Patricia St John Series

by Patricia St John

  “I think you are sure to get the prize, Annette,” said several of her friends. “It is harder to do a pattern like that than to make lace like Marcelle. Everyone says so.”

  Annette was hopeful, too. She wanted so badly to win that prize. It would make up a little for getting such bad marks in math. And how pleased and proud Grandmother, Papa, and Dani would be!

  However, unlike Lucien, she had very little time, for her after-school hours were always busy. And now the hay-making holidays had begun, and all the children worked in the fields from dawn to dusk, side by side with the adults.

  A great deal of friendly arranging had to be done at hay-making time. A neighbor who had grown-up sons to help on his farm went up to the high pastures to look after the Burnier cows, while Monsieur Burnier came down to cut the hay on his own slopes. After he had finished, he always went over and cut the hay in the little meadow that belonged to the Morels, because Madame Morel was a widow and Lucien was not yet old enough to swing a scythe.

  There were no tractors or mowers on those steep mountain slopes, only great sweeping scythes that mowed the grass in curved bundles all up and down the field. Behind the man with the scythe came the women and children with wooden rakes, pulling the bundles into tidy heaps. Even the tiny children had tiny rakes, for as soon as a child could walk steadily on his legs he had to help with the hay making.

  Papa and Annette had to work hard, for they had a large, sloping pasture and could not afford to pay anyone to help them. They got up at sunrise each morning in the cool, clear dawn to start their work. Later on in the day Grandmother and Dani joined them—Grandmother working slowly and painfully, and Dani doing no work at all because he couldn’t manage a rake and a crutch at the same time. Instead he jumped like a kangaroo among the bundles of cut hay or buried himself under the large piles, and when he was tired out he lay flat on his back in the sun and fell asleep.

  Monsieur Burnier cut his own meadow first and then went off to cut the Morels’ field, leaving his family to gather in his own bundles of hay. Madame Morel had been rather worried this year that Monsieur Burnier would not want to help her because of Lucien causing Dani’s accident. But she need not have worried, for she woke one morning and from her window she saw him hard at work, his brown body stripped to the waist, swinging the scythe. He was not the sort of man to take revenge.

  “Hurry, Lucien,” she called, “Monsieur Burnier is already mowing in the meadow. Run out and start raking in the hay.”

  Lucien shuffled off to the field feeling rather embarrassed. He said good morning to Monsieur Burnier, with his eyes fixed on the ground. He hated having to work with the man he had wronged, and kept as far away as possible. Monsieur Burnier had no wish to talk to him either. It was one thing to mow a neighbor’s meadow, but quite another to chat with the boy who had injured his little son.

  Annette arrived at midday with her father’s lunch wrapped up in a cloth. She took no notice of Lucien, and when he saw her coming he slunk away into the house.

  It took Monsieur Burnier three days to mow the Morel meadow, and the third day was the last day of the holidays. Lucien and his mother and sister were working hard to clear the field before Lucien went back to school. They were all in the meadow when Annette appeared, as usual, with her father’s dinner. She was in a hurry, for the next day the children had to turn in their entries for the hand-work competition, and Annette still had to put the finishing touches to her sweater.

  “I do wonder if I shall get that prize,” said Annette to herself. “I want it so much. But even if I don’t, Dani will look sweet in the sweater.”

  The meadow lay at the back of the house, and on her way home Annette passed by the front. It was a very hot day, and Annette was thirsty. The door leading from the little balcony into the kitchen stood invitingly open.

  “I will go in and have a drink from the tap,” thought Annette, climbing the balcony steps. And indeed there was no harm in that. Before the accident Annette had run in and out of the Morel kitchen as though it was her own.

  When she reached the top of the steps she suddenly stopped dead and stood quite still, staring and staring.

  There was a little table set against the outer side of the balcony with some carving tools and chips of wood on it. Amidst the chips was the figure of a little horse at full gallop, with waving mane and delicate hooves.

  Annette stood for five whole minutes gazing at the little creature. Of course she realized that it was Lucien’s entry for the handwork competition, and the deceitful boy had never even told anyone that he was entering, or that he knew how to carve at all.

  It was almost perfect, even Annette’s jealous eyes could see that. If he turned it in, he would win the prize easily. No one else’s entry would be nearly as good. And when he won the prize, everybody would begin to admire his work and perhaps they would begin to like him for it. Perhaps they would even begin to forget that he had injured Dani.

  And if Lucien won the prize, he would be happy. He would walk up to receive it with his head in the air, and to see Lucien looking happy would be more than Annette could bear. Why should he be happy? He deserved never to be happy again. He would not be happy if she could help it. She felt she had arrived just at the right time.

  The table stood on the level with the balcony railings, and a gust of wind fluttered the shavings of wood. A stronger gust of wind could easily blow the light little model over. No one would ever suspect anything else when they found the little horse smashed and trampled in the mud below.

  Annette put out her hand and pushed it over. It fell onto the stones with a little crack, and Annette bounded down the steps and stamped on it. Anyone could accidentally tread on something that had blown over the balcony railing.

  So Lucien’s horse lay in splinters among the cobblestones, and Annette walked slowly home.

  But somehow the brightness had gone out of the day, and the world no longer looked quite as beautiful as before.

  It was not long before she came in sight of her own chalet, and as she turned the corner, Dani saw her and gave a loud welcoming shout. Something very, very exciting had happened, and if he had been able to he would have raced to meet her. But, being on crutches, he hobbled up the hill as fast as he possibly could.

  “’Nette, ’Nette,” shouted Dani, his eyes shining, “I think there’s been some fairies in the woodpile. I made a little house down by the logs and I found a tiny little elephant with a long trunk, and then I looked again and I found a camel with a hump, and a rabbit with long ears, and cows and goats and tigers and a giraffe with ever such a long neck. Oh, ’Nette, come and look at them. They are so beautiful, and no one but the fairies could have put them down beside the woodpile, could they?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Annette, and her voice sounded quite cross. Dani looked up at her in astonishment. She didn’t seem at all pleased about his news, and it was almost the most wonderful thing that had happened to him since he had found Klaus in his slipper on Christmas morning.

  However, when she saw them she was sure to be pleased. She didn’t yet know how beautiful they were. He hopped bravely along, rather out of breath because Annette was walking faster than she usually did when he was beside her.

  He dragged her to the woodpile and dived behind it, reappearing with the procession of carved animals arranged on a flat log. He looked anxiously at her, but to his great disappointment there was no sign of surprise or pleasure in her face.

  “I expect some other child dropped them, Dani,” she said crossly, “and anyhow it’s nothing to make such a fuss about. They are not all that wonderful. And you’re too big to believe in fairies.”

  She turned away and went up the steps, hating herself. She had been unkind to Dani and spoiled all his happiness. How could she have spoken to him like that? What had happened to her?

  But deep down inside she knew quite well what had happened to her. She had done a mean, deceitful thing, and her heart was heavy and dark at the thoug
ht of it. All the light and joy seemed to have gone out of life.

  And now she could never get rid of it or undo it. She ran upstairs to her bedroom and, flinging herself on the bed, she burst into tears.

  13

  The Old Man’s Story

  Lucien ran home from the fields with a light heart that evening. He had worked hard, and his body was tired, but his little horse was waiting for him. Tomorrow he would carry it to school and everyone would know that he could carve.

  Up the steps he bounded, and then stopped dead. His horse was gone. Only the tools and the wood chips lay on the table.

  Perhaps his mother, who had come home earlier, had taken it in. He hurled himself into the house.

  “Mother! Mother,” he cried, “where have you put my little horse?”

  His mother looked up from the soup pot. “I haven’t seen it,” she replied. “You must have put it somewhere yourself.”

  Lucien began to get seriously alarmed. “I haven’t,” he answered. “I left it on the table, I know I did. Oh, Mother, where can it be? Do help me find it!”

  His mother followed him at once. She was just as keen on Lucien winning the prize as he was himself, and together they hunted high and low. Then Madame Morel had an idea.

  “Perhaps it has fallen over the railing, Lucien,” she said. “Go and search for it down below.”

  So Lucien went down and searched. He did not need to search for long. He found it all too quickly—the muddy, scattered splinters of wood that had once been his horse.

  He gathered them up in his hand and took them to his mother. Her cry of disappointment brought Marie running out, and both of them stood gazing in dismay.

  “It must have been the cat,” said Marie at last. “I am sorry, Lucien. Haven’t you anything else you could take?”

  His mother said nothing except “Oh, Lucien!” But the voice in which she said it meant quite a lot.

  Lucien said nothing at all. He just went indoors and looked at the clock on the wall.

  “I’m going up the mountain,” he said in a voice that tried hard to be steady. “I won’t be home for supper.”

  He ran down the balcony steps and up through the hay field where the bundles of hay looked like waves in a green sea. His mother watched him with a troubled face until he disappeared into the forest. Then she went back and wept a few tears into the soup pot.

  “Everything goes wrong for that boy,” she murmured sadly. “Will he ever succeed in anything?”

  Lucien trudged through the forest, seeing nothing. He took no notice of the little grey squirrels that leapt from branch to branch. He could think of nothing at all but his lost prize and his bitter disappointment—how someone else would get the honor that he deserved, and he would continue to be disliked and despised. He would never get another chance to show them how good he was at carving. No one would be interested unless he won that prize.

  “I wish I could go away,” he thought to himself, “and start all over again where nobody knew me, or knew what I’d done. If I could go and live in another valley, I shouldn’t feel afraid of everybody like I do here.”

  His eyes rested on the Pass that ran between two opposite mountain peaks and led to the big town in the next valley where Marie worked. The sight of that Pass always fascinated him. It seemed like a road leading into another world, away from all that was safe and familiar. Twice he had crossed the Pass himself, in summer, when the sun was shining and the ground was covered with flowers. Now, gazing at it, it suddenly seemed like a door of escape from some prison.

  Lucien saw the old man as he left the wood, long before the old man saw him. He was sitting at his front door, his chin resting on his hands, gazing at the mountains on the other side of the valley. He didn’t look up until Lucien was quite close to him.

  “Ah,” said the old man in his deep, mumbling voice, “it’s you again. Well, how goes the carving, and when are you going to win that prize?”

  “I am not going to win the prize,” replied Lucien sullenly. “My horse is smashed to pieces. I think the cat knocked it over the railing, and someone trampled on it.”

  “I am so sorry,” said the old man gently. “But surely you can enter something else. What about that chamois you carved? That was a good piece of work for a boy.”

  Lucien kicked savagely at the stones on the path. “I did it without proper tools,” he muttered, “and they would think it was my best work. No, if I cannot enter my little horse, I will enter nothing.”

  “But does it matter what they think?” inquired the old man.

  “Yes,” muttered Lucien again.

  “Why?”

  Lucien stared at the ground. What could he answer to that? But the old man was his friend, almost the only friend he had. Maybe he had better try to speak the truth.

  “It matters very much,” he mumbled, “because they all hate me and think I’m stupid and bad. If I won a prize, and they saw I could carve better than any other boy in the valley, they might like me better.”

  “They wouldn’t,” he said simply. “Your skill can never buy you love. It may win you admiration and envy, but never love. If that was what you were after, you have wasted your time.”

  Lucien continued to stare at the ground. Then suddenly he looked up into the old man’s face, his eyes brimming with tears.

  “Then it is all no good,” he whispered. “There seems no way to start again and to make them like me. I suppose they just never will.”

  “If you want them to like you,” replied the old man steadily, “you must make yourself fit to be liked. And you must use your skill in loving and serving them. It will not happen all at once. It may even take years, but you must keep trying.”

  Lucien stared up at the old man. He wondered why this strange old man, who seemed to know so much about the way of love, should shut himself away up here in the mountains and cut himself off from everybody.

  The old man seemed to guess what Lucien was thinking.

  “You wonder why I should talk of loving and serving other people, don’t you?” he asked. “You are right to wonder such a thing. It is a long story, too.”

  “Well,” admitted Lucien, “I was thinking that it must be difficult to love and serve people when you live alone up here and never speak to anyone but me.”

  The old man sat silent for some moments, looking out over the mountain peaks, then said, “I will tell you my story, but remember, it is a secret. I have never told it to another living soul. But you have trusted me, and I will trust you, too.”

  Lucien blushed. Those were good words. Even his disappointment about the prize seemed to matter less. It was better to be trusted than to win prizes.

  “I will start at the beginning,” said the old man simply. “I was an only child, and there was nothing in the world my father would not give me. If ever a child was spoiled, I was.

  “I was a clever boy, and when I grew up I had a good job in a bank. I worked very hard and did well. I fell in love with a girl and married her. God gave us two little sons, and for the first few years of our life together I believe I was a good husband and a good father.

  “But I made some bad friends, who invited me to their homes. They were interested in gambling and they drank a lot of alcohol. I admired them and began to copy their ways. Slowly I began to spend more and more money on strong drink and gambling.

  “I don’t need to tell you much about those years. I was at home less and less, and often came home drunk in the evenings. My little boys grew to dislike me and fear me. My wife was a good woman, and she prayed for me and begged me to stop drinking, but I just couldn’t give it up.

  “We began to lose all our money, and people were starting to talk about me and my bad ways. The bank manager warned me twice, but the third time, when I was found drunk in the streets, he sacked me. That day I went home sober and told my wife I had lost my job. She simply replied, ‘Then I shall have to go out and work. We can’t fail our boys.’

  “I tried to
find another job, but people knew about me and no one would employ me. I tried to earn money by gambling, but I never had any luck. I lost the little money I had.

  “My wife went out to work every day, as well as looking after the house and our two boys, but she could not earn enough to keep us all. One day she came and told me we owed money to people, and we could not pay them.

  “I was desperate for money to pay our debts and to buy myself more drink. I had not had a good job in the bank for nothing. I knew its ways inside and out, so I decided to commit a robbery.

  “My clever plan worked, but it was not quite clever enough and I was caught. As I could pay nothing back to the bank, I was sent to prison for a very long time.

  “My wife became very ill. She was working too hard, and ate hardly anything so that our boys would have enough food. Three times she came to prison to visit me, looking pale and worn out. Then my elder boy wrote to tell me that she was too ill to come. A few weeks later a policeman took me to her bedside to say good-bye to her. She was dying. They said she died from tuberculosis, but I knew she died of a broken heart, and I had killed her.

  “I remember little about the months that followed. I felt numb and lost. I had only one comfort. All my life I had loved woodcarving, and in my spare hours in the common room in prison they let me have my tools and whittle away at bits of wood. I grew more and more skillful, and a kind prison warden used to take my work and sell it in the town. I earned a little money in that way and saved it up. One day I hoped to have enough to start again.

  “The day came sooner than I expected. I was called to the governor and told that because I had been well behaved, they were letting me out early. I would soon be a free man again.

  “I wandered back to the prisoners’ common room, hardly knowing whether to be pleased or sorry. I supposed I should be glad to leave prison, but where should I go, and how could I start life again? One thing I was sure about: my boys should never see me again or know where I was. They had been adopted by their grandparents, and I knew they were growing up into fine, intelligent boys with good futures ahead of them. I didn’t want them to be connected with my bad name. To them I would be as though I was dead.