At Home and in the Country

Now I am going to turn my attention to the little house, where all the smaller or bigger incidents occurred, that occupied our children’s souls.

At that time, father had a helper, a simple handyman – long Peter -, who usually was quite useful and handy, but had one major fault, he was an alcoholic. Often he sent his whole pay just down his throat. All exhortations of my father were useless. Therefore my father tried a different tack. He did not pay him his whole week’s pay, but held some back for when he needed it. Long Peter should have been thankful for this. But sometimes he became obstinate. Thus one day, at the beginning of the week early on a Monday morning he came and father saw that he was completely drunk and would like to continue drinking but had run out of money. Peter stood before father and said “Master give me money for bread.” But father answered, “No way, you just want the money to keep on drinking.” But Peter swore by all that is holy “No, no, master, be good and give me the money for bread.” And he cried, so that the tears just rolled down his cheek. We children were in the same room and didn’t know what to think of the whole thing. After all, Peter seemed to be hungry and was only asking for money for bread and father was so merciless and didn’t want to give him anything. And we knew it has happened that father did not want to give mother any housekeeping money because he said that she wasn’t frugal enough. And she had to beg for a long time and maybe cry. So we did not know who was right and who was wrong. Then Christoph went away, took his piggy bank in which were a few coins, and took a twenty kopek coin. He went over to the men and gave it to the crying Peter. Peter thanked him very much, the tears dried up immediately and he disappeared through the door. Father noticed it too. He took Christoph by the arm and said: “Come, my boy, I am going to show you where your coin is going to end up. They walked to the gate and watched Peter. As father thought, Peter staggered down the street to the next corner and went into the pub that is there. “Now look my son, that’s were your coin will be turned into drinks, remember this.” This was Christoph’s first experience of losing; but experience is always the best teacher.

Another time Christoph’s frantic call “A thief, a thief” woke us all in the middle of the night. Father and mother jumped out of their bed “Where, what, who????” Christoph had pulled the blankets over his head and just cried: “Don’t you hear it, he is in the garden and stole all our beautiful pears from the tree.” The large pear tree with the beautiful, juicy pears stood directly in front of the window. Father jumped into his clothes, lighted a lantern, outside he called Mischka, and both patrolled the whole garden, without finding anything suspicious, neither at the pear tree nor anywhere else in the yard. So father went back to Christoph and said: “My boy, you must have dreamed, there is no thief.” But Christoph kept saying: “But I did hear how someone shook the tree and all the pears fell down!”

Now let me tell you the episode with the cat, which almost ended tragically. We always had a cat in the house and it was loved by all. We children often said “de cat” and “de dog”. That sounded nicer and funnier, you could immediately laugh. Well, the living room was quite cold one morning in the winter. Mother opened the oven door early, took out several coals that she needed for ironing. Then she walked out to get some wood, came back quickly and stirred up a nice fire. You could anticipate the warmth. Suddenly we heard a sad meow. De cat, where is de cat???? Everyone looked everywhere and could not find it. Finally someone thought; my god, the cat might be in the oven. We screamed together, now de cat would be burned. Mother didn’t hesitate a moment, quickly she opened the oven door, took out the burning piece of wood and with the big oven tool pushed the ashes apart and out jumped de cat, still staggering, somewhat overcome by smoke. But she was alive to our delight! The room was full of smoke, our noses were black, and poor mother looked pitiful. Her face was white, and she had several holes in her apron. When years later I came across the bible verse “The righteous shows compassion towards the animals.” It was as if a halo was being woven around mother’s head. She also was one of the righteous ones.

Now came more serious times. At the beginning of the next summer, we received notice that mother’s father (our grandfather) Eeck had died and we were supposed to come to the funeral. Mother was rather sad. But when a big carriage came for us she bundled us three children into it. Father and brother Bernhard who had started his apprenticeship as a carpenter staid behind with a maid. This was a big trip, 70 verst in distance (1 verst = 1.07 kilometer), that lasted a whole day. The deceased, teacher Eeck, had changed his lifestyle. He had given up teaching in Drobbusch, and had leased from Mr. Von Hahnenfeldt a small farm, called Klein Essern, in the county of Sunzeln. He and his son worked the form. It seemed to have gone well, because father and son came alternately often to Riga with the products: butter, calves, and pigs and sold them well. Therefore we kids had met the grandfather, in my memory he was a tall, thin man in a long frock. However, we children remained somewhat distant, because he talked to us always in a very formal style with raised forefinger. The last thing he had said to me when we parted was: “Now, make sure that you always eat your soup when I come back next time.”

At that point I was 6 years old and the whole turmoil of the funeral with many people, relatives, friends, and neighbors who had come together left me somewhat unimpressed. The whole funeral lasted three days according to rural custom, just like weddings in those times. I remember the quiet days later much better. I just remember that after the funeral in Sissegal, the whole group drove back to Essern in many carriages to eat and be friendly, and also to play cards. The grown young people even started a dance outside in the June night to the sounds of an accordion. Everyone thought, the deceased friendly uncle surely wouldn’t mind. After three days everyone left, only mother and we children remained for the rest of the summer vacation.

Essern was nicely situated, directly on a small lake that was surrounded by shade-giving trees. Across the lake, one could see several big estates like Kaipen or Wattram that were owned by the aristocracy. When the weather was quiet, one could hear the wheels of the carriages from across the lake. It was said that the lake was deep except for some shallow places for bathing and we were told to be careful.

The step-grandmother was new to us and we studied her character. On the outside she was an imposing figure tending towards being a full-bodied woman with a large double chin. Unfortunately, she had to walk on crutches since she had a bad fall on ice years ago. She was easily upset and could always show two faces, a very friendly one for the people she liked and a very mean one for those she did not like or that were dependent on her. She reigned over the servants with a strict hand. She always said “Quicker, quicker, faster, faster.” And she stamped her crutches or even helped with them if something did not go fast enough. An elderly kitchen maid, who was called Marre, had to suffer the most. The step-grandmother constantly was using swearwords to talk to Marre and more than once did we see how she grabbed Marre’s hair and pushed her against the wall. Marre cried and then apologized and kissed her hand like the serfs used to do, who did not think of themselves as free people. These were awful scenes. Once mother tried to mediate and asked if she would please not treat Marre so meanly. But then it got worse and mother had to quietly leave. After all it was only a short vacation time and one did not want to mar the time with quarrels and arguments. Otherwise, step-grandmother was polite and nice to mother. After all, mother had made something out of herself, she was a city women with her own house and yard.

We children were being spoiled by her, especially in terms of food. We were constantly hungry in the fresh country air and when we went to her and wheedlingly said: “Grossing, I am hungry.” She usually said: “Why don’t you go into the pantry, you know, cut something off, and smear something on. it.” This meant, cut for yourself a slice of bread and put butter on it. She did not have to say that twice, since the pantry was always full, er could just eat and eat, like a big sack of nuts and some wonderful honey fresh from the hives. Technically, this was not allowed, but nobody checked. When we were completely satiated, we came out of the pantry and said to Grossing “I cut myself something and smeared something on it.” Everyone laughed at this phrase and she laughed with us that her thick stomach was shaking.

We had a very free life here, in the country, everyone entertained himself in his own way. Because of the people, we were called by the local abbreviations of our names; Christoph was Krish, my sister was Miele, and I was Lodje. Brother Krish was usually with the boys herding the animals and the horses in the pastures. He wanted to learn how to ride and that was not easy. When he finally managed to get on a horse, the animal knew what an inexperienced rider it had and just lowered its head and throat and Krish fell head first off the horse. But Krish did not give up, and kept climbing onto the animal until he finally managed to stay on it and even was able to guide it. Sister Miele was the smart one, the wise one, she learned how to knit stockings and even mittens from the farm girls. I just played around with a little Latvian friend who was my age, Ilse Triene.

Once we went down to the lake. Miele, who usually stayed away from us because we were too stupid, had joined us. Down at the lake was a wash house. A long narrow plank led into the lake. The maids used it to get water for the wash. At the end of the plank was a pole, so that you could hold on to it when getting water. Of course, we were forbidden to go onto the plank, and of course, we did it anyway. Miele went of course ahead. At the end of the plank, the boards were greenish and slimy. Miele started sliding first with one foot, then the other and suddenly, perdauz, she fell headfirst into the water and Miele disappeared into the lake. We two, Ilse-Trine and I, screamed, but there was no one in sight who could help. It was a hot afternoon, when everyone rested. After a few seconds, Miele appeared, but she went down again. When she finally appeared again, she had the presence of mind to grab the pole and pull herself back onto the dock. She had saved herself from drowning. But the big scare shook us up and we were thoroughly scolded later on.