Part 33 (1/2)

But the child silently came nearer and looked at her constantly with its listless eyes.

”Are you the dikemaster's child?” Trin Jans asked, and as the child lowered its head as if nodding, she went on: ”Then sit down here on my stool. Once it was an Angora cat--so big! But your father killed it. If it were still alive, you could ride on it.”

Wienke silently turned her eyes to the white fur; then she knelt down and began to stroke it with her little hands as children are wont to do with live cats or dogs. ”Poor cat!” she said then and went on with her caresses.

”Well,” cried the old woman after a while, ”now that's enough; and you can sit on him to-day, too. Perhaps your father only killed him for that.” Then she lifted up the child by both arms and set it down roughly on the stool. But when it remained sitting there, silent and motionless and only kept looking at her, she began to shake her head.

”Thou art punis.h.i.+ng him, Lord G.o.d! Yes, yes, Thou art punis.h.i.+ng him!”

she murmured. But pity for the child seemed to come over her; she stroked its scanty hair with her bony hand, and the eyes of the little girl seemed to show that this did her good.

From now on Wienke came every day to the old woman in her room. Soon she sat down on the Angora stool of her own accord, and Trin Jans put small bits of meat and bread which she always saved into the child's little hands, and made her throw them on the floor. Then the gull shot out of some corner with screams and wings spread out and pounced on the morsels. At first the great, rus.h.i.+ng bird frightened the child and made her cry out; but soon it all happened like a game learned by heart, and her little head only had to appear in the opening of the door, when the bird rushed up to her and perched on her head and shoulders, until the old woman helped and the feeding could begin. Trin Jans who before never could bear to have anyone merely stretch out a hand after her ”Claus,” now patiently watched the child gradually win over the bird altogether. It willingly let itself be chased, and she carried it about in her ap.r.o.n. Then, when on the hill the little yellow dog would jump round her and up at the bird in jealousy, she would cry: ”Don't, don't, Pearl!” and lift the gull with her little arms so high, that the bird, after setting itself free, would fly screaming over the hill, and now the dog, by jumping and caressing, would try to win its place in her arms.

When by chance Hauke's or Elke's eyes fell upon this strange four-leaved clover which, as it were, was held to the same stem only by the same defect--then they cast tender glances upon the child. But when they turned away, there remained on their faces only the pain that each carried away alone, for the saving word had not yet been spoken between them. One summer morning, when Wienke sat with the old woman and the two animals on the big stones in front of the barn door, both her parents pa.s.sed by--the dikemaster leading his white horse, with the reins flung over his arm. He wanted to ride on the dike and had got his horse out of the fens himself; on the hill his wife had taken his arm.

The sun shone down warmly; it was almost sultry, and now and then a gust of wind blew from the south-southeast. It seemed that her seat was uncomfortable for the child. ”Wienke wants to go too!” she cried, shook the gull out of her lap and seized her father's hand.

”Then come!” said he.

But Elke cried: ”In this wind? She'll fly away from you!”

”I'll hold her all right; and to-day we have warm air and jolly water; then she can see it dance!”

Then Elke ran into the house and got a shawl and a little cap for her child. ”But a storm is brewing,” she said; ”hurry and get on your way and be back soon.”

Hauke laughed: ”That shan't get us!” and lifted the child to his saddle. Elke stayed a while on the hill and, shading her eyes with her hand, watched the two trot down the road and toward the dike. Trin Jan sat on the stone and murmured incomprehensible things with her lips.

The child lay motionless in her father's arms. It seemed as if it breathed with difficulty under the pressure of the sultry air. He bent down his head to her: ”Well, Wienke?” he asked.

The child looked at him a while: ”Father,” she said, ”you can do that.

Can't you do everything?”

”What is it that I can do, Wienke?”

But she was silent; she seemed not to have understood her own question.

It was high tide. When they came to the dike, the reflection of the sun on the wide water flashed into her eyes, a whirlwind made the waves eddy and raised them high up, ever new waves came and beat splas.h.i.+ng against the beach. Then, in her fear, her little hands clung round her father's fist which was holding the reins, so that the horse made a bound to the side. The pale-blue eyes looked up at Hauke in confused fright: ”The water, father! The water!” she cried.

But he gently freed his hand and said: ”Be calm, child; you are with your father; the water won't hurt you!”

She pushed her pale blond hair from her forehead and again dared to look upon the sea. ”It won't hurt me,” she said trembling; ”no, tell it not to hurt us; you can do that, and then it won't do anything to us!”

”I can't do that, child,” replied Hauke seriously; ”but the dike on which we are riding shelters us, and this your father has thought out and has had built.”

Her eyes turned upon him as if she did not quite understand that; then she buried her strikingly small head in the wide folds of her father's coat.

”Why are you hiding, Wienke?” he whispered to her; ”are you afraid?”

And a trembling little voice rose out of the folds of the coat: ”Wienke would rather not look; but you can do everything, can't you, father?”

Distant thunder was rolling against the wind. ”Hoho!” cried Hauke, ”there it comes!” And he turned his horse round to ride back. ”Now we want to go home to mother!”

The child drew a deep breath; but not until they had reached the hill and the house did she raise her little head from her father's breast.