Page - 25 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

blamed the little crucifix; but I quite forgot to blame my own folly. Hours passed, I was still in my up-on-end coffin, already the icicles of the clock- weights touched the crown of my head, and I had to duck myself down as well as I could lest the stopping of the clock should lead to its winding up and thereby the discovery of myself. For my parents had at last come back into the room again and kindled a light and were beginning to quarrel about me. “I don’t know anywhere else to look for him,” said my father, and he sank exhausted on a chair. “Just think, if he’s gone astray in the forest, or if he’s lying under the snow!” cried my mother, and broke into audible weeping. “Don’t say such things!” said my father, “I can’t bear to hear it.” “You can’t bear to hear it, and yet you yourself have driven him away with your harshness!” “I shouldn’t have broken any bones with these twigs,” he replied, and brought the birch-rod swishing down upon the table: “but if I catch him now, I’ll break a hedge-pole across his back!” “Do it, do it!—perhaps it will never hurt him any more!” said my mother, and wept again. “Do you think that children were given you only to vent your anger on? In that case our dear Lord is quite right when He takes them again betimes to Himself. One must love little children if they’re to come to any good!” Thereupon he said, “Who says that I don’t love the boy? I love him with my whole heart, God knows, but I don’t care to tell him so: I don’t care to, and what’s more I can’t. It doesn’t hurt him half as much as me when I have to punish him, that I know!” “Well, I’m going out for another look!” sighed my mother. “I can’t rest here, neither!” he said. “You must just swallow a spoonful of warm soup, to please me—it’s supper-time,” she said. “I couldn’t eat now, I’m fairly at my wits’ end,” said my father, and knelt down by the table and began to pray silently. My mother went into the kitchen to get together my warm clothes for the fresh search in case they should find me anywhere, half frozen. The room was silent again, and I, in the clock-case, felt as if my heart must burst for sorrow and anguish. Suddenly, in the midst of his prayer, my father began to sob convulsively. His head fell on his arm and his whole body shook.