Rico and Wiseli | Page 6

an assured profession, and not a child like
you.
"Now I will tell you what a fiddle costs, and then you will see how
foolish you are. Six hard gulden I paid for mine. Can you realize what
that means? We will separate it into blutsgers. If one gulden contains a
hundred blutsgers, then six guldens will be equal to six times one
hundred,--quickly, quickly! Now, Rico, you are generally ready
enough."
"Six hundred blutsgers," said the lad softly, for he was quite
overpowered with the magnitude of this sum as compared with Stineli's
twelve blutsgers.
"And, moreover, my son, do you imagine that you have only to take a
fiddle in your hand to be able to play on it at once? It takes a long time
to do that. Come in here now, for a moment." And the teacher opened
the door, and took his fiddle from its place on the wall. "There," he said,
as he placed it on Rico's arm, "take the bow in your hand,--so, my boy;
and if you can play me _c, d, e, f_, I will give you a half-gulden."
Rico had the fiddle really in his hand; his eyes sparkled with fire; _c, d,
e, f,_--he played the notes firmly and perfectly correctly. "You little
rascal!" cried the astonished teacher, "where did you learn that? Who
taught you? How do you find the notes?"
"I can do more than that, if I may," said the boy.
"Play, then."
And Rico played correctly, and with enthusiasm,--
"Little lambkins, come down From the bright sunny height; The
daylight is fading, The sun says, 'Good-night!'"
[Illustration: RICO PLAYED CORRECTLY, AND WITH
ENTHUSIASM]
The teacher sunk into a chair, and put his spectacles on his nose. His
eyes rested on Rico's fingers as he played, then on his sparkling eyes,
and again on his hands. When the air was finished, he said, "Come here
to me, Rico;" and, moving his chair into the light, he placed the lad
directly before him. "Now I have something to say to you. Your father
is an Italian; and I know that down there all sorts of things go on of
which we have no idea here in the mountains. Now look me straight in
the eye, and answer me truly and honestly. How did you learn to play
this air so correctly?"

Looking up with his honest eyes, the boy replied, "I learned it from you,
in the school where it is so often sung."
These words gave an entirely new aspect to the affair. The teacher
stood up, and went back and forth several times in the room. Then he
was himself the cause of this wonderful event; there was no
necromancy concerned in it.
In a far better humor, he took out his purse, saying, "Here is your
half-gulden, Rico; it is justly yours. Now go; and for the future be very
attentive to the music-lesson as long as you go to the school. In that
way you may, perhaps, accomplish something; and in twelve or
fourteen years perhaps you may be able to buy a fiddle. Now you may
go."
Rico cast one look at the fiddle, and departed with deep sadness in his
heart.
Stineli came running to meet him from behind the wood-pile. "You did
stay a long time. Have you asked the question?"
"It is all of no use," said the boy; and his eyebrows came together in his
distress, and formed a thick black line across his forehead over his eyes.
"A fiddle costs six hundred blutsgers; and in fourteen years I can buy
one, when everybody will be dead. Who will be living fourteen years
from now? There, you may have this; I do not want it." With these
words he pressed the half-gulden into Stineli's hand.
"Six hundred blutsgers!" repeated the girl, horrified. "But where did
this half-gulden come from?"
Rico told her all that had happened at the teacher's, ending with the
same words expressing his great regret, "It is all of no use!"
Stineli tried to console him a little with the half-gulden; but he was
furious at the thought of the innocent piece of money, and would not
even look at it.
So Stineli said, "I will put it with my blutsgers, and we will have it all
between us."
Stineli herself was very much discouraged now; but as they went
around the corner into the field, the little pathway that led to their doors
shone so prettily in the bright sunlight, and the plat before the houses
was so white and dry, that she called out,--
"See, see! now it is summer, Rico; and we can go up into the wood, and
we will be happy again. Shall we go next Sunday?"

"Nothing will ever make me