She trembled when she spoke His holy name and a baptism of fire shot through her body that was stronger than it could bear. She fell forward, weaker than the sick woman she kept watch over.
“Poor Sara!” they said. “She overexerted herself with work and care-giving.”
She was taken to the infirmary for the poor, where she died. From there she was buried but not in the Christian cemetery. That was not the place for the Jewish maid. No, she was buried outside, up against the churchyard wall.
And God’s sunshine, that shone over all the Christian graves, also shone over the Jewish maid’s grave outside the wall, and the sound of hymns that were heard in the Christian cemetery reached her grave as well. The preaching reached there too: “There is resurrection in Christ!” He who said to his disciples, “John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit!”
THE STORY OLD JOHANNA TOLD
THE WIND’S SIGHING THROUGH the old willow branches.
It’s as if you heard a song. The wind is singing it, and the tree is telling the story. If you don’t understand it, ask old Johanna in the poor house. She knows it. She was born here in the district.
Years ago, when the King’s highway still passed by here, the tree was already big and conspicuous. It stood where it still stands, out from the tailor’s white-washed half-timbered house right near the pond, which at that time was so big that the cattle were watered there, and where in the warm summer time, the farmers’ small children ran around naked and splashed in the water. Right up under the tree a milestone of carved stone had been raised, but now it has fallen over, and brambles grow over it.
The new King’s highway was laid right beside the rich farmer’s land, and the old road became a track. The pond became a puddle, overgrown with duckweed. If a frog jumped in, the green separated, and you saw the black water. Cattails, bog beans, and yellow iris grew round about, and grow there still.
The tailor’s house became old and crooked, and the roof became a hotbed for moss and houseleeks. The pigeon coop collapsed, and the starlings built their nests there. The swallows built nest upon nest along the gable of the house and under the roof, as if this were a lucky place to live.
And once it was. Now it had become lonely and quiet. But “poor Rasmus,” as he was called, simple and weak-willed, lived there. He was born there and had played there as a child, running over meadows and jumping fences. He had splashed as a little boy in the open pond and climbed the old tree.
It lifted its big branches in magnificent beauty, as it still does, but storms had already twisted the trunk a little, and time had cracked it. Weather and wind had deposited dirt in the crack; grass and greenery were growing there, and even a little mountain ash tree had planted itself.
When the swallows came in the spring, they flew around among the trees and the roof—patching and repairing their old nests. Poor Rasmus let his nest stand or fall as it would. He neither patched nor propped it up. “What good does it do?” was his saying, as it had been his father’s.
He remained in his home. The swallows flew away, but they came back, those faithful creatures. The starlings flew away, and they returned and whistled their songs. Once Rasmus had whistled in competition with them, but now he no longer whistled or sang.
The wind sighed through the old willow, and is still sighing. It’s as if you heard a song. The wind is singing it, and the tree is telling the story. If you don’t understand it, ask old Johanna in the poorhouse. She knows it. She knows a lot about old times. She’s like a historical register, full of memoirs and old memories.
When the house was a good new one, the village tailor Ivar Ølse moved in there with his wife Maren. Both of them were hard-working, honest folks. Old Johanna was a child then, the daughter of a clog maker, one of the poorest men in the district. She got many a good sandwich from Maren, who didn’t lack for food, and was on good terms with the mistress of the estate. She was always laughing and happy. She remained cheerful and used her mouth as well as her hands. She was as nimble with the needle as with her mouth and looked after her house and children. There were nearly a dozen of them, eleven to be exact—the twelfth failed to appear.
“Poor people always have a nest full of kids!” growled the squire. “If you could drown them like you do kittens and only keep one or two of the strongest, there would be less misery!”
“Good Lord!” said the tailor’s wife. “Children are a blessing from God. They’re the joy of the house. Every child is one more prayer to God. If things are tight, and there are many mouths to feed, then you work harder and find ways and honest means. The Lord doesn’t let go, if we don’t let go of him!”
The mistress of the manor agreed with her, nodded in a friendly way, and patted Maren on the cheek. She had done that many times and kissed her too, but that was when the mistress was a little child, and Maren was her nanny. They had always cared about each other, and they still did.
Every year at Christmas time winter supplies came from the manor to the tailor’s house: a barrel of flour, a pig, two geese, a quarter barrel butter, cheese, and apples. That helped the pantry! Ivar Ølse looked pleased about it too, but soon expressed his old saying, “What good does it do?”
The house was neat and clean. There were curtains in the windows and flowers too, both pinks and impatiens. Hanging in a picture frame was a sampler with the family name, and close by hung an acrostic letter in rhyme that Maren Ølse had written herself. She knew how rhymes went. She was actually quite proud of the family name “Ølse” because it was the only word in Danish that rhymed with “pølse,” sausage. “It’s always something to have what no one else has!” she said and laughed. She always retained her good humor. She never said “What good does it do?” like her husband did. Her motto was “Have faith in yourself and the Lord.” That’s what she did, and that held everything together. The children thrived and grew from the nest, traveled far afield, and did well. Rasmus was the youngest. He was such a beautiful child that one of the great portrait painters from the city had borrowed him to use as a model, with him as naked as the day he was born. That painting hung now at the King’s palace where the mistress of the manor had seen it and recognized little Rasmus, even without his clothes on.
But then came difficult times. The tailor got arthritis in both hands, and it left big knots in his hands. No doctor could help him, not even the wise woman Stine, who did some “doctoring.”
“We mustn’t get discouraged,” said Maren. “It never helps to hang your head! Now that we no longer have father’s hands to help, I must use mine more and better. Little Rasmus can also sew.”
He was already at the table, whistling and singing. He was a happy boy. But he shouldn’t sit there the whole day, his mother said. That would be a shame for a child. He should play and run around too.
The clogmaker’s Johanna was his favorite playmate. She was even poorer than Rasmus. She was not pretty, and she went barefoot. Her clothes hung in tatters because she had no one to mend them, and it didn’t occur to her to do it herself. But she was a child and as happy as a bird in the Lord’s sunshine.
Rasmus and Johanna played by the stone milepost under the big willow tree.
He had big dreams. He wanted to become a fine tailor and live in the city, where there were masters who had ten journeymen working for them. He had heard this from his father. He would be an apprentice there, and then he would become a master tailor. Later Johanna could come and visit him, and if she could cook, she would make food for all of them and have her own room.
Johanna didn’t dare believe it, but Rasmus thought it would happen.
They sat under the old tree, and the wind sighed in the branches and leaves. It was as if the wind sang and the tree told the story.
In autumn every leaf fell from the tree, and rain dripped from the naked branches.
“They’ll grow green again,” said mother Ølse.
“What good does it do?” said her husband. “New year—new
struggles to survive!”
“The pantry is full,” said his wife. “Thanks to our kind mistress. I am healthy and strong. It’s sinful of us to complain.”
The gentry stayed in their manor in the country through Christmas, but the week after New Year they were going to the city, where they would spend the winter in pleasure and with entertainment. There would be dances, and they were even invited to a party at the Court.
The mistress had ordered two expensive dresses from France. They were of such a fine fabric, cut and assembly that Maren the tailor’s wife had never seen anything so splendid before. She asked the mistress if she could bring her husband up to see the dresses. A village tailor would never see anything like that, she said.
He saw them, but didn’t have a word to say until he got home, and what he said then was only what he always said, “What good does it do?” And this time his words proved to be true.
The gentry went up to town. The dances and partying had started, but in all that magnificence, the old gentleman died, and his wife never did wear the fancy clothes. She was grief-stricken and dressed from head to foot in closely woven, black mourning. There was not so much as a shred of white to be seen. All of the servants were in black, and even the best coach was draped with fine black cloth.
It was a cold frosty night. The snow was shining, and the stars twinkled. From the city the heavy hearse arrived with the body to the manor church, where it would be buried in the family vault. The farm manager and the district council official sat on horseback with torches at the gate to the churchyard. The church was alight, and the pastor stood in the open door of the church and received the body. The coffin was carried up into the chancel, and the entire congregation followed after it. The pastor spoke, and a hymn was sung. The widow was there in the church. She had been driven there in the black draped coach which was black both inside and out, and such a coach had never before been seen in the district.
People talked about the mourning pomp the entire winter. It really was a funeral for the Lord of a manor. “You can see what that man represented,” the people of the district said. “He was nobly born and he was nobly buried.”
“What good does it do?” asked the tailor. “Now he has neither life nor property. At least we have one of them.”
“Don’t talk like that!” said Maren. “He has eternal life in the kingdom of heaven.”
“Who told you that, Maren?” said the tailor. “A dead man is good fertilizer. But this man here was evidently too distinguished to be a boon to the earth. He’s to lie in a vault.”
“Don’t talk so irreverently!” said Maren. “I tell you again: He has eternal life!”
“Who told you that, Maren?” repeated the tailor.
And Maren threw her apron over little Rasmus. He mustn’t hear such talk.
She carried him out to the woodshed and cried.
“Those words you heard over there, little Rasmus, were not your father’s. It was the devil who walked through the room and took your father’s voice. Say the Lord’s Prayer. We’ll both say it!” She folded the child’s hands.
“Now I’m happy again,” she said. “Have faith in yourself and the Lord.”
The year of mourning was over. The widow bore half-mourning clothing, but only joy in her heart. It was rumored that she had a suitor and was already thinking of marriage. Maren knew a little about it, and the pastor knew a bit more.
On Palm Sunday, after the sermon, the banns were to be read for the widow and her fiance. He was a wood carver or a stone carver. They didn’t exactly know the name of his occupation because at that time Thorvaldsen1 and his art weren’t yet household words. The new lord of the manor was not noble, but still a very imposing man. He was someone who was something that no one understood. They said that he carved pictures, was good at his work, and he was young and handsome.
“What good does it do?” said tailor Ølse.
On Palm Sunday the marriage banns were announced from the pulpit, followed by hymn singing and Communion. The tailor, his wife, and little Rasmus were in church. The parents took Communion, but Rasmus stayed in the pew. He was not yet confirmed. Lately there had been a lack of clothing in the tailor’s house. The old things they wore had been turned and turned again, sewed and patched. Now all three were wearing new clothes, but in black material as if for a funeral. They were dressed in the draping material from the funeral coach. The tailor had gotten a jacket and pants from it, Maren a high-necked dress, and Rasmus had an entire suit to grow into for Confirmation. Cloth from both the inside and outside of the coach had been used. No one needed to know what the cloth had been used for previously, but people soon found out anyway. The wise woman Stine and a couple of other wise women, who didn’t support themselves by their wisdom, said that the clothes would draw disease and death to the house. “You can’t dress in shrouding unless you’re on your way to the grave.”
The clogmaker’s Johanna cried when she heard such talk, and when it now happened that after that day the tailor became more and more ill, it seemed apparent who the victim would be.
And it became apparent.
On the first Sunday after Trinity, tailor Øse died. Now Maren had to hold on to everything alone. And she held on, with her faith in herself and the Lord.
A year later Rasmus was confirmed, and he was going to the city to be apprenticed to a master tailor. Not one with twelve journeymen, but with one. Little Rasmus could be counted as a half. He was happy and looked pleased, but Johanna cried. She cared more about him than she herself knew. The tailor’s widow remained in the old house and continued the business.
That was at the time when the new King’s highway was opened. The old one that went by the willow tree and the tailor’s became just a track. The pond grew over, and duckweed covered the puddle of water that was left. The milepost fell over. It had no reason to stay standing, but the tree stayed strong and beautiful. The wind sighed through its branches and leaves.
The swallows flew away, and the starlings flew away, but they returned in the spring; and when they returned for the fourth time, Rasmus also came home. He had finished his apprenticeship and was a handsome, if slender, fellow. Now he wanted to tie up his knapsack and travel to foreign countries. His mind was set on it. But his mother held him back. Home was best, after all! All the other children were widely dispersed. He was the youngest, and the house was to be his. He would have plenty of work if he would travel around the area. He could be a traveling tailor, sew for a few weeks at one farm and then at another. That was traveling too! And Rasmus took his mother’s advice.
So he once again slept in the home of his childhood and sat again under the old willow tree and heard it sighing.
He was good looking and could whistle like a bird and sing both new and old ballads. He was welcomed at the big farms, especially at Klaus Hansen’s, the second richest farmer in the district.
Hansen’s daughter Else looked like the most beautiful flower and was always laughing. There were even people unkind enough to say that she laughed just to show off her lovely teeth. She was mirthful and always in the mood for jokes and pranks. Everything suited her.
She fell in love with Rasmus, and he fell in love with her, but neither of them said anything about it in so many words.
Rasmus became depressed. He had more of his father’s disposition than his mother’s, and was only in a good mood when he was with Else. Then they both laughed and joked and played pranks. But even though there was plenty of opportunity, he never said a single word of his love. “What good does it do?” was his thought. “Her parents will want prosperity for her, and I don’t have that. It would be the smart thing to go away.” But he wasn’t able to leave because it was as if Else had him on a string. He was like a trained bird that sang and whistled for her pleasure at her command.
Johanna, the clogmaker’s daughter, was a servant there on the farm, employed to do menial chores. She drove the milk wagon out in the field, where she milked the cows with t
he other maids. She also had to haul manure when needed. She never came up to the living room and saw little of Rasmus and Else, but she heard that the two of them were as good as engaged.
“Then Rasmus will be well-off,” she said. “I’m pleased for him.” And her eyes filled, but there was surely nothing to cry about!
It was market day, and Klaus Hansen drove to town. Rasmus went along and sat beside Else both coming and going. He was head over heels in love with her, but he didn’t say a word.
“He has to say something to me about this!” the girl thought, and she was right about that. “If he won’t speak, I’ll have to scare him into it.”
And soon there was talk around the farm that the richest farmer in the district had proposed to Else, and he had, but no one knew what she had answered. Rasmus’ head was swimming.
One evening Else placed a gold ring on her finger and asked Rasmus what it meant.
“Engagement!” he said.
“And who with, do you think?” she asked.
“With the rich farmer,” he answered.
“You hit it on the head,” she said, nodded to him and slipped away.
But he slipped away too and came back agitated to his mother’s house and packed up his knapsack. He was going away into the wide world, no matter how much his mother cried. He cut himself a walking stick from the old willow and whistled as if he were in a good mood. He was off to see the splendors of the world.
“This makes me very sad,” said his mother. “But for you it’s probably the right and best thing to get away, so I must bear it. Have faith in yourself and the Lord, and I will surely get you back again, happy and satisfied.”