“That’s a bad motto you have,” she said. “Remember your mother’s words: Have faith in yourself and the Lord! You aren’t doing that, Rasmus, but you must and shall! Never say ‘What good does it do?’ because then you uproot all possible action.”
She walked with him to his door, and then she left. He didn’t go inside but headed for the old willow tree and sat down on a rock from the toppled milestone.
The wind sighed through the branches of the tree. It was like a song; it was like a story, and Rasmus answered. He spoke aloud, but no one heard except the tree and the sighing wind.
“Such a chill has come over me. It must be time to go to bed. Sleep! Sleep!”
And he went, not towards the house, but towards the pond where he staggered and fell. The rain was pouring down, and the wind was icy cold, but he didn’t notice. When the sun came up and the crows flew over the reeds in the pond, he woke up, half-dead. If he had laid his head where his feet were lying, he would never have gotten up. The green duckweed would have been his shroud.
During the day Johanna came to the tailor’s house. She helped him and got him to the hospital.
“We have known each other since childhood,” she said. “Your mother gave me both food and drink, and I can never pay her back. You’ll get your health back and really live again.”
And the Lord wanted him to live. But both his health and spirits had their ups and downs.
The swallows and starlings came and flew away and came again. Rasmus became old before his time. He sat alone in his house, which fell more and more into disrepair. He was poor, poorer than Johanna now.
“You don’t have faith,” she said, “and if we don’t have the Lord, what do we have then? You should go take Communion,” she said. “You probably haven’t done that since you were confirmed.”
“Yes, but what good does
“If you say and believe that, then let it be. The Lord doesn’t want to see unwilling guests at his table. But just think about your mother and your childhood years. You were a good and pious boy. May I read a hymn for you?”
“What good does it do?” he asked.
“It always comforts me,” she answered.
“Johanna, I guess you’ve become a saint!” And he looked at her with dull, tired eyes.
And Johanna read the hymn, but not from a book. She didn’t have one. She knew the hymn by heart.
“Those were beautiful words,” he said, “but I couldn’t quite follow it. My head is so heavy.”
Rasmus became an old man, but Else, if we can mention her, wasn’t young any longer either. Rasmus never talked about her. She was a grandmother, and had a little talkative granddaughter who was playing with the other children in the village. Rasmus came and leaned on his cane and stood watching the children play. He smiled at them, and old times shone in his memory. Else’s grandchild pointed at him—“Poor Rasmus!” she yelled. The other little girls followed her example and shouted, “Poor Rasmus!” They ran shouting after the old man.
It was a grey, oppressive day and more followed, but after grey and heavy days comes a day of sunshine.
It was a beautiful Whit Sunday. The church was decorated with green birch branches. It smelled like the forest in the church, and the sun shone over the pews. The big candles on the altar were lit, and there was communion. Johanna was among the kneeling, but Rasmus was not among them. Just that morning the Lord had called him, and with God he found mercy and compassion.
Many years have passed since then. The tailor’s house is still standing there, but no one lives there now. It could collapse in the first storm in the night. The pond is overgrown with reeds and bog beans. The wind sighs in the old tree. It’s as if you heard a song. The wind is singing it, and the tree is telling the story. If you don’t understand it, ask old Johanna in the poor house.
She lives there and sings her hymn, the one she sang for Rasmus. She thinks about him and prays to the Lord for him, that faithful soul. She can tell about the times that are past, and the memories that sigh in the old tree.
NOTE
1 Danish neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844).
SHE WAS NO GOOD
THE MAYOR STOOD BY the open window. He was wearing a dress shirt with French cuffs, and a pin in the frilled neck piece. He was very well shaven, had done it himself, but he had nicked himself so that a little piece of newspaper was covering the cut.
“Say you!—Boy!” he shouted.
And the boy was none other than the washerwoman’s son, who was passing by and respectfully took off his cap. The brim was bent so it could go in his pocket. The boy stood there respectfully, as if he were standing before the king, in his simple and clean but well-patched clothes and big wooden shoes.
“You’re a good boy,” said the mayor. “You’re polite. I suppose your mother is washing clothes down by the river. That’s where you’re headed with what you have in your pocket. It’s a sad thing about your mother. How much have you got there?”
“Half a pint,” said the boy in a low, scared voice.
“And she had the same this morning,” said the man.
“No, it was yesterday,” the boy answered.
“Two halves make a whole! She’s no good! It’s a sad thing with that class of people. Tell your mother that she should be ashamed of herself! And don’t you become a drunkard, but you probably will!—Poor child!—go on
