"Oh, I say," I questioned my schoolfellow, "what is the matter with Kickel?"
"When we are higher up I'll tell you," answered Simmerl, and when we came into the wood, where the ground became more level, he put his arm in mine, and said, "He had a son, and he shot him."
"By accident? On purpose?" I asked, horrified.
"Nothing; he was a thorough good fellow, my father said."
"Good God! And did he hate his son so dreadfully then?"
"He loved his son ever so much; much too much."
"Well, I don't know myself how it was," acknowledged Simmerl.
"Not mad, but a bit crazy, certainly; a bit crazy all his life, and people say one can't imagine how sharp he used to be, and what a fine keeper he was up there, and how well educated! But the people say that the many books he read must have sent him silly."
"Oh, Kickel won't do anything to us. People say he would not have killed his son if he hadn't been so fond of him."
"Oh, Simmerl, supposing he is fond of us?"
"Some time I'll ask father just how it all was."
Nothing more. On that particular day I was not much use in school. Just think!--My father is very fond of _me_. He certainly has never told me so, but mother has said it to me. If things are like this, one will never trust oneself again with people who are fond of one.
"What is the matter with Peter?" asked the schoolmaster, "he is so absent-minded to-day."
In the afternoon I came back to my parents' house. I stood awhile rooted to the sandy ground behind the pines. What was going to happen next? My father came towards me with a clacking wheelbarrow. "Go in and eat," he called to me, "and afterwards come out into the wood. We must cut down some wood for firing."
"Did you sleep at Zutrum last night?" asked my mother, as she set before me the dinner which had been saved for me.
"Mother, Simmerl wouldn't let go of me until I went home with him."
"It's quite right, child. Just lately Mistress Zutrum was complaining to your father that you did not come to see your cousins and aunt and uncle. My mother and the mother of Mistress Zutrum were sisters."
The danger was quite over. Out in the forest I asked my father whether he knew the Zutrums' old servant, Kickel, and what was the matter with him.
"It isn't the time for gossip now, it's the time for cutting firewood,"--that was his answer.