The old town

by Jacob A. Riis

Unluckily prepared has.

Then the fire and the horror, the women throwing the children overboard and being swallowed up by yellow and crimson flames that sent grewsome thrills up and down our backbones—and then the hat passed around for the troubadour. His was the pièce de résistance of the Fair, and we went home, when we had heard him through, impressed that we had heard the heart of the great world throb.

The Girl Market.

Besides the Fair which in olden times was known as Our Lady’s Fair, perhaps because of the Domkirke,[9] in the shadow of which it was held, more likely because it came on the Virgin’s feast-day, there were two other kinds, the cattle fairs and the “girl market.” The last was in the spring and fall, when farmers hired their help. Those who were for hire then came to the Old Town on a set date, and stood in two long rows in front of the old tavern in the Square, which remained unchanged, as did the custom no doubt, from the Sixteenth Century. The women bared their arms to the shoulder, and the farmers felt them, approvingly or not as they thought them strong to do their work. There are tricks in all trades. An old country parson from one of the neighboring villages tells that a mistress at whose house hard scrabble ruled would sometimes be found to smear her mouth with bacon to give the impression that there was fat living where she was at home. When a pair were suited, the dickering began, and the bargain made had the sanction of law. Indeed, the applicant’s “book” was the first thing asked for if the physical inspection had been satisfactory. In it his or her character was recorded by successive employers, and attested by the police, to whom it had to be presented each time the owner of it made a change of base.

All through the spring great droves of steers came through the town on their way to the Holstein marshlands, where they were to be fattened for the Hamburg and London trade. Ribe was on one of the ancient cattle tracks from the north to the great southern pastures. Then we heard the tread of many hurrying hoofs at early dawn and the loud hop-how! of the herders trying to keep their droves together. While they passed through the town, the people kept discreetly indoors. Indeed, there was no room for them outside; but they bore it patiently, being used to it. Often enough the cows that lived in the town went in by the same door their owners used, and naturally there came to be a neighborly feeling between them, which was extended to these wayfarers. Sometimes, instead of cattle, flocks of Jutland horses came through with braided manes and tails, headed south for the armies of Prussia or France or Austria. Twice a year, I think, they halted at the Old Town, and the market square became the scene of a great cattle fair. It was on one of these occasions that I made my first bid for a horse. I must have been seven or eight years old, and had with much argument brought my mother over to my notion that a little horse was a good thing to have about the house. It could be stabled in the peat shed, where we kept our winter fuel, and in summer grass enough to more than keep it grew between the cobble-stones in our street, and on the narrow sidewalk. So it was decided that I might buy a horse at the next fair, if I could get it for eight skilling,—about five cents, I should say. That was the appropriation, and with it I sped, my heart beating fast, to the Square and interviewed a dealer, telling him that I only wanted a little horse, being but a little boy; and besides, the peat shed was small. I had seen some that were just the kind I wanted, running along with a farmer’s team sometimes.

Where the Cows go in through the Street Door.

The dealer heard me through very gravely, and as gravely inspected the eight skilling which I unwrapped and showed him as a guarantee of good faith. He ran his eye over his sleek mares and regretted that those little horses were scarce that year, and just then he had none in stock. But he was going south, where they were plentiful, he said, and if I would save my money till he came back, he would be sure to bring me one. And I went home joyfully to report my success and get the shed ready, and also to drive off the weeding women, who came most inappropriately that very spring to dig out the dandelions in our gutter. They were to be kept as a choice morsel for my horse. I waited anxiously all through that summer and kept a lookout for every drove of horses that came through, but my trader I never saw again, and in none of the herds was my little horse. After a while I forgot about it in the great overwhelming sensation of the time. The King came to the town.

In its old age that was an honor it had rarely enjoyed. No one there had, I think, seen the King, unless in the field as a soldier seven years before, in ’49-’50. King Frederik, furthermore, was a great favorite of the people. He had given them constitutional government, and he was the popular hero whose army had driven the invaders back after two years of hard fighting. So we turned out to receive him, to the last inhabitant. He came, impressive, kingly, yet with a bonhomie about him that made the common people accept him as their own wherever he went. They told of how he had fared with a steady Jutland farmer who entertained him and his suite on the journey across country. Those yeomen still said “thou” to the King, as their forefathers did in the long ago, and knew little of the ways of courts—cared less, I fancy. Also, they are as close-fisted as they are square in a trade with “known man.” A neighbor is safe in their hands; others may look out for themselves. So when the King went to his host and thanked him for his trouble, calling him by his first name as was his wont, for he understood his men, Hans scratched his head.