Toni, The Little Woodcarver Part 4

The women and the doctor exchanged sad looks.

His mother went up to him and caressed him. "Toneli, Toneli," she said again and again in a tender voice, "don't you know me? Don't you know your mother any more?"

As always before Toni pressed against the wall, made no motion and stared before him.

In tender tones the mother continued mournfully:

"Oh, Toneli, say just a single word! Only look at me once! Toneli, don't you hear me?"

Toneli remained unmoved.

Still once again the mother looked at him full of tenderness, but only met his staring eyes. It was too much for poor Elsbeth, that the only possession she had on earth, and the one she loved with all her heart, her Toni, should be lost to her, and in such a sad way! She forgot everything around her. She fell on her knees beside her child, and while the tears were bursting from her eyes, she poured out aloud the sorrow in her heart:

Oh G.o.d of Love, oh Father-heart, In whom my trust is founded, I know full well how good Thou art-- E'en when by grief I am wounded.

Oh Lord, it surely can not be That Thou wilt let me languish In hopeless depths of misery And live in tears of anguish.

Toni's eyes took on a different expression. He looked at his mother. She did not see him and went on imploring in the midst of her tears:

Oh Lord, my soul yearns for thine aid In this dark vale of weeping; For Thee I have waited, hoped and prayed, a.s.sured of thy safe keeping.

Suddenly Toni threw himself on his mother and sobbed aloud. She threw her arms around him and her tears of sorrow turned to loud sobs of joy. The child sobbed aloud also.

"It is won," said the doctor in great delight to the women, who, deeply moved, were looking on at the mother and boy.

Then the doctor opened the door of the next room and beckoned Elsbeth to go in there with Toni. He thought it would be good for both to be alone for a while. In there after a while Toni began to talk quite naturally with his mother and asked her:

"Are we going home, Mother, to the stone hut? Shan't I have to go up on the mountain any more?"

And she quieted him and said she would now take him right home, and they would stay there together. Soon all Toni's thoughts came back again quite clearly, and after a while he said:

"But I must earn something, Mother."

"Don't trouble about that now," said Elsbeth quietly; "the dear Lord will show a way when it is time."

Then they began to talk about the goat, how pretty and fat she had grown, and Toni gradually became quite lively.

After an hour the doctor brought them both into the living-room back to the ladies. Toni was entirely changed, his eyes had now an earnest but quite different expression. The lady from Geneva was indescribably delighted. She sat down beside him at once, and he had to tell her where he had been to school and what he had liked to study.

But the doctor beckoned to Elsbeth to come to him.

"Listen, my good woman," he began, "the words which you repeated made a deep, penetrating impression on the boy's heart. Did he know the hymn already?"

"Oh, my Lord," exclaimed Elsbeth, "many hundred times I have repeated it beside his little bed, when he was very small, often with many tears, and he would weep too, when he didn't know why."

"He wept because you wept, he suffered because you suffered," said the doctor. "Now I understand how he was aroused by these words. With such impressions in early childhood it is no wonder he became a quiet and reserved boy. This explains to me much in the past."

Then the lady from Geneva came up for she wanted to talk with the mother.

"My dear, good woman, he certainly must not go up on the mountain again.

He is not fit for it," she said in great eagerness. "We must find something different for him. Has he no taste for some other occupation?

But it must be light, for he is not strong and needs care."

"Oh, yes, he has a great desire to learn something," said his mother.

"From a little boy he has wished for it, but I hardly dare mention it."

"There, there, my good woman, tell me right away about it," said the lady encouragingly, expecting something unheard-of.

"He wants so much to be a wood-carver, and has a good deal of talent for it, but the cost of board and instruction together is more than eighty francs."

"Is that all?" exclaimed the lady in the greatest surprise, "is that all?

Come, my boy," and she ran to Toni again, "would you really like to become a wood-carver--better than anything else?"

The joy which shone in Toni's eyes, when he answered that he would, showed the lady what she had to do. She had such a longing to help Toni, that she wanted to act immediately that very hour.

"Would you like to learn at once, go to a teacher right away?" she asked him.

Toni gladly replied that he would.

But now came a new thought. She turned to the doctor. "Perhaps he ought to recover his health first?"

The doctor replied that he had been already thinking about that. The mother had told him that she knew a very good master up in Frutigen. "Now I think," he went on to say, "that carving is not a strenuous work, and one of the most important things for Toni is to have for some time good, nouris.h.i.+ng food. In Frutigen there is a very good inn, if he only could--"

"I will undertake that, Doctor, I will undertake that," interrupted the lady. "I will go with him. We will start to-morrow. In Frutigen I will provide for Toni's board and lodging and for everything he needs." In her great delight the lady shook hands with both the mother and the boy repeatedly, and went out to instruct her maid about preparations for the journey.

When the mother with her boy had been taken to their room, the doctor said with great delight to his wife:

"We have two recoveries. Our lady is also cured. A new interest has come to her, and you will see she will have new life in providing for this young boy. This has been a beautiful day!"

On the following morning the journey was made to Frutigen, and the little company were so glad and happy together that they reached there before they were aware of it.

At the wood-carver's the lady was told everything that would be needed for the work, and after he had showed them all kinds of instruments, he thought a fine book with good pictures, from which one could work, would be useful.

After the lady had charged him to teach Toni everything in any way necessary for the future, they went to the inn. Here the lady engaged a good room with comfortable bed, and herself arranged with the host a bill of fare for every day in the week. The host promised, with many bows, to follow everything exactly, for he saw very well with whom he had to deal.

Then Toni and his mother had to eat with the lady in the inn, and during the meal she had much more to say. She was going now, she said, the next day, home to Geneva, where there were large shops, in which nothing was sold but carvings. There she would immediately arrange for Toni to send all his articles, so he could begin to work with fresh zeal. Moreover, she insisted that Toni should remain, not two, but three months with the carver, so that he could learn everything from the foundation. He could go from here to visit his mother on Sundays, or she could come to him.

Elsbeth and Toni were so full of grat.i.tude, they could find no words to express it, but the lady understood them nevertheless and bore home a happy heart, such as she had not had for a long time.

It came about just as the doctor had foreseen. The lady, who had not been able to think any more about her home now desired to return to Geneva. She had so many plans to carry out there, that she could hardly wait for the day when she was to go back.

The doctor was delighted to consent to her going soon.

Toni, who had hardly begun with his new teacher, applied himself with so much zeal and skill to his work, that the carver said to his wife in the fourth week:

"If he goes on like this, he will learn to do better than I can."