The Grandmother. Божена Немцова
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used to sit in the summer evenings. On the south-eastern side were the stables, sheds, and other outbuildings, and behind them grew shrubbery clear to the dam.
Two roads went past the house: one a wagon road, by which a person could travel up the river to Riesenburg castle, and thence to Red Hura; the other led to the mill and along the river to the nearest village, a short hour's distance. That river is the wild Upa, that flows from the Riesenburg mountains, plunging over rocks and rapids, and wandering about through narrow valleys, till it reaches the level plain, where without any further hindrance it flows into the Elbe.
Its banks are always green, in places precipitous, and often covered with dense shrubbery.
In front of the garden there was a stream of water, across which there was a foot bridge leading to the oven and thedrying house. Inthe fall, when the drying house was full of prunes, apples, and pears, Johnny and Willie were often seen running across the bridge; they were always on the lookout lest Grandmother should see them. That, however, helped them little; for as soon as she entered the drying house, she knew how many prunes were missing. "Johnny, Willie, come here!" she called, "it seems you have been taking some of my prunes?:" "Oh, no!" protested the boys, while the tell-tale color mounted to their faces, "Don't tell any falsehoods; don't you know God hears you!" They remained silent and she knew all. The children wondered how she found out everything, and how she could tell by their noses whether they spoke the truth. They were afraid to deceive her.
When the weather was warm, she took the children to the river to bathe; but she never allowed them to go in deeper than their knees, lest they should be carried away by the force of the current and drowned. Sometimes she sat down with them on the bench from which the servants rinsed the clothes, and allowed them to paddle their feet in the water, and play with the little fishes that darted about in the stream. Dark leaved alders and willows bent down over the water, and the children were fond of breaking off twigs, throwing them into the water, and watching them as they floated farther and farther down the river.
"You must throw the twig well into the current, for if it remains near the bank, its progress will be hindered by every herb and every root," said Grandmother.
Barunka broke off a twig and threw it into the middle of the stream; when she saw that it floated in the middle of the current, she asked:
"How will it be, Grandma, when it comes to the lock? can it go any further then?"
"It can," replied John. "Don't you remember how, the other day, I threw one into the water at the very lock; it turned and turned, and all at once it was under the lock and floated under the trunk, and before I passed the mill-room, it was in the stream and floated down the river."
"And where does it go then?" asked Barunka.
"From the mill it floats to Zlicskem bridge, from the bridge to the channel, from the channel down across the dam around Bavirsky hill to the brewery. Below the rocks it will press its way across rough stones beyond the school-house, where you will go next year. From the school-house it goes to the large bridge thence to Zooli, from Zooli to Jarmirn and then to the Elbe."
"And where will it go then, Grandma?" again asked the little girl.
"It will float far down the Elbe until it reaches the sea."
"Oh, dear, that sea! Where is it and what is it like?"
"Oh, the sea is wide, and far away, a hundred times as far as from here to town," answered Grandmother.
"And what will happen to my twig?" sadly asked the child.
"It will be rocked upon the waves, till they cast it ashore; many people and children will be walking there, and some little boy will pick it up and say: 'Little twig, whence came you, and who cast you into the water? Probably some little girl sitting near the river broke you off, and sent you afloat.' The boy will take the twig home and plant it in his garden. It will grow into a handsome tree, birds will sing in its branches, and it will rejoice."
Barunka heaved a deep sigh. In her interest in Grandmother's story she had forgotten all about her petticoats; they dropped down into the water and had to be wrung out. Just then the gamekeeper came along and seeing her plight laughed at her, calling her a waterman. She shook her head and said: "There is no waterman."
Whenever the gamekeeper passed by, Grandmother called: "Stop in, sir, stop in; our folks are at home." The boys ran, seized him by both hands, and led him to the house. Sometimes he objected, saying that his pheasants were hatching, that he had to see to them, or that he had some other business on hand; but when Mr. and Mrs. Proshek happened to see him, willing or unwilling he was obliged to come in.
Mr. Proshek always had a glass of good wine for any welcome guest, and the gamekeeper belonged to that number. Grandmother brought some bread and salt and whatever else they had, and during the conversation he forgot that his pheasants were hatching. When he recollected himself, he cursed his thoughtlessness, and seizing his gun hastened away. In the yard he missed his dog. "Hector! Hector!" but no Hector appeared. "Where in the deuce is that brute racing?" he scolded. The boys ran out, saying that they would fetch him, that he was somewhere with Sultan and Tyrol.
The gamekeeper sat down upon the bench under the linden to wait until the boys brought his dog. Then he started, but stopped once more and called to Grandmother: "Come up our way, my wife is saving some guinea eggs for you." He knew well the weak points of housewives. Grandmother assented at once. "Give your wife my regards and tell her we will come." Thus they always took leave of each other with some pleasant word.
The gamekeeper used to go, if not every day, certainly every other day past The Old Bleachery. This he did year in and year out.
The other person that one would see every morning at about ten o'clock, on the walk leading to Proshek's house, was the miller. That was his hour to see about the locks. Grandmother used to say that the miller was a good man, but somewhat of a rogue. This was because he was very fond of teasing and cracking jokes at the expense of others. He never laughed himself, but his face was drawn out into a mischievous grin. His eyes from beneath his pendent eyebrows looked cheerily into the world. He was of medium height and thick-set. He wore light-gray trousers the whole year round, at which the children marveled greatly, until one day he told them it was the miller's color. In the winter, he wore a long cloak and heavy boots; in the summer, a grayish blue jacket and slippers. On week days, he wore a low cap trimmed with fleece. In rain or shine his trousers were turned up, and he was never seen without his snuff box. As soon as he was in sight, the children ran to meet him and went with him to the lock. On the way he teased the boys. Sometimes he asked Johnny if he could reckon how much a penny loaf would cost, when flour was two Rhine dollars a bushel. When the boy answered correctly, he would say: "You're a trump! Why, they could appoint you squire to Kramolna!"[1] He would give the boys snuff, and when they sneezed hard, he smiled grimly. Whenever the miller came, Adelka hid behind Grandma's petticoats; she could not yet speak plainly, and he teased her by asking her to repeat after him quickly, three times in succession, "Our gable is of all gables the most gabley." The poor little girl almost cried when she could not say it. To make up for this, he would bring her, sometimes a basket of strawberries, sometimes almonds, or other delicacies, and when he wished to flatter her, he called her "little linnet."
Another person who used to go regularly past The Old Bleachery was Long Moses, the watchman from the castle. He was tall and slender like a pole, with dark sinister looks, and was wont to carry a bag upon his shoulders. Betsy, the housemaid, told the children that he carried disobedient boys in that bag, and from that moment,whenever Long Moses made his appearance, they turned crimson and were as still as mice. Grandmother was angry and forbade the girl to tell any more such stories; but when Vorsa, the other servant, said that Moses was a grabber, that everything that he could reach clung to his fingers, Grandmother did not say anything to that. Indeed, he must have been a bad man, that Moses, and to the children he remained terrible, even if they no longer believed that he carried children in the bag.
In the summer, when the nobility lived in the castle, the children often saw some beautiful princess on horseback, with several lords following in her train. The miller seeing this once remarked to Grandmother: "It appears to