Page - 53 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

because she could no longer handle the spade, and it had therefore gone rusty. I looked about on the hearth for a bit of soft charcoal. The pine-tree was obliging, and lent me the pen wherewith to write out Frau Drachenbinder’s will, or whatever it might prove to be. Just when the grey coffer was opened and I standing there ready to take down her words, that they might deliver their message to her grandchild in the years to come, the old woman beside me uttered a loud cry. She turned away quickly, crowed again, and then broke into hoarse laughter. In terror I broke the charcoal in my fingers and glanced askance at the door. When she had done laughing, she grew quiet, drew a deep breath, wiped the sweat from her face, and turning again to me, said, “Write this—it won’t come to much altogether—still, you’d best begin up in the top corner, there.” I placed my hand on the topmost corner of the lid. Then the woman spoke as follows: “One and one is God alone.—That, child of my child, is thy very own.” I wrote this on the wood. “Two and two,” she went on, “Two and two is man and wife. Three and three the child of their life. Four and five to eight and nine— For griefs are countless, darling mine. Pray as if thou hadst no hand, Work as if thou knewest no God, Carry fuel, and think the while, God will cook the broth for me.” When I had written these things, Frau Drachenbinder let down the coffer lid, bolted it carefully, and said, “You’ve done me a great service—and there’s a great stone lifted off my heart. That coffer there is my legacy to my grandchild.—And now you must tell me what I owe you for this.” I shook my head. I wouldn’t ask for anything, not anything at all. “What—learn to write so finely and then come all this long way and suffer cold the long night through and then in the end take nothing for it—that would be fine indeed!” she cried. “Why, my boy, I couldn’t allow it!” I glanced through the open door into the next room where the little church stood. It certainly would be heavenly company for my little bed at home. She guessed at once. “You’re thinking of my little house-altar!” she said. “Then, in God’s name, you shall have it. I can’t shut it up in the chest—my dear little church—and the people would only steal it from me when I’m gone. With