Page - 57 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

upon having his own little bit of land. This was willingly granted, and so, every day, when his woodcutting hours were over, Maxel was up there on the Sour Meadow, cutting away the undergrowth and trenching it, and grubbing up stones and burning the roots of the weeds; and in two years the whole place was drained; and there’s good grass growing there, and he’s even sown a little patch of rye. When he’d got on so far that he had tried it with cabbage and seen how much the hares relished it, he set about getting some timber. They couldn’t give him that, like the Sour Meadow—he must purchase it with labour. So he let his wages stand, and he felled the trees and hewed them square and cut them up for building timber, and all that in the free time when the other workmen were long since lying on their stomachs smoking their pipes! And the next thing was he began to get some of the other woodcutters to help him at such work as a man couldn’t do single-handed, and this way he built his house on the Sour Meadow. Five years he laboured at it, but there— you’ve seen for yourself how it stood there with the golden-red walls, with the clear windows, and the decoration all round the roof—something grand to see! There’s quite a fine little property been made of the Sour Meadow; and how long ago was it that our pastor in the catechism class held little Maxel up as an example of energy and industry? Next month he was meaning to get married: and to think he’s risen from being a poor pauper lad to the brave householder and house-father!—Take off your cap to him, boy—And now suddenly there’s an end of everything; all the industry and toil of years has gone for nothing; Maxel stands again to-day on the same spot as he did at the very beginning.” At that time I derived all my piety from the Bible, and so I met my father’s story with: “Our Heavenly Father has punished Maxel because he was set upon earthly things like the heathen, and has probably taken too little thought for Eternity. Look at the birds of the air, they sow not, neither do they reap ——” “Hold your tongue!” interrupted my father angrily. “The man who said that was King Solomon—it’s easy enough for him to say it: only let some of our sort try it! I wouldn’t be sure of myself; if it happened to me like little Maxel, I should just lose all heart—I’d just turn idle and good for nothing. Why, if a man puts a match to a thatched roof he’s put in prison, and quite right too—he doesn’t deserve anything better. But when Someone throws fire down out of Heaven on a brand-new house that a poor, plucky working-man has built ——” He stopped himself. We were now upon the height, and in front of us blazed the homestead of little Maxel. The house was just falling in. Several people were there with axes and pails, but there was nothing to be done but