Part 11 (1/2)

They dashed their hands before their eyes and stood still: a golden snake twisted round a tree and all the wood was bright with fire and there came a droning and a rumbling and a banging as of stones together and a hundred thousand branches burst asunder. s.h.i.+vering, not daring to look up, they crossed themselves again and all three crept under the branches, deep down in a ditch. Trientje tied her pinafore over the little one's face and they sat there huddled together, shuddering and peeping through their fingers and saying loud Our Fathers.

”You must not look, Lowietje: the lightning would strike you blind.”

The trees wrung their heavy boughs and everything squeaked and rustled terribly. The water rained and poured from the leafy vault on Trientje's straw hat, on Lowietje's bare head and right through his little torn s.h.i.+rt. And clap and clap of thunder fell; the sky opened and belched fire like a hot oven. The children sat nestling into each other's arms--Poentje down under the other two--and only when it had kept still for long did they all, trembling and terrified, dare to put out their heads.

”I wish we were home now!” sighed Lowietje.

Once more the sky was all on fire and rumbling and breaking and crackling till the earth quaked and shook.

”O G.o.d, O G.o.d, help us get out of the wood and home to mother!” whined Trientje.

When they opened their eyes again, they saw below them, in the bottom, a huge beech with a bough struck off and the white splinters bare, with leaves awkwardly twisted right round: it stood there like a fellow with one arm off.

The rain now fell steadily in straight stripes; the noise grew fainter and the sky broke open.

Soaked through with the wet, the children came creeping out of the ditch and now, holding their breaths, stood looking at that tree which was so awesomely cleft and at that crippled bough which hung swinging over s.p.a.ce. The thunder still rumbled, but it was very far away, like heavy waggons rattling over hard stones. Lowietje caught his little brother up on his back and they made straight for the opening of the drove, where they saw a clear sky. They must get out of the wood, away from those trees where such fearful things happened and where it cracked so and where it was so dark.

Outside, the heaven hung full of gold-edged clouds and the sun drove its bright darts through the sky. The rain fell in lovely gleaming drops and all looked so new, so fresh and so strangely glad as after a fit of weeping, when the glistening tears hang in laughing eyes. 'Twas all so peaceful here and 'twas far behind them that the trees were twisted and bent. Here and there flew birds; and the cuckoo sat calling in a cornfield. Lowietje's s.h.i.+rt was glued to his skin; his trousers hung heavily from his limbs and his hair fell in dripping tresses, sticking along his cheeks. The white spots on Trientje's pinafore were run through with the black; and wet cornstalks whipped her little thin skirt. Poentje splashed with his naked little feet in the puddles and asked for mother.

”We're almost home, child,” said Trientje, to soothe him.

They went through the wet gra.s.s and fragrant cornfields along the slippery footpaths to a big road.

Look, there, behind the turning, came mother: she had a sack-cloth over her head and two umbrellas under her arm; she looked angry and ugly.

”We shall get a beating,” sighed Lowietje.

VII. A PIPE OR NO PIPE

He dropped his wheel-barrow, strode from between the shafts and went and looked into the great window of the tobacco-shop. His eyes were all full, as far as they could carry: an abundance and a splendour to dream about.

He came a step nearer and rested his two elbows on the stone window-sill, to see more comfortably.

Two stacks of motley cigar-boxes stood on either side and ran together at the top into a rounded arch, from which hung long, long pipes, cinnamon-wood pipes, as thick as your arm, with green strings to them and huge, big bowls, artfully carved into the heads of the King, of hideous n.i.g.g.e.rs, or of pretty girls with beads for eyes.

On thick, transparent gla.s.s slips lay whole files of meerschaum pipes, furnished with clear curved-amber mouthpieces: fishes' heads, lobster-claws holding an eggsh.e.l.l, horses' heads, cows' hoofs; rich cigar-holders of meerschaum, all over silver stars and gold bands. Heaps and heaps and lots and lots of every kind, as far as he could see; and all this was multiplied in two enormous mirrors, in which, yonder, far back among all this smoking-gear, he saw his own face staring at him out of his great, astonished eyes.

He sighed. It was all so beautiful, so rich! And now if mother had only got work!

He went over it once more. Down below, in little plush-lined trays, lay the small pipes, the boys' stuff. They lay scattered higgledy-piggledy, whole handfuls of them, crooked and straight, brown and black. His eyes thieved round voluptuously in those trays and they read with eager curiosity the neatly-written figures which informed the world how much each pipe cost.

Here, they were crooked, comical little things of black cocus-wood; there, they were motley, speckled round bowls, like birds' eggs, with white stems; but they cost too much. And yet they were so charitably beautiful! Now his eyes remained hankering after a splendid varnished bowl. It was almost tucked out of sight, but it glittered so temptingly and had a lovely brown ring at the edge, shading downwards to a pale gold-yellow: there was a little cup for the oil to sweat into and a fat cinnamon stem, with a horn mouthpiece. He examined it on every side and would have liked to turn it over with his eyes. Inside the bowl stood, in black figures:

”1 _fr_. 50.”

”Mother!...”

That was the one he wanted, that was his. She had promised him a pipe if she got work to-day. If only she had brought work with her!