Page - 159 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

when I was home on Saturday nights. “Oh, goodness me, let him have that pleasure: he hasn’t so many!” my mother would say and intercede for me. Then things altered with me. I went into the world. It was hard parting with my mother; but, in a short time, she was able to see that my life had become happier. And, now that happiness had come, envy soon came hobbling along—or was it stupidity? A rumour passed through the forest hills: “So far, it’s all right with Peter; but, as always happens in town, he is sure to fall away from the Christian faith.” And soon the talk grew: “A nice story that! All of a sudden, he finds honest work too hard for him and righteous fare not good enough, goes to town and eats flesh-meat on Our Lady’s day and falls away from the faith.” My mother laughed at first, when she heard that, for she knew her child. But then the thought came to her: suppose it were true after all! Suppose her dear child were forgetting God and going astray! She knew no peace. She went and borrowed clothes from blind Julia and borrowed three florins from a good-natured huckstress and travelled—sick and infirm as she was, leaning with either hand on a stick—to the capital. She wanted to see for herself what was true in people’s talk. She found her child a poor student in a black coat, which he had had given him, and with his hair combed off his forehead. None of this pleased her greatly, it is true; it succeeded, however, in appeasing her. But, in the two days of her stay in town, she saw the mad, frivolous doings on every side, saw the neglect of old customs which she revered and the mocking of things that were sacred to her, and she said to me: “You will never be able to stay among people like those, child; they would drag you down with them and ruin your soul.” “No, mother,” I answered, “a man can think as he wishes; and people can’t take away good thoughts.” She said no more. But, when she returned to the forest hills and heard the talk again, she was more dejected than ever. It was all up now with the homestead. House and farm were sold, made over to the creditors; my brothers and sisters engaged as servants with strange farmers. The destitute parents were given a cottage that, until then, had belonged to the property. My youngest brother, who was not yet able to earn