Yes, that would be very fine and good, said Hansli; but where shall I learn to make brooms?
Pardieu,[2] there’s no such sorcery in the matter, said the farmer. I’ll take on me the teaching of you; many a year now I’ve made all the brooms we use on the farm myself, and I’ll back myself to make as good as are made;[3] you’ll want few tools, and may use mine at first.
All which was accordingly done; and God’s blessing came on the doing of it. Hansli took a fancy to the work; and the farmer was enchanted with Hansli.
Don’t look so close;[4] put all in that is needful, do the thing well, so as to show people they may put confidence in you. Once get their trust, and your business is done, said always the farmer,[5] and Hansli obeyed him.
In the beginning, naturally, things did not go very fast, nevertheless he placed[6] what he could make; and as he became quicker in the making, the sale increased in proportion. Soon, everybody said that no one had such pretty brooms as the little merchant of Rychiswyl; and the better he succeeded, the harder he worked. His mother visibly recovered liking for life. Now the battle’s won, said she; as soon as one can gain one’s bread honourably, one has the right to enjoy oneself, and what can one want more! Always, from that time, she had, every day, as much as she liked to eat; nay, even every day there remained something over for the next: and she could have as much bread as she liked. Indeed, Hansli very often brought her even a little white bread back from the town, whereupon[7] how happy did she not feel herself! and how she thanked God for having kept so many good things for her old days.
On the contrary, now for a little while, Hansli was looking cross and provoked. Soon he began actually to grumble. ‘Things could not go on much longer that way; he could not put up with it.’ When the farmer at last set himself to find out what that meant, Hansli declared to him that he had too many brooms to carry, and could not carry them; and that even when the miller took them on his cart, it was very inconvenient, and that he absolutely wanted a cart of his own, but he hadn’t any money to buy one, and didn’t know anybody who was likely to lend him any. You are a gaby,[8] said the peasant. Look you, I won’t have you become one of those people who think a thing’s done as soon as they’ve dreamt it. That’s the way one spends one’s money to make the fish go into other people’s nets. You want to buy a cart, do you? why don’t you make one yourself.
Hansli put himself,[9] to stare at the farmer with his mouth open, and great eyes.
Yes, make it yourself: you will manage it, if you make up your mind, went on the farmer. You can chip wood well enough, and the wood won’t cost you much—what I haven’t, another peasant will have; and there must be old iron about, plenty, in the lumber-room. I believe there’s even an old cart somewhere, which you can have to look at—or to use, if you like. Winter will be here soon; set yourself to work, and by the spring all will be done, and you won’t have spent a threepenny piece,[10] for you may pay the smith too, with brooms, or find a way of doing without him—who knows?
Hansli began to open his eyes again. I make a cart,—but how ever shall I,—I never made one. Gaby, answered the farmer, one must make everything once the first time. Take courage, and it’s half done. If people took courage solidly, there are many now carrying the beggar’s wallet, who would have money up to their ears, and good metal, too. Hansli was on the point of asking if the peasant had lost his head. Nevertheless, he finished by biting at the notion; and entering into it little by little, as a child into cold water. The peasant came now and then to help him; and in spring the new cart was ready, in such sort that on Easter Tuesday Hansli conducted it,[11] for the first time, to Berne, and the following Saturday to Thun, also for the first time. The joy and pride that this new cart gave him, it is difficult to form anything like a notion of. If anybody had proposed to give him the Easter ox for it, that they had promenaded at Berne the evening before, and which weighed well its twenty-five quintals, he wouldn’t have heard of such a thing. It seemed to him that everybody stopped as they passed, to look at his cart; and, whenever he got a chance, he put himself to explain at length what advantages that cart had over every other cart that had yet been seen in the world. He asserted very gravely that it went of itself, except only at the hills; where it was necessary to give it a touch of the hand.[12] A cookmaid said to him that she would not have thought him so clever; and that if ever she wanted a cart, she would give him her custom. That cookmaid, always, afterwards, when she bought a fresh supply of brooms, had a present of two little ones into the bargain, to sweep into the corners of the hearth with; things which are very convenient for maids who like to have everything clean even into the corners; and who always wash their cheeks to behind their ears. It is true that maids of this sort are thin-sprinkled enough.[13]
From this moment, Hansli began to take good heart to his work: his cart was for him his farm;[14] he worked with real joy; and joy in getting anything done is, compared to ill-humour, what a sharp hatchet is to a rusty one, in cutting wood. The farmers of Rychiswyl were delighted with the boy. There wasn’t one of them who didn’t say, ‘When you want twigs, you’ve only to take them in my field; but don’t damage the trees, and think of the wife sometimes; women use so many brooms in a year that the devil couldn’t serve them.’ Hansli did not fail; also was he in great favour with all the farm-mistresses. They never had been in the way of setting any money aside for buying brooms; they ordered their husbands to provide them,[15] but one knows how things go, that way. Men are often too lazy to make shavings,[16] how much less brooms!—aussi the women were often in a perfect famine of brooms, and the peace of the household had greatly to suffer for it. But now, Hansli was there before one had time to think; and it was very seldom a paysanne[17] was obliged to say to him, ‘Hansli, don’t forget us, we’re at our last broom.’ Besides the convenience of this, Hansli’s brooms were superb—very different from the wretched things which one’s grumbling husband tied up loose, or as rough and ragged as if they had been made of oat straw. Of course, in these houses, Hansli gave his brooms for nothing; yet they were not the worst placed pieces of his stock; for, not to speak of the twigs given him gratis, all the year round he was continually getting little presents, in bread and milk, and such kinds of things, which a paysanne has always under her hand, and which she gives without looking too close. Also, rarely one churned butter without saying to him, Hansli, we beat butter to-morrow; if you like to bring a pot, you shall have some of the beaten.[18]