Page - 154 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

“But I’m getting pretty big now,” I protested. Then mother turned her face right round to me and said: “It’s just you, my Peter, it’s just you about whom I’m most anxious. You see, you appear to me quite different from other boys of your age. You’ve no real mind for work, that is to say, you have the mind, perhaps, but you take no honest pleasure in it. Yes, yes, deny it as you may, I know you, you don’t care about farming, you hang around and you want something else, you yourself don’t know what. You see, that’s really the worst of it. And so I should like to pray to God and ask Him to leave me with you, so that I can keep a hold on you until I know what’s to become of you.” “Will you be a carrier? How would that suit you, boy?” cried Steve, over his shoulder, to us in the cart. “A good carrier, who takes poor people driving: I wouldn’t mind that,” remarked my mother, whereupon Steve gave a little smirk. The road led straight up and became stony; Steve and I got down and walked beside the creaking cart. The sun had become hot. It was a tiring drive and we only got on slowly. When we were up at the top and driving along through the almost level, but dark woods of the Fischbacheralpe, we no longer heard the cart-wheels, for the ground was thickly strewn with pine-needles, save that, every now and again, the wheels struck against a root. The birds had become silent, for the hot day lay over the tree-tops. My mother had fallen asleep. I looked at her pale face and thought: “Tom of the Footpath is sure to know of something that will do her good; it’s a lucky thing that we were able to drive to Tom of the Footpath.” “Like a bit of bread, Peter?” asked Steve. “I should be glad of a bit.” And, when I got my piece of bread, there was a piece of bacon on it; and now my distress began. I held the thing in my hand for ever so long and looked at it and looked up at my mother: she was asleep. I did not want to offend Steve, who meant so well by us. As, however, I could not leave the thing as it was, lying in my hand, I at last began, first quite softly, but gradually louder, to call out: “Steve!” “What do you want?” he asked, at last. “I should only like to beg as a favour,” I said, quite despondently, “just as a