The Forest Farm: Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

  VI

  Three Hundred and Sixty-four Nights and a Night

  The white kid was gone.

  But my father still had four big nanny-goats in the stable, just as hehad four children, who always stood in close relationship to the goats.Each of the goats had her own little manger, out of which she ate hayor clover while we milked her. Not one of them would give milk at anempty manger. The goats were called Zitzerl, Zutzerl, Zeitzerl andHeitzerl, and were the property of us children--a welcome present whichfather had made us. Zitzerl and Zutzerl belonged to my two littlesisters; Zeitzerl to my eight-year-old brother Jakoberle; Heitzerl wasmine!

  Each of us faithfully tended and looked after his allotted charge; butwe put all the milk together in a pot, mother boiled it, father gave usthe slices of bread that went with it--and the Lord God blessed thespoonful of soup for us.

  And, when we had ladled up our suppers with our broad wooden spoons,which had been carved by our uncle and which, because of their size,would hardly go into our mouths in the first place or out of them inthe second, we would each of us take our horsehair pillow and lie down,one and all, in the goats' mangers. These were our beds for a time; andthe beloved animals used to fan our cheeks with their soft beards andlick our little noses with their tongues.

  But, when we lay thus in our cribs, we did not always go to sleep atthe very first lick. My head was crammed with a multitude of wonderfulstories and fairy-tales of our grandfathers. I would tell these storiesin those evening-hours; and my brothers and sisters revelled in themand even the goats were fond of listening to them too. Only now andagain, when the thing struck them as too incredible, they would give alittle bleat to themselves or bang at the mangers impatiently withtheir horns. Once, when I was telling of the corn-wraith who blackensthe oats when she cries at midnight in the fields, and eats nothing butthe grey beards of old charcoal burners, my Heitzerl began to bleat soviolently that the other three joined in until at last my brother andsisters burst into wild peals of laughter and I was shamefully obligedto hold my tongue like a convicted boaster.

  For a long time after that, I told my sleeping-companions no morestories and I resolved never to speak another word to Heitzerl so longas I lived.

  Then came Ascension Day, on which day mother made us the usualegg-cake, my favourite dish in all the world. That year, however, thehawks had taken our best laying-hens; the egg-basket would not fill;and, when the cake appeared on Ascension Day, it was only a tiny littleloaf. I gave a woe-begone look at the wooden dish.

  My little five-year-old sister peeped up at me; and, as though noticingmy longing, she suddenly cried:

  "I say, Peterle, look here! If you will tell us a short story everynight for a whole year long, I will give you my share of the cake."

  Strange to say, the others all chimed in and echoed this noblerenunciation on the little one's part; they clapped their hands; and--Ientered into the bargain. So, suddenly, had I attained the object of mydesire.

  I tucked my cake under my jacket and went with it to the dairy, whereno one could see or disturb me. I bolted the door, sat down on anoverturned tub and allowed my ten fingers and the well-ordered host ofmy teeth to work their will on the poor cake.

  But now came this anxiety. There could not be a doubt that my brotherand sisters would insist strictly on their due. When I wentout a-herding, I begged a story of every pitch-maker, everycharcoal-burner, every keeper and every knowing little woman that I metin the wood and on the fields. They were productive sources, and I wasable to meet my liabilities every evening. Meanwhile, of course, it wasa daily misery until I hit upon something fresh; and, after a time, ithappened not seldom that little sister would interrupt me and call outfrom her manger:

  "Look here, we know that one! You have told it us before!"

  I could see that I must think of new ways and I therefore struggled toimprove my reading, so as to draw treasures from the many story-bookswhich lay idling on the sooty shelves in our little house in theforest. Now I had new sources: the story of the Countess-palatine(Jakoberle always said, "The Countess-Gelatine") Genovefa; the foursons of Aymon; the Fair Melusina; Wendelin von H?llenstein: wonderfulthings by the dozen. And my brother would often say from his manger:

  "I don't mind going without my cake a bit! This is just _too_ lovely.What do you say, Zeitzerl?"

  Now the evenings grew too short; and I had to tell some of thesestories in serials and sequels, a proceeding to which little sisterrefused point-blank to agree, for she stuck to it that a _whole_ storyevery night was what we bargained for.

  So the year went by. Little by little, I acquired a real skill intelling stories and even told them in High German, as they stoodprinted in the books! And it often happened that, during the telling,my listeners buried themselves in their coverlets and began to groanwith fright at the stories of robbers and ghosts; but I was not allowedto stop, for all that!

  Ascension Day was very nearly there again, and with it, the completionof my bargain. But--it was like my luck!--just before the last evening,my thread gave out entirely. All my recollections, all the books whichI could get hold of, all the little men and women whom I met wereexhausted, drained, pumped dry beyond all hope. I implored my brotherand sisters:

  "To-morrow is the last evening; make me a present of it!"

  There was a general outcry:

  "No, no, no presents! You got your Ascension cake!"

  Even the goats bleated their approval.

  The next day, I went about like a lost sheep. Then the thought suddenlycame to me: "Deceive them! _Invent_ something!"

  But my conscience at once stepped in and cried aloud:

  "What you tell must be real! You really had the cake!"

  Nevertheless, an event occurred in the course of that day which made mehope that, in the heat of the excitement, it would release me from myduty.

  My brother Jakoberle lost his Zeitzerl. He went this way and that overthe heath, he went into the wood and, crying and calling, hunted forthe goat. But, at last, he brought her home, late in the evening. Weate our porridge quietly and went to our cribs; and a story wasexpected of me.

  All was silent. The listeners waited eagerly. The goats clashed theirteeth together as they chewed the cud.

  "Very well, they shall have their story," said I.

  I reflected. I began:

  "There was once a great, great wood. And everything in the wood wasdark. No little birds sang: only the screech-owl's cry was heard. But,even though the other birds had sung, all the boughs and all theleaves on the trees wept thousands and thousands of tears. In themiddle of this wood is a heath, silent as the graveyard; and he whogoes over it and does not turn back is never seen again. Once upon atime, two knees went over this heath; and inside those knees wasblood."

  "Jesus Mar...!" gasped the elder of my little sisters; and all threecrept under their coverlets.

  "Yes, two knees with blood inside them," I continued, "and they passedover the heath towards the dark wood, like a lost soul. But, all atonce, the two bloody knees...."

  "I say, I'll give you my blue trouser-belt if you stop!" whimpered mybrother in his fear and hid still deeper in the coverlet.

  "The two bloody knees stopped," I continued, "and on the ground lay astone as white as a winding-sheet. Then two flickering lights appearedbetween the trees; and thereupon four more knees, _all withblood_--hovered to the same place...."

  "I'll give you my new pair of shoes if you stop!" Jakoberle panted inhis trough and, for sheer terror, drew Zeitzerl to him by her beard.

  "And so they all six together passed through the dark wood and out uponthe heath and over the oat-field to our house ... and here into thestable...."

  Now they all three cried out and whimpered; and there was no end totheir terror, and my little sister timidly promised me her share ofto-morrow's Ascension cake, which was expected this year too, if Iwould only stop. But I went on:

  "Well, ah, yes, I forgot to begin by saying that the first twoknees--with bl
ood--belonged to our Jakoberle and the last four to hisZeitzerl ... as they went about in the wood to-day."

  Suddenly, they all burst out laughing.

  "Why, everybody has two knees with blood in them!" cried littlesister; and the goats bleated their share of the jubilation.

  I had played my part right out. For three hundred and sixty-four nightslong, I had shone as a wise and veracious story-teller; thethree-hundred-and-sixty-fifth had unmasked me as a deceitful humbug.The promise of the second Ascension cake was withdrawn; little sisterdeclared that her offer had been made in self-defence.

  And I had shattered the confidence of my public for good and all; and,thereafter, whenever it wanted to express its doubts of anything Irelated, it cried, with one voice:

  "Ah, that's only one of your old knees again!"