the mistress of the manor had seen it and recognized little Rasmus, even without his clothes on.
But then came difficult times. The tailor got arthritis in both hands, and it left big knots in his hands. No doctor could help him, not even the wise woman Stine, who did some “doctoring.”
“We mustn’t get discouraged,” said Maren. “It never helps to hang your head! Now that we no longer have father’s hands to help, I must use mine more and better. Little Rasmus can also sew.”
He was already at the table, whistling and singing. He was a happy boy. But he shouldn’t sit there the whole day, his mother said. That would be a shame for a child. He should play and run around too.
The clogmaker’s Johanna was his favorite playmate. She was even poorer than Rasmus. She was not pretty, and she went barefoot. Her clothes hung in tatters because she had no one to mend them, and it didn’t occur to her to do it herself. But she was a child and as happy as a bird in the Lord’s sunshine.
Rasmus and Johanna played by the stone milepost under the big willow tree.
He had big dreams. He wanted to become a fine tailor and live in the city, where there were masters who had ten journeymen working for them. He had heard this from his father. He would be an apprentice there, and then he would become a master tailor. Later Johanna could come and visit him, and if she could cook, she would make food for all of them and have her own room.
Johanna didn’t dare believe it, but Rasmus thought it would happen.
They sat under the old tree, and the wind sighed in the branches and leaves. It was as if the wind sang and the tree told the story.
In autumn every leaf fell from the tree, and rain dripped from the naked branches.
“They’ll grow green again,” said mother Olse.
“What good does it do?” said her husband. “New year—new struggles to survive!”
“The pantry is full,” said his wife. “Thanks to our kind mistress. I am healthy and strong. It’s sinful of us to complain.”
The gentry stayed in their manor in the country through Christmas, but the week after New Year they were going to the city, where they would spend the winter in pleasure and with entertainment. There would be dances, and they were even invited to a party at the Court.
The mistress had ordered two expensive dresses from France. They were of such a fine fabric, cut and assembly that Maren the tailor’s wife had never seen anything so splendid before. She asked the mistress if she could bring her husband up to see the dresses. A village tailor would never see anything like that, she said.
He saw them, but didn’t have a word to say until he got home, and what he said then was only what he always said, “What good does it do?” And this time his words proved to be true.
The gentry went up to town. The dances and partying had started, but in all that magnificence, the old gentleman died, and his wife never did wear the fancy clothes. She was grief-stricken and dressed from head to foot in closely woven, black mourning. There was not so much as a shred of white to be seen. All of the servants were in black, and even the best coach was draped with fine black cloth.
It was a cold frosty night. The snow was shining, and the stars twinkled. From the city the heavy hearse arrived with the body to the manor church, where it would be buried in the family vault. The farm manager and the district council official sat on horseback with torches at the gate to the churchyard. The church was alight, and the pastor stood in the open door of the church and received the body. The coffin was carried up into the chancel, and the entire congregation followed after it. The pastor spoke, and a hymn was sung. The widow was there in the church. She had been driven there in the black draped coach which was black both inside and out, and such a coach had never before been seen in the district.
People talked about the mourning pomp the entire winter. It really was a funeral for the Lord of a manor. “You can see what that man represented,” the people of the district said. “He was nobly born and he was nobly buried.”
“What good does it do?” asked the tailor. “Now he has neither life nor property. At least we have one of them.”
“Don’t talk like that!” said Maren. “He has eternal life in the kingdom of heaven.”
“Who told you that, Maren?” said the tailor. “A dead man is good fertilizer. But this man here was evidently too distinguished to be a boon to the earth. He’s to lie in a vault.”
“Don’t talk so irreverently!” said Maren. “I tell you again: He has eternal life!”
“Who told you that, Maren?” repeated the tailor.
And Maren threw her apron over little Rasmus. He mustn’t hear such talk.
She carried him out to the woodshed and cried.
“Those words you heard over there, little Rasmus, were not your father’s. It was the devil who walked through the room and took your father’s voice. Say the Lord’s Prayer. We’ll both say it!” She folded the child’s hands.
“Now I’m happy again,” she said. “Have faith in yourself and the Lord.”
The year of mourning was over. The widow bore half-mourning clothing, but only joy in her heart. It was rumored that she had a suitor and was already thinking of marriage. Maren knew a little about it, and the pastor knew a bit more.
On Palm Sunday, after the sermon, the banns were to be read for the widow and her fiance. He was a wood carver or a stone carver. They didn’t exactly know the name of his occupation because at that time Thorvaldsen1 and his art weren’t yet household words. The new lord of the manor was not noble, but still a very imposing man. He was someone who was something that no one understood. They said that he carved pictures, was good at his work, and he was young and handsome.
“What good does it do?” said tailor Olse.
On Palm Sunday the marriage banns were announced from the pulpit, followed by hymn singing and Communion. The tailor, his wife, and little Rasmus were in church. The parents took Communion, but Rasmus
