PART IV
As the world is full of fact and fancy, so is this story. Whether it is based mostly on fact or on fancy we will leave to the German philosophers to decide, but I have heard that they are doubtful on this point, with regard to the world, I mean.
It was a magical evening. Trudel was so engrossed in a game of cards with the boys that she could not be induced to come out; moreover she had a slight cold and the evenings were chilly. A glorious sunset glow illumined the sky as mother and Lottchen set out for their never-to-be-forgotten walk.
"We will go up and see the fire on the heath; I love the smell of dry pine wood burning," said mother.
"I love to see the fire dancing and crackling," said Lottchen. "How still everything is."
"It is the calm of twilight. The wind usually drops in the evening," said mother.
"Look, look, over there by those dark woods there is something moving," said Lotty. "I think it is a white cat."
"A white cat! How queer that she should have strayed so far; she does not belong to the farm, I know."
"Hush! perhaps she is not a cat at all—then she will vanish." And lo and behold when they looked again, there was no cat there, though they had distinctly seen it a minute before on the field at the wood's edge.
"She is really a witch, I believe," said mother, with the curious expression on her face that Lotty knew so well.
Going further up the hill, they saw a wonderful sight. Twenty or more peasant girls were busy working, hacking the ground, their faces illuminated by the wonderful sunset glow. They wore short full peasant skirts edged with bright-coloured ribbons, and each had a gaily coloured scarf pinned round the neck and bodice.
We learned afterwards that they were preparing the ground to plant young fir-trees on a clearing. Germans are so careful of their woods, they replant what has been cut down, so that they have a great wealth in wood that we cannot boast of in England. I believe that they would like to cut off all the dead branches in order to make the woods quite tidy! But this would be rather too big a job even for the German nation to accomplish!
A man dressed in green with a feather in his cap, and a gun over his shoulder stood by watching the girls at their work.
He was a forester and seemed to act as overseer. He gave the signal to stop work as the strangers (mother and Lotty) approached. The women hid their tools under the dry heather until the next day, and then strapped on the big baskets they carried on their backs, without which they hardly felt properly dressed. They then marched along together, singing a melodious song in unison. As they came to the cross-roads they parted company; some went this way, some that; all kept up the tune, which echoed farther and farther, fainter and fainter in the distance.
Before long Lottchen and her mother were alone; but they felt that the ground they stood on, was enchanted. Mother said it was like a scene from the opera. They watched the fire; how the flames leaped and crackled; yet they were dying down. The fire made a bright contrast to the dark fir-woods which formed the background to the picture. The glory died from the sky; but yet it was strangely light; darker and darker grew the woods near the fire. Suddenly Lotty espied bright sparks among the trees.
"I do believe they have set the wood on fire," said mother.
"O no, mother, don't you see; let us crouch down and hide; it is the fairies: they are coming to the fire."
The air was suddenly full of bright beings.
| "There is a wood fire on the hill; |
| High on the heath it glimmers still. |
| Who are these beings in the air |
| With gauzy robes and flowing hair? |
| Is it the wreathing smoke I see |
| That forms itself so curiously? |
| Nay, they alight: they form a ring, |
| Around the flickering fire spring, |
| And from those embers burning low |
| They light their wands, they gleam, they glow, |
| Like firework stars of rainbow hue, |
| Green, yellow, orange, lilac, blue! |
| Ah what a scene, how wild, how strange! |
| The stars each moment break and change |
| In thousand colours; look on high: |
| Each slender wand points to the sky, |
| Then waves and trembles: lo afar |
| On lonely woods falls many a star!" |
And all this Trudel had missed. It seemed too great a pity, with that silly old card playing.
Spellbound mother and Lotty watched the fairies at their revels, till Lottchen began to shiver.
"We really must go home," whispered mother. "Trudel will be anxious."
"Oh, but mother I want to dance round the fire with the fairies, and I want a fairy wand with shooting stars," said Lotty almost aloud.
Suddenly it seemed as if the fairies became aware that they were observed. They vanished away, and all became dark. Lottchen said she could hear the sound of little feet stamping out the fire.
"Fairies, dear fairies, come again, do," said Lotty.
No answer, perfect stillness, not even a leaf stirred.
"Well, you are not so polite as our tree man, not half," said Lotty, "though you are so pretty. Good night," she shouted.
There was a sound of suppressed laughter; then from hill and dale the word "good night" was echoed all around. Spellbound, as if in a trance, they moved toward the farm. Trudel was wild with herself when she heard what she had missed.
"To-morrow," she said, but to-morrow is sometimes a long, long way off, and the fairies did not show themselves again during these holidays.
One of Lottchen's favourite walks was the echo walk, but she usually came home quite hoarse after having been this way. The path wound below the fairy heath on the incline of the hill; further down still were the fir-woods through which the light shone.
"Angel-pet!" "Cherry-ripe!" "Cheeky fellow!" "You're another!" So Lotty shouted the whole time, and the echoes came back so surprisingly distinct that Lotty was sure it must be really the fairies answering her. When you turned the corner of the hill, the echoes ceased. It was too queer.
The next day Trudel distinguished herself again. Two great cart-loads of swedes arrived that were to be stored up as fodder for the cattle in the winter. Now the joy was to throw these through a hole in the wall into the cellar. Hermann stood in the cart and Trudel threw the swedes to him as the bricklayers throw the bricks to one another. Fritz and Lottchen helped too; they had to take their turn and be very quick, as the hole was small. Hour after hour this went on, till the children were as black as chimney sweeps, and yet Trudel's energy did not fail. At last the carts were empty, and only then did the little workers leave off, dead tired.
Hermann could make curious heads out of the swedes, with eyes and nose and mouth. If you put an old candle-end inside, they looked ghastly, like some Chinese god. Lotty declared that they rolled about in the yard at night and grinned at her, and that she did not like "heads without people."
"But they are so funny, Lottchen," said mother, and then she laughed at them and was not frightened any more.
In the fields grew nice little buttony mushrooms. No one knew better than the Herr Baron where they were to be found and how to prepare them. Apparently he had lived on mushrooms in the wilds of South America. He was very kind in helping the children to fill their baskets to take home with them; for, alas, even the pleasantest of holidays must come to an end; and there was only one day left. He discovered a treasure in the field, a little mother-of-pearl knife, very old and rusty, and presented it to Trudel. He told her to soak it in petroleum to clean it. That knife was more trouble than all the rest of the luggage on the way back, for Trudel made such a fuss about it, and dissolved in tears several times when she thought that she had lost it.
To leave the beautiful cool woods, the fairies, the tree man and his sweetheart, the cows and the geese and all the marvels of the country, yes, it was hard; but home is home, and always turns a smiling face to us after a long absence. How nice to rediscover one's playthings and dolls. Trudel's first thought was always for her doll babies, and she would rush upstairs, and embrace each one tenderly.
As the children drove to the station from the farm, they passed the famous oak-tree, but no little man was to be seen.
"He's shy of the coachman, of course," said the children.
Looking back, they caught a glimpse of him in the distance, and shouted and waved their handkerchiefs.
Hermann and Fritz were very sorry to say "good-bye" to their little friends; but school began the next day, and they would not have so much time for play then.
The landlady told the children a great secret before they left. "The Herr Baron is going to be married next week," she said.
"Well, I am glad," said mother. "I hope she is very nice," and the children echoed the wish warmly.
"She has lots of money, and is a countess, I believe," continued the landlady.
"Well, I do hope she does not object to smoking," said Trudel, and they all laughed.
"Mother, you have never shown us your sketch," said Trudel during the unpacking.
Mother laughed. "Where's Lottchen? I suppose she wants to see it too?"
"Here I am," said Lotty. "Oh, do be quick and show it to us!"
Mother held up the sketch. There was the hollow oak-tree, and standing in it the little tree man himself just as the children had first seen him, with his green peaked hood on.
"So mother really did see him too!" said the children.
Now this story disproves the common fallacy that only children can see the fairies and forest folk; for how could mother have painted the tree gnome unless she had seen him?
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Transcriber's Note In the tale "The Engineer and the Dwarfs", a line is missing in the originaltext; since this edition is apparently the only one in existence, it has sadlynot been possible to discover what the missing section was. However, from the contextit must be a greeting, perhaps from the dwarfs' Committee. | |
| Little harebells, and pink centuary bordered the pathway. | Little harebells, and pink centaury bordered the pathway. |