the cut sod out of the furrow and turns itover, so that the grassy side comes to lie at the bottom. Furtherportions, by means of which these chief parts are fastened to the bodyof the plough, are called the coulter-beam, the sill-beam, the "cat."All these appliances have to be in duplicate, as required by theprogress up and down the hilly field, turn and turn about. In front isthe beam, lying on the axle-tree, to which a pair of oxen are usuallyharnessed. At the back of the plough, three "horns" or tails stick out;these are the handles by which the plough is driven by a powerful man.It depends upon the driving of this ploughman whether the sod be madewide or narrow and the furrow deep or shallow; it is this man's duty tofix and lift the plough at the edge of the field; he must also be able,on stony ground, to pull the plough out of the way of any larger stonethan usual, for the oxen cannot be brought suddenly to a standstill;and the plough, if left to itself, would soon go to wreck and ruin.

  Over and above this ploughman, the vehicle also needs a driver, wholeads the oxen in such a way that one of the pair is always stepping inthe furrow and the other on the sod. Then, lastly, there has to be a"follower." This is usually a girl, who comes after the plough with ahoe, presses down the sods that have not been well turned, cuts outfaulty furrows, and, in short, acts as the corrector of the plough.

  You see that the thing is far from simple. It means a long day's workto dig an acre and a half of sloping land with one plough. Well, howdid the young ploughman fare?

  I had taken the bull firmly by the horns. But it really was a bull. Theapparatus had allowed Markus to handle it like a toy; it looked asthough he only held on to the handles for fun. It was quite a differentbusiness with me. The cattle pulled. I was plunged to right and left bythe handles; the plough tried to jump out of the rut; and my littlebare feet got caught now and then under the clods.

  "He's too short in the buttocks!" I heard father and the labourer say,laughing.

  This speech roused me. My honour, my manhood were at stake. I no longerwanted to be the duffer who had to sit at the bottom corner of thetable, who dared not put a word in edgewise, who, if he knew ofanything that had happened, was free to go and talk it over with thesheep and calves outside. I had the most ambitious views; I wanted tobe big and strong and independent, like the farm-labourer. And behold,the higher a man aims, the taller he grows! I drove the plough and cuta passable furrow. The earth-worms, disturbed by the plough, liftedtheir heads in surprise and looked up to see who was ploughing to-day!

  My father's fields had tough, yellowish-red earth, interwoven withgrass-roots; and the sods formed an endless gut, and were hardly oncein a way interrupted throughout the tract of land to be ploughed. I wasglad of that, for it made the plough remain always evenly in position,and the furrow became more regular than any pond-digger's work. But myfather was not so glad; he would rather have had black, soft sods:

  "Black earth, white bread!" says the proverb.

  When I was driving the plough across the field for the third time, Itook a peep to see how high the sun stood in the sky. Alas, that clockhad stopped! There were clouds in front of it. Suppose God should beangry and refuse to let it become noon to-day!...

  It seemed a long time before mother, when dinner was ready, appeared inthe loft at the top of the house, as my grandmother had done beforeher, put two fingers to her mouth, and sent forth the shrill, peculiarwhistle which I knew so well. I let go the handles and confessed thatmother had never whistled so musically before.

  Then came dinner. I took good care not to wipe the earth from my hands,for even this crust gave me a certain air; I was no longer the duffer,I was the ploughman, I enjoyed equal rights with the labourers. I satdown beside the head man and did my best to talk in a weighty fashion.They spoke of my performance; then I was silent, for my performancespoke for itself.

  It is a small incident in one's youth, it is hardly big enough to beworth mentioning; but, for the farmer, it is a great and momentous daywhen he puts his hand to the plough for the first time--it is a sacredact. The sword, the Cross, are objects of respect; and I look upon theplough also as a symbol of the redemption of the world. The greyearth-dust which clung to my hands that time, and with which I went into dinner--I have not wiped it off to this day--was to me what thegolden pollen-dust is to the bee.

  And so I may be permitted to add that, in that same year, I tilled thewhole of that field; that my father sowed the seed there with a pioushand; and that, next spring, the corn stood glad and green andglorious.

  "I haven't seen such a field of corn these ten years past," said myfather, when he saw it.