The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11

Hauke did not listen to this speech of encouragement for Elke had come into the room and was clearing away the remains of the food from the table with her light, quick hands, glancing at him furtively with her dark eyes, as she did so. Now his glance too fell upon her. "By God," he said to himself, "she does not look half bad that way either."

The girl had left the room. "You know, Tede," the dikegrave began again, "God has denied me a son."

"Yes, Dikegrave, but do not let that trouble you," answered the other. "For the brains of a family are said to come to an end in the third generation; your grandfather, as we all still know today, was the man who protected the land!"

After thinking for some moments the dikegrave looked almost puzzled. "How do you mean that, Tede Haien?" he asked, and sat upright in his armchair; "I am in the third generation myself."

"Oh, that's so! No offence, Dikegrave; that's just what people say." And Tede Haien with his lean form looked at the old dignitary with somewhat mischievous eyes.

The latter went on unconcernedly: "You must not let old women's talk put such foolishness as that into your head, Tede Haien; you don't know my daughter, she can figure two or three times as well as I myself! I only wanted to say that besides his work in the field your Hauke can gain considerable here in my room with pen or pencil and that won't do him any harm!"

"Yes, indeed, Dikegrave, that he will; there you're quite right!" said old Haien and began to arrange for several benefits to be included in his son's contract which had not occurred to the boy the evening before. Thus besides the linen shirts that Hauke was to receive in the autumn in addition to his wages, he was also to have eight pairs of woolen stockings; then he was to help his father with the work at home for a week in the spring and so on. The dikegrave agreed to everything; Hauke Haien seemed to be just the right man for him.

"Well, God have mercy on you, my boy," said the old man as soon as they left the house, "if you are to learn from him how the world goes!"

But Hauke answered quietly: "Let it be, Father; everything will turn out all right."

And Hauke was not wrong; the world, or what the world meant to him, did grow clearer to him the longer he stayed in that house. This was more the case perhaps, the less a superior judgment came to his aid, and the more he was obliged to depend on his own strength, on which he had been accustomed to rely from the beginning. There was one person in the house to be sure whom he did not suit at all and that was Ole Peters, the head man, a capable workman but a fellow with a very ready tongue. The former lazy and stupid but stocky second man on whose back he had been able to load a whole barrel of oats and whom he could knock about as he chose had been more to his liking. He could not get at Hauke, who was much quieter and mentally far superior to him, in this way; for Hauke had such a very peculiar way of looking at him. Nevertheless he managed to find work for him which might have been dangerous to his body as it was not yet firmly knit, and when he said: "You should have seen fat Niss; it was all play to him!" Hauke took hold with all his strength and managed to do the job even though he had to overexert himself. It was fortunate for him that Elke was generally able to countermand such orders either herself or through her father. We may well ask ourselves what it is that sometimes binds perfect strangers to each other; perhaps – they were both born mathematicians and the girl could not bear to see her comrade ruined by doing rough work.

The breach between the head man and his subordinate did not grow better in winter when, after Martinmas, the different dike accounts came in to be examined.

It was on a May evening, but the weather was like November; inside the house the surf could be heard thundering out beyond the dike. "Here, Hauke," said the master of the house, "come in here; now you can show whether you can figure!"

"I have got to feed the yearlings first, Master," replied Hauke.

"Elke," called the dikegrave, "where are you, Elke? Go to Ole and tell him to feed the yearlings; Hauke must come and figure!"

And Elke hurried to the stable and gave the order to the head man, who was just occupied in putting away the harness that had been used that day.

Ole Peters took a snaffle and struck a post near which he was standing as if he would smash it to bits: "The devil take the damned scribbling farm-hand!" She overheard the words as she closed the stable-door behind her.

"Well?" asked her father as she came back into the room.

"Ole is going to do it," she answered biting her lips a little, and sat down opposite Hauke on a coarsely carved wooden chair such as at that time the people here used to make in their own homes during the winter evenings. She took out of a drawer a white stocking with a red-bird pattern on it and went on knitting; the long-legged creatures in the pattern might have been herons or storks. Hauke sat opposite her deep in his calculations, the dikegrave himself rested in his armchair, blinking now and then sleepily at Hauke's pen. As always in the dikegrave's house, two tallow-candles burned on the table and in front of the windows with their leaded glass the shutters were closed outside and screwed tight from within; the wind might bluster as it would. At times Hauke raised his head from his work and glanced for a moment at the stockings with the birds on them or at the narrow, quiet face of the girl.

All at once a loud snore came from the armchair and a glance and a smile flew back and forth between the two young people; then followed gradually quieter breathing; one might have begun a little conversation, only Hauke did not know how. But as she stretched out her knitting and the birds became visible in their entirety he whispered across the table:

"Where did you learn that, Elke?"

"Learn what?" the girl asked back.

"To knit birds?" asked Hauke.

"Oh, that? From Trien' Jans, out at the dike, she can do all sorts of things; she served here once in my grandfather's time."

"But you weren't born then, were you?" asked Hauke.

"No, I hardly think I was; but she often came to the house afterwards."

"Is she so fond of birds? I thought she only liked cats."

Elke shook her head. "She raises ducks, you know, and sells them; but last spring after you killed her Angora, the rats got at the ducks in the back of the duckhouse. Now she wants to build another one at the front of the house."

"Oh!" said Hauke and gave a low whistle, drawing his breath in through his teeth, "That is why she has dragged all that clay and stone down from the upland. But if she does that she will build on the road on the inside of the dike; has she got a permit?"

"I don't know," said Elke; but Hauke had spoken the last word so loud that the dikegrave started up out of his slumber. "What permit?" he asked and looked almost wildly from one to the other. "What is the permit for?"

But when Hauke had explained the matter to him he tapped him on the shoulder laughing. "Well, well, the inside road is wide enough; God have mercy on the dikegrave if he has got to bother about every duckhouse as well!"

It made Hauke's heart heavy to think that he had been the means of delivering the old woman's ducklings up to the rats and he allowed himself to let the dikegrave's excuse stand. "But Master," he began again, "there are some that would be better off for just a little nip and if you don't want to do it yourself just give the commissioner a nudge who is supposed to see that the dike regulations are carried out."

"How, what's the lad saying?" and the dikegrave sat perfectly upright while Elke let her elaborate stocking fall and listened.

"Yes, Master," Hauke went on, "you have already had the spring inspection; but all the same Peter Jansen has not harrowed out the weeds on his piece till today. In summer the goldfinches will play merrily about the red thistle-blossoms there! And close beside it there's another piece – I don't know whom it belongs to – but there's a regular hollow in the dike on the outside. When the weather's fine its always full of little children who roll about in it, but – God preserve us from high water!"

The old dikegrave's eyes had grown steadily bigger.

"And then," began Hauke again.

"Well, and what else, young man?" asked the dikegrave; "haven't you done yet?" and his voice sounded as if his second man had already said too much to please him.

"Yes, and then, Master," went on Hauke, "you know that fat girl Vollina, the daughter of Harders, the commissioner, who always fetches her father's horses home from the fens, – once she's up on the old yellow mare with her fat legs then it's: 'Cluck, cluck! Get up!' And that's the way she always rides, right up the slope of the dike!"

Not till this moment did Hauke notice that Elke's wise eyes were fixed on him and that she was shaking her head gently.

He stopped, but the blow that the old man gave the table with his fist thundered in his ears. "The devil take it!" he roared, and Hauke was almost frightened at the bellow that filled the room. "She shall be fined! Make a note of it, Hauke, that the fat wench is to be fined! Last summer the hussy caught three of my young ducks! Go on, make a note of it," he repeated when Hauke hesitated; "I think she really got four!"

"Oh, come, Father," said Elke, "don't you think it was the otter that took the young ducks?"

"A giant otter!" the old man shouted snorting. "I think I know that fat Vollina from an otter! No, no, it was four ducks, Hauke. But as for the other things you've chattered about, last spring the chief dikegrave and I lunched together here in my house and then we went out and drove past your weeds and your hollow and we didn't see anything of the sort. But you two," and he nodded significantly towards his daughter and Hauke, "may well thank God that you are not a dikegrave! A man's only got two eyes and he's supposed to use a hundred. Just run through the accounts of the straw work on the dike, Hauke; those fellows' figures are often altogether too careless."

Then he lay back again in his chair, settled his heavy body once or twice and soon fell into a contented sleep.

Similar scenes took place on many an evening. Hauke had keen eyes and when he and the dikegrave were sitting together he did not fail to report this or that transgression or omission in matters relating to the dike, and as his master was not always able to shut his eyes, the management gradually became more active before anyone was aware of it, and those persons who formerly had kept on in their accustomed sinful rut, and now unexpectedly received a stroke across their mischievous or lazy fingers, turned round annoyed and surprised to see where it came from. And Ole, the head man, did not fail to spread the information far and near and thus to turn those circles against Hauke and his father, who, of course, was also responsible; but the others, on whom no hand descended or who were actually anxious to see the thing done, laughed and rejoiced that the young man had succeeded in poking the old one up a bit. "It is only a pity," they said, "that the fellow hasn't the necessary clay under his feet; then later on he'd make a dikegrave like those that we used to have; but the couple of acres that his father has would never be enough!"

When in the following autumn the chief dikegrave, who was also the magistrate for the district, came to inspect, he looked old Tede Volkerts over from top to toe while the latter begged him to sit down to lunch. "Upon my word, Dikegrave," he said, "it's just as I expected, you've grown ten years younger; you've kept me busy this time with all your proposals; if only we can get done with them all today!"

"We'll manage, we'll manage, your Worship," returned the old man with a smirk; "this roast goose here will give us strength; yes, thank God, I am always brisk and lively still!" He looked round the room to see if Hauke might not perhaps be somewhere about; then he added with dignity; "and I hope to God to be spared to exercise my office a few years longer."

"And to that, my dear Dikegrave," replied his superior rising, "let us drink this glass together!"

Elke, who had arranged the lunch, was just going out of the room door with a soft laugh as the two men clinked their glasses together. Then she fetched a dish of scraps from the kitchen and went through the stable to throw them to the fowls in front of the outside door. In the stable she found Hauke Haien just pitching hay into the cows' cribs, for the cattle had already been brought in for the winter owing to the bad weather. When he saw the girl coming he let his pitchfork rest on the ground. "Well, Elke!" he said.

She stopped and nodded to him. "Oh, Hauke, you ought to have been in there just now!"

"Should I? Why Elke?"

"The chief dikegrave was praising the master!"

"The master? What has that got to do with me?"

"Well, of course, he praised the dikegrave!"

A deep red spread over the young man's face. "I know what you are driving at," he said.

"You needn't blush, Hauke; after all it was you whom the chief dikegrave praised!"

Hauke looked at her half smiling. "But it was you too, Elke," he said.

But she shook her head. "No, Hauke; when I was the only one that helped he didn't praise us. And all I can do is to figure; but you see everything outside that the dikegrave ought to see himself; you have cut me out!"

"I didn't mean to, you least of all," said Hauke shyly, pushing aside one of the cows' heads. "Come, Spotty, don't eat up my fork; I'll give you all you want!"

"Don't think that I am sorry," said the girl after thinking a minute; "after all it's a man's business!"

Hauke stretched out his arm towards her. "Give me your hand on it, Elke."

A deep scarlet shot up under the girl's dark brows. "Why? I don't lie," she cried.

Hauke was about to answer, but she was already out of the stable, and standing with the pitchfork in his hand he could only hear the ducks and hens outside quacking and cackling around her.

It was in January of the third year of Hauke's service that a winter festival was to be held. "Eisboseln" (winter golf) they call it here. There had been no wind along the coast and a steady frost had covered all the ditches between the fens with a firm, smooth crystal surface so that the divided pieces of land now formed an extensive course over which the little wooden balls filled with lead, with which the goal was to be reached, could be thrown. A light northeast breeze blew day after day. Everything was ready. The uplanders from the village lying to the east across the marsh and in which stood the church of the district, who had won the previous year, had been challenged and had accepted. Nine players had been picked out on each side. The umpire and the spokesmen had also been chosen. The latter, who had to discuss disputed points when a doubtful throw was in question, were generally men who knew how to present their case in the best light, usually fellows who had a ready tongue as well as common sense. First among these was Ole Peters, the dikegrave's head man. "See that you throw like devils," he said, "I'll do the talking for nothing."

It was towards evening of the day before the festival. A number of the players had gathered in the inside room of the parish tavern on the uplands, to decide whether or not a few applicants who had come at the last minute should be accepted. Hauke Haien was among the latter. At first he had decided not to try, although he knew that his arms were well trained in throwing. He feared that Ole Peters, who held a post of honor in the game, would succeed in having him rejected and he hoped to spare himself such a defeat. But Elke had changed his mind at the eleventh hour. "He wouldn't dare to, Hauke," she said; "he is the son of a day laborer; your father has a horse and cow of his own and is the wisest man in the village as well."

"Yes, but what if he should do it in spite of that?"

She looked at him half smiling with her dark eyes. "Then," she said, "he'll get turned down when he wants to dance with his master's daughter in the evening." Thereupon Hauke had nodded to her with spirit.

Outside the tavern the young people, who still wanted to enter the game, were standing in the cold, stamping their feet and looking up at the top of the church-tower, which was built of stone and stood beside the public-house. The pastor's pigeons, which fed in summer on the fields of the village, were just coming back from the peasants' yards and barns where they had sought their grain and were now disappearing into their nests under the eaves of the tower. In the west, above the sea, hung a glowing evening crimson.

"It'll be good weather tomorrow!" said one of the young fellows walking up and down stamping, "but cold, cold!" Another, after he had seen the last pigeon disappear, went into the house and stood listening at the door of the room through which there now came the sound of lively conversation; the dikegrave's second man came and stood beside him. "Listen, Hauke, now they're shouting about you," and within they could distinctly hear Ole Peters' grating voice saying, "Second men and boys don't belong in it."

"Come," said the other boy and taking Hauke by the sleeve he tried to pull him up to the door. "Now you can hear what they think of you."

But Hauke pulled himself away and went outside the house again. "They didn't lock us out so that we should hear what they said," he called back.

The third applicant was standing in front of the house. "I'm afraid I shan't be taken without a hitch," he called to Hauke, "I am hardly eighteen years old; if only they don't ask for my baptismal certificate! Your head man will talk you up all right, Hauke!"

"Yes, up and out!" growled Hauke and kicked a stone across the way, "but not in."

The noise inside increased; then gradually it grew still; those outside could hear again the gentle northeast wind as it swept by the top of the church tower. The boy who had been listening came back to the others. "Who were they talking about in there?" asked the eighteen-year-old boy.

"Him," the other answered and pointed to Hauke; "Ole Peters tried to make out he was still a boy, but they were all against that. And Jess Hansen said, 'and his father has land and cattle.' 'Yes, land,' said Ole Peters, 'land that could be carted away on thirteen barrows!' Finally Ole Hensen began to speak: 'Keep still there,' he called, 'I'll put you straight; tell me, who is the first man in the village?' They were all quiet a minute and seemed to be thinking, then someone said 'I suppose it's the dikegrave!' And all the others shouted, 'Well, yes; it must be the dikegrave!' 'And who is the dikegrave?' asked Ole Hensen again; 'and now think carefully!' Then one of them began to laugh softly and then another until at last the whole room was just full of laughter. 'Well, go call him then,' said Ole Hensen; 'you surely don't want to turn away the dikegrave from your door!' I think they're still laughing; but you can't hear Ole Peters' voice any more!" the boy finished his report.

Almost at that moment the door of the room inside was flung open and loud, merry cries of "Hauke! Hauke Haien!" rang out into the cold night.

So Hauke went into the house and did not stop to hear who the dikegrave was; what had been going on in his head during these moments nobody ever knew.

When, some time later, he approached his master's house he saw Elke standing down at the gate of the carriage-drive. The moonlight glistened over the immeasurable white-frosted pasture-land. "Are you standing here, Elke?" he asked.

She only nodded: "What happened?" she said. "Did he dare?"

"What would he not do?"

"Well, and?"

"It's all right, Elke. I can try tomorrow."

"Good-night, Hauke!" and she ran lightly up the mound and disappeared into the house.

Hauke followed her slowly.

On the following afternoon a dark mass of people was seen on the broad pasture-land that ran along towards the east on the land side of the dike. Sometimes the mass stood still, then, after a wooden ball had twice flown from it over the ground which the sun had now freed from frost, it moved gradually forward away from the long, low houses that lay behind it. The two parties of winter golfers were in the middle, surrounded by all the young and old who were living or staying either in these houses or on the uplands. The older men were in long coats, smoking their short pipes with deliberation, the women in shawls and jackets, some of them leading children by the hand or carrying them in their arms. Out of the frozen ditches which were crossed one after another the pale shine of the noonday sun sparkled through the sharp points of the reeds; it was freezing hard. But the game went on uninterruptedly, and all eyes followed again and again the flying wooden ball, for the whole village felt that on it hung the honor of the day. The spokesman of the home side carried a white staff with an iron point, that of the upland party a black one. Wherever the ball ceased rolling this staff was driven into the frozen ground amid the quiet admiration or the mocking laughter of the opposing party and whoever first reached the goal with his ball won the game for his side.

There was very little conversation in the crowd; only when a capital cast was made the young men or women sometimes broke into a cheer, or one of the old men took his pipe out of his mouth and tapped the thrower with it on the shoulder, saying, "That was a throw, said Zacharias, and threw his wife out of the attic window," or "That's how your father used to throw, may God have mercy on his soul!" or some other pleasant words.

The first time he cast luck had not been with Hauke; just as he threw his arm out behind him to hurl the ball a cloud which had covered the sun till then passed away from it and the dazzling rays struck him full in the eyes; his cast was too short, the ball fell on a ditch and stuck in the uneven ice.

"That doesn't count! That doesn't count! Throw again, Hauke!" shouted his partners.

But the uplanders' spokesman objected: "It must count. What's cast is cast."

"Ole! Ole Peters!" shouted the men from the marsh. "Where is Ole? Where the devil can he be?"

But he was there already. "Don't shout so! Is there something wrong with Hauke? That's just how I thought it would be."

"Oh, nonsense! Hauke must throw again; now show that you've got your mouth in the right place."

"I certainly have that!" shouted Ole, and he went up to the other spokesman and made a long harangue. But the sharp cuts and witty points that usually filled his speech were lacking this time. At his side stood the girl with the enigmatical brows and watched him sharply with angry eyes; but she might not speak for the women had no voice in the game.

"You're talking nonsense," shouted the other spokesman, "because reason is not on your side. Sun, moon and stars treat us all alike and are in the sky all the time; it was a clumsy cast and all clumsy casts count!"

Thus they talked at each other for a while, but the end of it was that, according to the umpire's decision, Hauke was not allowed to repeat his cast.

"Forward!" cried the uplanders and their spokesman pulled the black staff out of the ground and the next player took his stand there when his number was called and hurled the ball forward. In order to see the throw the dikegrave's head man was obliged to pass Elke Volkerts. "For whose sake did you leave your brains at home today?" she whispered to him.

He looked at her almost fiercely and all trace of fun disappeared from his broad face. "For your sake," he said, "for you have forgotten yours too."

"Oh, come! I know you, Ole Peters!" answered the girl drawing herself up, but he turned his head away and pretended not to hear.

And the game and the black staff and the white one went on. When Hauke's turn to throw came again his ball flew so far that the goal, a large whitewashed hogshead, came plainly into sight. He was now a solidly built young fellow and mathematics and throwing had occupied him daily since he was a boy. "Oh ho! Hauke!" the crowd shouted; "the archangel Michael could not have done better himself!" An old woman with cakes and brandy made her way through the crowd to him; she poured out a glass and offered it to him: "Come," she said, "let us be friends; you are doing better today than when you killed my cat!" As he looked at her he saw that it was Trien' Jans. "Thank you, Mother," he said; "but I don't drink that stuff." He felt in his pockets and pressed a newly coined mark-piece into her hand. "Take that and drink this glass yourself, Trien'; then we shall be friends again!"