PAGE 5
The Gawk
by
“Come, Aloys, you must dance.”
“Let me alone: you know I can’t dance. You only want to make game of me.”
“You g—-” said Mary Ann: she would have said, “you gawk,” but suddenly checked herself on seeing that he was more ready to cry than to laugh. So she said, gently, “No, indeed, I don’t want to make game of you. Come; if you can’t dance you must learn it: there is none I like to dance with better than you.”
They tried to waltz; but Aloys threw his feet about as if he had wooden shoes on them, so that the others could not sing for laughing.
“I will teach you when nobody is by, Aloys,” said Mary Ann, soothingly.
The girls now lighted their lanterns and went home. Aloys insisted on going with them: he would not for all the world have let Mary Ann go home without him when George was of the company.
In the still, snowy night, the raillery and laughter of the party were heard from end to end of the village. Mary Ann alone was silent, and evidently kept out of George’s way.
When the boys had left all the girls at their homes, George said to Aloys, “Gawk, you ought to have stayed with Mary Ann to-night.”
“You’re a rascal,” said Aloys, quickly, and ran away. The others laughed. George went home alone, warbling so loud and clear that he must have gladdened the hearts of all who were not sick or asleep.
Next morning, as Mary Ann was milking the cows, Aloys said to her, “Do you see, I should just like to poison that George; and if you are a good girl you must wish him dead ten times over.”
Mary Ann agreed with him, but tried to convince him that he should endeavor to become just as smart and ready as George was. A bright idea suddenly struck Aloys. He laughed aloud, threw aside the stiff old broom and took a more limber one, saying, “Yes: look sharp and you’ll see something.” After much reluctance, he yielded to Mary Ann’s solicitations to be “good friends” with George: he could not refuse her any thing.
It was for this reason alone that Aloys had helped George to get the sleigh out, and that the snow made his eyes run over as he watched the party till they disappeared.
In the twilight Aloys drove his cows to water at Jacob’s well. A knot of boys had collected there, including George and his old friend, a Jew, commonly called “Long Hartz’s Jake.” Mary Ann was looking out of the window. Aloys was imitating George’s walk: he carried himself as straight as if he had swallowed a ramrod, and kept his arms hanging down his sides, as if they had been made of wood.
“Gawk,” said Jake, “what will you allow me if I get Mary Ann to marry you?”
“A good smack on your chops,” said Aloys, and drove his cows away. Mary Ann closed the sash, while the boys set up a shout of laughter, in which George’s voice was heard above all the others.
Aloys wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, so great was the exertion which the expression of his displeasure had cost him. He sat for hours on the feed-box of his stable, maturing the plans he had been meditating.
Aloys had entered his twentieth year, and it was time for him to pass the inspection of the recruiting-officers. On the day on which he, with the others of his age, was to present himself at Horb, the county town, he came to Mary Ann’s house in his Sunday gear, to ask if she wished him to get any thing for her in town. As he went away, Mary Ann followed him into the hall, and, turning aside a little, she drew a bit of blue paper from her breast, which, on being unwrapped, was found to contain a creutzer.[4] “Take it,” said she: “there are three crosses on it. When the shooting stars come at night, there’s always a silver bowl on the ground, and out of those bowls they make this kind of creutzers: if you have one of them in your pocket you are sure to be in luck. Take it, and you will draw a high number.”[5]