Findelkind | Page 8

bridge laughed.
"You are a little beggar, you mean? Oh, very well! Then over my
bridge you do not go.
"But it is the city on the other side?"
"To be sure it is the city; but over nobody goes without a kreutzer."
"I never have such a thing of my own! never! never!" said Findelkind,
ready to cry.
"Then you were a little fool to come away from your home, wherever
that may be," said the man at the bridge-head. "Well, I will let you go,
for you look a baby. But do not beg; that is bad."
"Findelkind did it!"
"Then Findelkind was a rogue and a vagabond," said the taker of tolls.
"Oh, no--no--no!"
"Oh, yes--yes--yes, little sauce-box; and take that," said the man, giving
him a box on the ear, being angry at contradiction.
Findelkind's head drooped, and he went slowly over the bridge,
forgetting that be ought to have thanked the toll-taker for a free passage.
The world seemed to him very difficult. How had Findelkind done
when he had come to bridges?--and, oh, how had Findelkind done
when he had been hungry?
For this poor little Findelkind was getting very hungry, and his stomach
was as empty as was his wallet.
A few steps brought him to the Goldenes Dachl.
He forgot his hunger and his pain, seeing the sun shine on all that gold,
and the curious painted galleries under it. He thought it was real solid
gold. Real gold laid out on a house-roof,--and the people all so poor!
Findelkind began to muse, and wonder why everybody did not climb
up there and take a tile off and be rich? But perhaps it would be wicked.
Perhaps God put the roof there with all that gold to prove people.
Findelkind got bewildered.
If God did such a thing, was it kind?

His head seemed to swim, and the sunshine went round and round with
him. There went by him, just then, a very venerable-looking old man
with silver hair; he was wrapped in a long cloak. Findelkind pulled at
the coat gently. and the old man looked down.
"What is it, my boy?" he asked.
Findelkind answered, "I came out to get gold: may I take it off that
roof?"
"It is not gold, child, it is gilding."
"What is gilding?"
"It is a thing made to look like gold; that is all."
"It is a lie, then!
The old man smiled. "Well, nobody thinks so. If you like to put it so,
perhaps it is. What do you want gold for, you wee thing?"
"To build a monastery, and house the poor."
The old man's face scowled and grew dark, for he was a Lutheran
pastor from Bavaria.
"Who taught you such trash?" be said, crossly.
"It is not trash. It is faith."
And Findelkind's face began to burn, and his blue eyes to darken and
moisten. There was a little crowd beginning to gather, and the crowd
was beginning to laugh. There were many soldiers and rifle-shooters in
the throng, and they jeered and joked, and made fun of the old man in
the long cloak, who grew angry then with the child. "You are a little
idolater and a little impudent sinner!" he said, wrathfully, and shook the
boy by the shoulder, and went away, and the throng that had gathered
around had only poor Findelkind left to tease.
He was a very poor little boy indeed to look at, with his sheepskin tunic,
and his bare feet and legs, and his wallet that never was to get filled.
"Where do you come from, and what do you want?" they asked; and he
answered, with a sob in his voice:
"I want to do like Findelkind of Arlberg."
And then the crowd laughed, not knowing at all what he meant, but
laughing just because they did not know, as crowds always will do.
And only the big dogs that are so very big in this country, and are all
loose, and free, and good-natured citizens, came up to him kindly, and
rubbed against him, and made friends; and at that tears came into his
eyes, and his courage rose, and he lifted his head.

"You are cruel people to laugh," he said, indignantly; "the dogs are
kinder. People did not laugh at Findelkind. He was a little boy just like
me, no better and no bigger, and as poor, and yet he had so much faith,
and the world then was so good, that he left his sheep, and got money
enough to build a church and a hospice to Christ and St. Christopher.
And I want to do the same for the poor. Not for myself, no; for the poor!
I am Findelkind too, and Findelkind of Arlberg that is