She looks about without speaking.
"You?" he asks, amazed.
"I helped," she answers modestly.
"But you originated it?"
She smiles. This smile makes her appear older, and for a moment her child-like face is suffused with a shimmer of womanly grace.
"Your hand is blessed," he says softly and shyly, more in earnest than is his wont.
He cannot help thinking of his dead mother, who so often complained of the dreadful dust, and that in the whole s.p.a.ce outside there was not a single place where she could sit down in comfort.
"If only she could have lived to see this," he murmurs to himself.
"Mother?" she asks him.
He looks up astonished. That she should not say "your mother" startles him at first, then it gives him a feeling of intense pleasure such as he has never before in his life felt. A sort of happy glow enters into his heart and will not leave it. So there is now in the world a young, beautiful strange woman who speaks of his mother as if she had been hers too, as if she herself were his sister, the sister he had so often longed for in his foolish younger days, when his gaze used to rest with admiration on other girls.
And now she softly repeats her question.
"Yes, mother," he answers, and looks at her gratefully.
She bears his look for a second; then drops her eyes and says in some confusion; "I wonder where Martin can be?"
"In the mill, I suppose!"
"Yes, in the mill, of course," she answers quickly; and with the words "I will fetch him," she hurries away. Almost without thinking he stares after the girlish figure bounding so lightly across the gra.s.s.
Everything about her seems to be flying and fluttering--her skirts, her ap.r.o.n-strings, the kerchief about her neck, her untameable, entangled ma.s.s of curls.
He remains for a time gazing after her as if spell-bound; then he laughingly shakes his head and walks to the veranda. There he notices a dainty work-table and on it a round wicker-work-basket. Across its edge hangs a piece of work commenced, a long, white strip embroidered with flowers and leaves such as women use for insertion. Without thinking he takes the piece of cambric in his hand and examines the cunning st.i.tches till his sister-in-law"s laughing voice reaches his ears.
Like a surprised criminal he quickly lets the embroidery drop--there she is already, bending round the corner; and the flour-whitened, square-set figure she is so merrily dragging behind her and who is so awkwardly trying to divest himself of her little, clutching hands, and dispersing thick, white dust-clouds all round, that is, why, that is--
"Martin, dear old Martin!" and he rushes out to embrace him.
The awkward movements cease; the bushy eye-brows are drawn up--the good-natured, quiet smile grows stony--the whole figure is fixed--the man draws back--but next moment he rushes forward towards his newly-regained darling.
In silence the brothers clasp each other.
Then after a time Martin takes the head of the returned wanderer between his two hands and, knitting his brows darkly and gnawing at his under-lip he looks long and earnestly into his brother"s beaming, laughing eyes. Thereupon he sits down on the seat in the veranda, rests his elbows on his knees and looks down.
"Why are you so pensive, Martin?" Johannes asks softly, laying his hand on his brother"s shoulder.
"Well, why shouldn"t I be pensive?" he answers, with a peculiar sort of low grunt which accompanies all his meager speeches. "Ah--you rascal!"
he continues, and the good-natured grin which is his in happy moments spreads over his heavily-cut features. "You made up your mind to be angry--you, you?" Then he jumps up and takes his wife"s hand. "Look at him, Trude; he wanted to be angry, the silly fellow! Come here, boy!
Eh--here she is--look at her properly, well! Do you think you could be angry with _her_?"
Then he drops clumsily onto his seat, so that a fresh cloud of white dust flies up, looks at Johannes, laughs to himself a little and says at last: "Trude, fetch a clothes brush!" Trude bursts out laughing and skips away singing. When she returns waving the desired object high in the air, he gives the order: "Now brush him!"
"When a miller or a sweep grows affectionate, there"s sure to be a misfortune," Johannes says, attempting a joke, and tries to take the brush out of her hand.
"Please allow me, Mr. Johannes," she protests, hiding the brush under her ap.r.o.n.
Martin hits the bench with his fist. "Mr. Johannes! Well, I never--what"s the meaning of that? Haven"t you made friends yet?--eh?"
Johannes is silent and Trude brushes away at him with great vigor.
"Then I suppose you haven"t even given each other a kiss yet?"
Trude lets the brush fall suddenly. Johannes says "H"m" and busies himself with rolling the wheel of one of his spurs along the sc.r.a.per standing at the entrance.
"It"s the proper thing to do, however! Now then!"
Johannes faces about and twirls his moustache, determined to get over his awkward predicament by playing the man of the world; but with all that he has not the courage to bend down to her. He stands there as stiff as a post and waits till she holds up her little mouth; then for a moment he presses his trembling lips upon hers, and feels how a slight shudder runs through her frame.
A moment later it is all over. With a shy smile they stand next to one another--both blushing all over.--Martin slaps his knees with his hands and declares it has been as good as a side-splitting farce. Then he suddenly gets up and walks off. He must ponder over his happiness in solitude.
In the afternoon the brothers go together into the mill. Trude stands at the window and looks after them, and, when Johannes turns around, she smiles and hides behind the curtain. On the threshold Johannes stands still and leans his head against the door-post, and deep emotion fills him as he gazes into the semi-darkness of the dear old place from which proceeds such a din of wheels that it nearly stuns him, while the draught drives into his face great whitish-grey clouds of flour, bran-dust and steam. Side by side the various "runs" open out before him. On the left, nearest the wall, the old "bolting-run," for the finest flour; then the "bruising-run," where the bran and flour remain together; then the "groats-run," where the barley is freed from its husks; and finally the "cylinder-run," one of the new kind only recently added.--They have also had a new spiral alley and a lift made.
Fashion now-a-days requires all these innovations.
Martin puts his hands in his pockets and saunters along with his pipe in his mouth in silent self-content. Then he takes hold of Johannes"
hand and proceeds to explain the new invention--how the fine flour is caught up by the spiral and conveyed to the suspiral where small pails, running along a belting, raise it through two stories, almost to the roofing, and then empty it into the silken, cylinder-like funnels through the fine network of which it has to pa.s.s before becoming fit for use. Listening breathlessly, Johannes drinks in his brother"s scant, slowly uttered words, and is surprised how ignorant one grows in the army; for all these things are sealed books to him.
Business is flourishing. All the works are in full swing, and the "prentices have plenty to do with pouring the grain into the mill-hopper and watching the outflow of the flour and the bran.
"I have three now," says Martin, pointing to the white-powdered fellows, one of whom is continually running up and down the stairs.
"And is David here yet?" asks Johannes.
"Why, of course," answers Martin; and makes a face as if the mere idea of David"s being no longer at the mill had scared him.
"Where has he hidden himself, the old fellow?" Johannes laughingly asks.
"David! David!" shouts Martin"s l.u.s.ty voice above all the clatter of the wheels.
Then from out the darkness, by the motor machine, which rises Cyclops-like from below the woodwork of the galleries, there emerges a long, lanky figure, dipped in flour--a face shows itself on which the indifference of old age has left nothing to be read--a slightly reddened nose, which almost meets the bristly chin, weak and sulky eyes hidden beneath bushy brows, and a mouth which seems to be continually chewing.
"What do you want me for, master?" he asks, planting himself in front of the brothers without removing the clay pipe which hangs loosely between his lips.
"Here"s Johannes," says Martin, patting the old man"s shoulder, while a good-natured smile crosses his countenance.
"Don"t you know me any more, David?" asks Johannes, holding out his hand in a friendly manner. The old man spits out a stream of brown juice from between his teeth, considers awhile and then mumbles:
"Why shouldn"t I know you?"
"And how are you?"