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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 18: Cooper 6
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 287
As the maid again cleared the breakfast table, Cooper finalized his resolve. He would like to climb Matterhorn. If he was right about the current time, and his somewhat vague memory of when first ascent was done in the mid 1800’s on his own earth, then he might be the first to do it in this universe. But he was not ready in numerous ways, and so he needed to make himself useful. Barrelmaster turned to his host. He spoke in German slowly trying to get the simple and basic words across, How can I help?
“Nein, nein, Sie sind Gast.” No, no, you are--
“Gast?”
“Guest,” Hans supplied.
Brian schooled himself to calm, and spoke gently and respectfully in his tone. Hans helped him with the more difficult words. Herr, the apostle wrote, if any man doesn’t work, neither let him eat. I very much appreciate your hospitality, but I feel I should do something in return.
Wilhelm looked down at the table for a minute, and then spoke quickly to Hans, and after to the old man. Both nodded, giving Barrelmaster nods.
“If our guest insists, my father would be pleased if you spent some of the morning helping old Leonhard with his duties, and some of the afternoon talking with me as I learn English, and you learn German.”
Yes, this is good, Barrelmaster said in slow but passable German which got him a round of applause. Leonhard motioned for him to come, and curious, he followed the old man out back. The day was warm enough that if he kept moving and stayed out of the wind his flannel shirt would do the job. The back of the house was sheltered by a mountain wall outcropping and the house and stable courtyard. The last side would have been guarded as well, but he could see the black soil from a burnt rectangular building.
“Cheese,” he said, waving his left hand toward the site. Leonhard nodded and said “Käse”. Then he went into the stable, and came out with a wooden-handled ax. He showed Brian that it was sharp enough to cut his own gray mustache with a startling grin. Then he went over to the wood pile, grabbed a heavy chunk of trunk, and thunked it down on a low stump in the middle of the dirt courtyard. With one quick swing and a step back, he joined his hands above his head and brought the axe down. The thirty-inch-deep twenty-inch-wide chunk split in two. Two more chops, and he had four bits, and then one more chop, no two more chops because he had to get finicky, and there were six logs to burn.. He knocked them aside, and held out the axe to Brian.
He had a little experience at this, so he took a smaller log. Still, he was not chopping pine, and after five hits he had yet to split the log once. The old man came up, adjusted his stance, and guided him through a successful split. What made it worse was that he was smoking a pipe at the same time. Brian reminded himself of the need for humility, and also that this old man had probably been chopping wood for the last fifty or sixty years. His hands, bent and calloused, certainly showed signs of hard manual labor.
Over the next hour he gradually learned. He split his logs on two tries on half the occasions, and counted that as success. As he began to lift again, his right arm trembled, and suddenly the old man was there, taking the axe out from his hands. He spoke in German in a tone of warning. But Barrelmaster did not get it. The man frowned, and then mimed at cutting off a toe with the axe. Brian remembered the rules for power tools. Don’t work with them when you were tired. angry, depressed, or drunk. If you did, you might well lose a body part with which you could ill afford to part.
Both men could see understanding in the other’s eyes. Leonhard pointed him to stand against the stable, and in the next twenty minutes did three times as much as Brian had done in over an hour. At least he had put his pipe aside to do it, Brian noted, taking solace from that. After that, he led him into the stable, which was warmer.
Here he polished the leather harness. After working on that, and checking the axles and wheels on the cart, Leonhard gave him a dried green apple. He pointed to the mule, so Barrelmaster slowly walked over to the mule. The mule glanced his way, and then looked at the apple in his right hand. As he began to reach out, he heard Leonhard draw in his breath, and looking over, he saw the man’s fist balled up ready to punch the mule in the head. Then the mule lipped the apple out of his hand, and Barrelmaster reached over and scratched the fellow behind the ears, talking to him in what little German he had, since he figured English would be weird and might upset the mule.
“Oha!” Leonhard said softly in surprise. “Old Mule ist gemein, aber er liebt dich.” It took a couple minutes, but it turned out that the way to the mule’s heart involved an apple and having Leonhard punch him in the head a couple of times to convince him that raw arm of Human was not on the menu. Leonhard had said ‘the old mule is mean, but he loves you.’ And so it was that Barrelmaster curried the mule, checked his hooves for stone, and used a metal pick to pop out a pebble–for which effort he was rewarded with a snuffle to his face from his new animal friend. After that, he had lunch, and spent the afternoon learning German and teaching English to Hans. During supper, he blushed to hear both of them sing his praises.
Leonhard said he was a hard, willing worker, and had a gift with animals. Hans said he was the ‘best teacher I have ever had, father. I learned so much.’ Wilhelm smiled and thanked him, and Barrrelmaster shrugged self-deprecatorially. Your son is a bright lad. Teaching him is easy. Barrelmaster did not mention that he had been a professor at his university as it would have seemed too much like bragging.
Over the next week he improved his German and learned to be a decent wood splitter while also learning how to care for a mule. In spare hours, he climbed the mountains near the village. He had yet to go into the village, but had exchanged greetings with a few villagers he met on his walks, or who visited the local lord for requests for help on projects, or just help, or who placed orders for the next trip downmountain. Perhaps he had met twenty people, and he was becoming known as the ‘Moor Tutor’. Besides these acquaintances, he had made friends with a couple village dogs out wandering as well.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #501: Characters Orienting. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
