The forestman of Vimpek; his neighbors, his doings, and his reflections. A Bohemian forest village story

Preface

The desire of the author will have been more than fulfilled if this story-sketch of the daily life of a Bohemian village on the edge of the forest shall so interest readers in the simple, toil-filled, unambitious existence of an honest, earnest, and very human community as to lead them to wish to know more of a much misunderstood people, which through years of struggle and suffering and hardships still holds the Bohemian name dear and the Bohemian fatherland in veneration.

“ In Bohemia,” as the world understands the much abused phrase, means the roving, restless life of an adventurer in art or literature, of irregular habits, unconventional tastes, and no morals to speak of. “ In Bohemia,” as the Bohemian knows it, is home — the dearest word in any language ; and, as such, “The Forestman of Vimpek ” here seeks to show it to the world.

F. P. K.

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Chapter I

I T is even as I have told you, friend : I am no story-maker — only Wenzel, the forestman of Vimpek. Such as I am, were my fathers for generations — sons of the Bohemian forests and lovers of their fatherland.

Even my name, Wenzel, or what you far American folk would call Lawrence, is, as are all our laws and methods, German, which, except among ourselves, we talk because we must. My true Bohemian name is Vavrinec. It was my father’s name when he, as was his father, and as am I, his son, even as I have told you, forestman to the quality, the merciful Counts of Vimpek.

Alas ! the merciful counts are, to-day, counts but in name. Long years ago, rank, titles, honors, even their time-worn and often overthrown castles, fell away from them in the terrible battles of those 7 wars when Hussite and Catholic fought for the mastery of our forests and our fields.

Ruins ! yes, I believe you ; we have them in plenty. There are, so Prokop the shoemaker tells me, eight hundred such ruined castles in Bohemia, and each one, so he says, has an even more tragic history than our own modest little castle of Vimpek, which you, yesterday, called but a farmhouse. It is, indeed, like a farmhouse, friend, because, long since, its towers and walls were again and again thrown down ; but, look you, those lower walls are still, as in the old days, thick enough and strong enough to withstand a siege, unless, indeed, you might batter them down with one of these mighty war-guns of to-day, of which you tell me.

Yes, my fathers were forestmen to the quality, the merciful Counts of Vimpek ; they were inspectors of woodlands and stewards of the trees in Sumava, that part of our fatherland which you would call the Bohemian Forest.

In this cottage of mine in the forest my fathers lived. Here, in this cottage, I was born, and here, God willing, I will die, surrounded by the great forest that has been my world these forty years.

Ah! the mighty trees that we have cut and sent floating on their downward way to Hamburg to build the ships that sail all about the world. Ah ! the lads and lassies I have seen leave our forest and our village, and, like the great trees, float off into the ocean of the world. Where are they all to-day ? Do they ever think, I wonder, of this old forest of their childhood, dark even in summer ? Perhaps their summers, too, have been as dark. Do they ever recall the many tales, those legends of the forestland, that used to make them cross themselves for protection as they hurried past some fatal or haunted place ?

As for me, ever since I could remember at all, I have remembered the branches of my forest waving above me, and the sweet smell of the pines and firs, burnt out of them by the sun. As a boy, I sat and watched the great ant-hills alive with their busy people ; as a man, I have waged constant war with Jacob, as I find him wandering in the forest, sack on shoulder and hoe in hand ; for Jacob, so you must know, instead of working like the rest of us, digs up ants’ eggs and sells them in the town to the old ladies who keep birds. Jacob, too, steals my best mushrooms very early in the morning, before I am up. So I have to keep an eye on Jacob.

I know all the dangerous places in the forest — such a one as where the moss grows greenest, but io The Forestman of Vimpek

upon which, if one but step, he sinks and is lost in the morass. And I know, too, all the hundreds of narrow paths and by-paths that lead through or out from our own forest to those of other towns and villages and merciful counts. Let other people wander all over the world as they choose, I am still content with my forest, — with the beautiful glory of the summer when the ground is covered with partridge berries and wild strawberries and dozens of other woodland plants and flowers ; with the sadness of early autumn when the leaves begin to fall and the fading flowers are almost hidden by the heaps of dead leaves ; with the terrible beauty of the long winter, when the trees are all asleep, covered with their thick blankets of snow or hung with icicles that gleam like diamonds in the sun, or even when the wind, like some wrathful fiend, rages in awful storms, and stout trees are snapped and broken like twigs. Yes, to me, my forest is beautiful and full of interest, whatever the season and wherever the sun may ride.

I live alone in my cottage in the forest, with a dear old aunt, a pointer pup, and two cats. But almost every day or two I like to go down to our village for gossip or for news, or perhaps to bring something needed in our cottage by my aunt or by myself.

ii

Our village is on the edge of the forest; like many another near the Bavarian boundary it has, you may say, a hundred cottages ; some are clustered together near the church and schoolhouse, some straggle off by themselves up and down the road, or away from it quite beyond the pfarrer’s house, where many go for advice ; for the pfarrer is what you would call, I suppose, our village priest or pastor.

There are no stores in our village, or what you may think of as stores ; but there is a smith and a shoemaker and a tailor, so, you see, we have all a man can need ; for our villagers are either farmers or workers in the forest, where they cut wood all the year round or makes things of wood when, in the winter, the cold and snow keep them close at home. Many wooden shoes are made in our forest, though our own people do not wear them. They wear what we call “nejschle” — that is shoes made with wooden soles and leather toe-tips. No wooden shoes for us !

Our cottages — if you would call them cottages — are, as you see, built partly of stone with long beams of wood, and they are thatched with straw or shingles. True, we have a few farmers who have red tiles on their roofs, but they are almost “ quality.” Most of us, however, are poor indeed, and get our living, ever, from the forest that so nearly covers up our village, where, still, we do not forget to keep up the good old Bohemian customs.

In the winter every one is at home, making wooden shoes and shovels, rakes, or other wares of wood, or, perhaps, weaving for the children cradles and carriages, or the useful willow baskets. But when the spring comes, and the snow melts on the mountains, and the grass begins to shoot up and the birds to sing, then most of our able-bodied men go away to find work over the borders ; even into Austria and Germany they go, leaving behind them the women and children, and the old men to care for the fields, or for the cow and the goat. Few strangers ever disturb our mountain and forest solitude, for we live hidden from the world, as you see, in a region almost unknown to tourists and travellers. Our people still use the dear old Bohemian speech, and wear homespun suits of undyed sheep’s wool and cotton ; in the winter they pull their woollen stockings outside their trousers’ legs to keep out the cold and snow ; but in the summer they walk about in “nejschls.”

Little news of the outside world ever reaches our silent valley. Newspapers and books are scarce, and the readers are limited to a few people. The pfarrer, the schoolmaster, and Prokop Farka

*3 the shoemaker represent the learned mind among us ; but it is still remembered in every cottage that Barbara Mlejnek, the wife of Farmer Mlejnek, on the hill road yonder, subscribed regularly to the Agriculturist , not so very long ago, and once won what the pfarrer called a great literary triumph.

Did you never hear of Barbara Mlejnek in America ? Then let me tell you about her, for a story worth telling she truly had.

Chapter II

I T was a pleasant place to look at — the home of Farmer Mlejnek; an old Bohemian farmhouse, with its tiny windows incased in green hopvines. The small strip of garden before the house had also about it a cheerful, though unusual look. For there, beside its old-time flowers,

pinks, sweet-williams, and a pot of the muchprized myrtle, you might see a few scarlet geraniums, and, wonder of wonders ! little monthly roses, scattered between the salads and cucumbers, the onions and beets, that make up the kitchen garden of a Bohemian farmer.

Whenever I went inside I was always struck with the unusual look even of the common things within the home. True, there was the big green-tiled oven, the white pine table, and the wooden chairs that one meets everywhere. Near the door were nailed the crucifix carved in wood, and the bowl of holy water, formed like a little cross ; there, too, was the picture of our Saviour, 14

*5 and his Blessed Mother, clad in red and blue, and both with yellow hearts ; that of Mary the Mother was pierced with arrows, but our Saviour’s heart had in it a deep wound that trickled blood.

But what always seemed to me .unusual was to see, beside these masterworks that are to be bought at any market, other “works of art” tacked on the whitewashed walls — gaudy colored prints of extraordinary fruits and flowers, vegetables and grain.

In this farmhouse kitchen, one hot July afternoon, a woman was scrubbing a churn with cold water. She was of middle age and was dressed as the wives of Bohemian farmers usually are, in a dark blue linen skirt and jacket, red and white striped apron, and flowered handkerchief tied under her chin. There was nothing remarkable in all this, nor in the rather pale irregular face, with the dark blue eyes and tawny hair, so common in Bohemia. But what was unusual was the look of habitual sadness in the woman’s face ; for a sad face is by no means common to Slavonian peasants, even when things are not going well with them, and in the harvest time it is never seen.

She did not sing at her work as many do, but she scrubbed on, and finally went out and pumped water upon the churn until it was as cold as she could make it ; then she took the heavy thing down into the cellar, and began churning, turning the handle with an absent look. Even when she was finished, and was kneading the golden butter in a large tub of water, there was no such look of pleasure as peasant women generally wear when they are preparing anything to sell. Calmly she went on with her work, patting the butter into long rolls of about a pound each, and then placing these rolls in a long brown delf dish, after which she covered it up until she should go to market next day.

Then she went out and fed the pigs and chickens, giving them all a liberal amount of buttermilk, but apparently taking very little pleasure in her work. After that, from where they had been drying on a line, she carried in a lot of shirts of all sizes and colors, and began to fold and sprinkle them, ready to iron.

Before she had quite finished, a strapping lad and a buxom girl came in, and, without speaking, went to the brown delf jug ; the lad took it first, and drank a long draught ; then, wiping his mouth with his hand, he handed it to his sister.

“ That was a thirst, little mother ! ” he said ; “ the dust lies inch-thick on the roads.”

“I suppose it does, Peter; and is the rye all cut?”

*7

“ Not yet, but they will finish it to-day. Annie and I are to cut the clover for the cows,” and they both went out of the kitchen.

The woman did not raise her eyes, but went on diligently ironing the clothes. When they were finished, and the sun was going down, she opened the front door, and, taking an old battered tin watering pot, went out to water the vegetables and flowers. Every now and then she straightened her bent back, and looked over the low fence into the village ; there was nothing to be seen, however, save the cows coming home, and the tow-headed children playing by the road. She wearily went back through the kitchen to the pump for more water. The ducks and geese had come home, in the meanwhile, and she pumped the trough full, so that they might drink, while she counted them.

While she was thus occupied, a man in dusty clothes, with an old leather bag slung over his shoulder, came up to her.

“Good afternoon, mistress mother,” he said. “ Here is your paper.” He handed her a long thin pamphlet. People thought Farmer Mlejnek rather soft that he should take a paper ; but then his wife, poor thing, they remembered, had been a teacher’s daughter.

The woman went into the house for the kreuzer, c as Bohemian peasants never carry money about them, and one has to pay a kreuzer to the postman for every letter or paper. When he had gone away, she took the pamphlet into the kitchen and opened it slowly. Her fingers were stiff and hard with work, but there was a real tenderness in the way she smoothed out the paper, cover and pages. The first page had a gaudy print of summer flowers. She looked at it long, and with evident admiration ; then she slowly read the titles of the articles : “ The Cultivation of the Strawberry in Bohemia f “A New Variety of Pigs ,” “Remarks on Harvest Work ,” by an “ Eminent Agriculturist,” and so on. Lastly there was, in the Woman’s Department : “ The Best Way to make Cabbage Soup,” “ How to darn Homemade Linen.” Then followed a notice that the prize for “ The best way to make butter ” had not yet been awarded, but that “the name would be published in the next number, and the prize of twenty florins forwarded to the successful candidate.”

The crack of a whip was heard, and the farmer’s wife, with a hurried look at the clock, hid the pamphlet carefully at the bottom of a drawer, and went out to help her son and daughter feed the cows. She had seen them near the house with the cart-load of clover, and there would hardly be time l 9 to feed and milk the cows before the men came home for supper. When the cows were fed and milked she returned to the house and cooked the sour milk soup, and placed the brown delf dishes on the table, with the tin spoons.

Hardly had she finished, when her husband and the men came home. They were tawny-haired and blue-eyed, tall and stalwart, like most Bohemians, and, in spite of the heat, they ate their soup and rye bread with relish. Then a troop of children came in, four, besides the lad and girl who had been sent for the clover. The mother filled their plates with the sour soup, and cut for them large slices from the black rye bread. They crossed themselves and ate in silence, too tired to talk much ; then, after washing themselves at the pump, and crossing themselves devoutly before the crucifix, they went to bed.

It was scarcely three o’clock in the morning when the farmer’s wife got up, to again cook the soup, and help her daughter milk the cows, feed the pigs and other live stock. Then the children had to be looked after, and provided with bread ; those who were too little to work went to school ; but the others went off to herd the sheep and geese, while the oldest ones went to the rye field with their father.

Then there was a little peace, and the farmer’s wife sat down wearily on a hard bench, and stared stupidly out of the window. All at once a look of pleasure came into her face, and she went to the drawer and took out the magazine. She spread the leaves open on the pine table, and began to read eagerly about the strawberries ; she became so absorbed in her reading that when the clock struck she started guiltily, and, putting the book away with a sigh, she began to knead into bread the black rye dough that she had set in the morning.

Farmer Mlejnek’s wife was the only child of a poor village schoolmaster. Her father had lived till she was nearly fourteen years old, then, after a few months’ illness, he died. It had been the dream of his life to let Barbara study so that she could some day also be a teacher, and with that object he had taught her well and thoroughly, the more that the girl was diligent and thoughtful beyond her years, and devoted to her reading. His early death had made all that impossible. Barbara and her mother went to live with her grandfather, who was a well-to-do farmer, and had been opposed to his daughter’s marriage with the teacher. Work, everlasting work, had been her portion since then, and she had labored well and patiently, but with a fierce struggle in her heart. When she was eighteen her mother and grandfather married her, making all the arrangements, as is usual. The grandfather was old ; he wished for a strong lad to help him on the farm, and the mother wanted to see her daughter provided for. So they proposed a stalwart youth, a neighbor’s son, and Barbara did not oppose them. She had seen the young man, and had even danced a few times with him on the saints’ days. She liked him, as well as any other — why not marry him ? There was very little love on either side : he wanted a wife, and to marry “ into a farm,” as it is called over here ; her grandfather wanted a strong lad with a little money. What could be more satisfactory ? The relations settled it among themselves, and at eighteen Barbara was married with all the pomp and clatter that attends such ceremonies in Bohemia. Since then they had all lived together as well as most people in their class of life generally do. The children came apace ; then the grandfather died ; a few years after Barbara’s mother followed him ; then more children were born, and the mother had still more to do. But somehow, in spite of her humdrum experiences, she managed to keep up with the world in some things, and she was different from the other farmers’ wives in the village.

She did not care to go gossiping on Sunday afternoon, and although she was devout in the outward forms, she seldom went on pilgrimages or to visit shrines in the neighborhood, — the chief relaxations and pleasures of the farmers’ wives in Catholic countries. Although she was friendly with every one, she kept herself to herself, and her neighbors, feeling this, said she “ thought a deal too much of herself, even if her father had been a teacher.” Altogether she was not liked, and even her husband had a dim feeling that he would have done better to have married a farmer’s daughter. He was a stupid boor of a fellow, and did not quite understand why it would have been better. The household work was well done, the kitchen was cleaner than those of his neighbors, so, too, were the children ; there was nothing to complain of : but still, now and then, when he sat stupidly smoking his pipe, there would cross his dull brain a thought of that bouncing Fanny with whom he had danced so many times, before he had wedded Barbara ; she was a widow now, and what a handsome widow ! He had so little in common with his wife. She cared nothing for dancing on the saints’ days ; she preferred to sit and knit in the garden. And when the pfarrer had once paid them a visit, and almost insisted that they should subscribe to a

2 3 magazine, that one of his relations was giving out, she had actually seemed glad. Of course they had to take the paper since his reverence insisted ; all the world knew that. But why any one should appear pleased at throwing away two florins a year Farmer Mlejnek could not understand.

Of course, he never looked into the thing ; reading, indeed, was not his strong point, and he had to look long at a word before its meaning entered his head ; besides that, he hated the sight of it, for it had robbed him of two florins that he might have spent in beer ; but when his wife cut out the gaudy prints, and nailed them about the kitchen, he felt some sort of satisfaction.

When any of the neighbors admired them, he would say proudly : “ I am a subscriber to the Agriculturist ; there is no one but me in the village that takes it. It tells the women folks how to cook, and has a deal of interesting reading.” He always enjoyed the look of respect that his listeners cast upon him, though he never made the slightest effort to read a line in the magazine from year’s end to year’s end. The only reader of the paper was the farmer’s wife, and she read it in secret, at odd moments when no one was near. She knew it was a weakness, and she hid it even from her own children, who were strong, and had always hated to go to school. They were none of them sympathetic toward her, for they took more after their father and the ideas of the community in which they lived.

She had even done worse than read it! In a moment of weakness, or madness, — which it was that possessed her she never quite knew, — she had gone so far as to write an article, and send it to the paper. It had cost her much time and trouble. Even now she felt a chill run down her backbone, when she thought how easily she might have been caught. The paper had announced that the editor wished an article from a farmer’s wife, on ‘‘the best way to make butter in Bohemia” and that they would give twenty florins for the best article. There were also a few remarks as to how the article must be written — “ distinctly and only on one side of the paper.”

A few days after she stole away into the empty loft, and there, with much trepidation of mind, she wrote an article on the desired topic. She used some sheets of paper torn from the copy-book of one of her sons, resting them on a bit of board and using the stumpy pencil with which she kept her milk account.

She had no hope whatever of winning the prize ; indeed, she had' a vague notion that, somehow, it

2 5 was a newspaper swindle. Who in the world, in their right senses, would give twenty florins for a bit of writing that was not done by a lawyer or public notary ? She did not know exactly how editors arranged such matters ; doubtless they wanted to get as many receipts as possible for nothing, and, when they had secured them, they would give no one the prize, or would send it to some one of their relations ; naturally, that was the explanation. But Barbara liked to make butter; for, while she was at work, she could think of her customers in the nearest town. There was the judge’s wife, who always bought some from her; ah ! what a great man the judge was ! She could fancy him in the morning sitting down to his Vienna rolls, and her butter, while he meditated over his court business. Then the judge’s lady ! Barbara had seen her once, in her best silk dress, in an open carriage, and how beautiful she had looked. Oh! it was a privilege to sell butter to such people. Then there was the doctor; and, sometimes, the apothecary bought from her, while the hotel-keeper’s wife and the grocer could almost always be depended upon.

With much trepidation of mind she had written her article ; not being in the habit of writing at all, she had drafted it first with the pencil, then she had laboriously copied it on some sheets of foolscap that she had bought in the next town out of her egg money. It had taken her nearly three weeks to do all this, because it had to be done secretly. Ah, Blessed Virgin, how they would laugh at her, if they only knew what she had done !

What possessed her to write in the first place she never knew. It was the prompting of the evil one, she thought wearily, after it was all done, and the letter had been sent. After that, she thought no more of the subject ; indeed she had no time to do so, for the harvest time was near and she did not have a moment to herself. The rye and the wheat had been brought home safely, she said to herself one hot day, as she wiped the perspiration from her face; there was only the barley and oats to come, and then all would be well ; but then the barley was their principal crop.

Everything went well, however, till the afternoon on which they began to cart the barley home. Dark clouds gathered in the sky, and flashes of lightning showed that a thunder-storm was at hand. A cart was in the barn being unloaded, and Barbara ran to help the men. Her woodensoled Bohemian shoes were clumsy, and the barley was dry and slippery as ice ; hardly had she climbed to the top of the load, when she slipped, and fell heavily, striking her head and back violently against the wooden beam that divides the Bohemian threshing-floor from the barn.

The hired man laughed loudly ; but when he saw that the woman did not get up, he slipped down, and raised her, calling out to her son and daughter, “Your mother’s hurt herself,” he said; “come and take her home.” Her children ran to her assistance, and between them she hobbled to the kitchen and sat down.

“Go help unload the barley; it will be made yellow if it rains,” she said, writhing with pain ; “ I shall be all right again in a little while.” They did as she told them, but, when they came in, hours after, she still was sitting crouched on the chair as when they left her.

“ I cannot walk — perhaps I had better lie down a while,” she said. “ Annie can cook the soup for to-night.” Then with their assistance she crept to bed. All night she lay in a stupor, and next morning her husband went for the “ Wise Woman ” of the village. She was very old, and said to be very wise.

“ I can do nothing for her,” she said. But there were others who thought they could, and, as the days went by, all the neighbors came in; some advised this, some that ; but time passed and she grew no better. And in Bohemia no one thinks of calling in a doctor, until everybody has tried his skill.

At last the farmer made up his mind to go for the doctor. “It may cost a florin, and perhaps the medicine may cost another,” he said sulkily, to his children. “ But it is time this fooling should end ; who can lie in bed in the harvest time, I should like to know.”

The doctor came. He was a cheery man. He examined Barbara carefully, then he said, “ Keep up a brave heart, good mother, you will soon be well. I will send you medicine that will ease your pain, and put you to sleep. But do you, like a good Christian, confess and receive the sacrament. Sickness is a nice time to repent of our sins and start afresh.”