Page - 71 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

cash, could hardly be expected to supply that. But nowadays this, like most things, is changing; and, since gold and silver have taken to rolling to and fro, in such a momentous fashion, between the houses of town and country, the peasant no longer has the same joy in his farm, where he must always be labouring for others. Besides, he need not work out in the wilderness nowadays; he can do much better, they tell him, on rented land or in the factories; he sells or lets his property and goes after money. And there at last you have the stupid peasant! I only speak of these things because my father’s house, concerning which I have something to tell, was one of those farms in which we ourselves produced nearly everything that we wanted. And yet, even at that time, money played us a trick. My father was particularly clever at tanning hides, at weaving, at grinding corn and at pressing linseed-oil. In the last case, I assisted him to brave purpose, as a boy of ten, by dipping a slice of white bread into the oil that ran from the gutter of the press and then transferring the bright yellow slice to my mouth. One day, while we were thus engaged, Clements, the timber-merchant, walked into the pressing-room. He had once been forest-ranger at Alpel; but he had made such a huge amount of money in the timber-trade that he lost all interest in our mountains and went down into the broad Mürzthal, where he displayed a restless activity in acquiring more and yet more money. He had grown quite lean at this unedifying occupation; but otherwise he continued in fairly good fettle. Well, when Clements saw the oil bubbling in the wooden pail, he asked, was the cider sweet? My father invited him to taste it; but, when Clements lifted the pail bodily and took a draught from it, he fell back as though someone had struck him in the face and lost no time in spitting out what he had swallowed. “It can’t hurt you,” said my father, to console him. “It is pure linseed oil.” “Forest-farmer,” said Clements, gradually recovering himself, “here I am, bringing all sorts of good things to your house; and this is the way you treat me!” “You’re the first I ever met that did not like flax-wine,” replied my father. “It’s just like a wine, so golden and clear. And you couldn’t find anything better for one’s precious health. I am in the doctor’s debt to the price of a couple of oxen; and even then I should be under the sod to-day if Our Father in Heaven had not made linseed-oil to grow.” “And, as you, forest-farmer, are still, thank God, above the sod,” drawled