He spoke with a father’s authority over his children and the four sons obeyed him. None of them uttered a word of complaint.
They went to work eagerly, stimulated by the thought that they were to fell the last oak. They dug the ditch around the trunk, two boys climbed up and fastened the chain to the top, the chain was linked to the team. The horses too were eager, as if feeling this must be the last load of growing trees.
The father picked up the reins and laid them around his neck. He urged the team, the horses caught a foothold in the ground and pulled until the harnesses creaked. But he did not keep his eyes on the team, rather, his eyes followed the movements of the oak crown that swayed behind him. He was always watchful, never forgetting to call out: Timber!
But tonight it was the sons who called out to the father:
“She’s coming! Get away!”
The giant oak was not so well rooted as they had thought. As soon as the horses pulled it began to rock and lean.
The thud of its fall could be heard almost in the same second as the warning:
“She’s coming! Get away!”
In a wink the father saw the tree coming. He always jumped aside in good time — when he heard the sound in the air he always had time to get away. Now he tried to throw himself aside at the same moment he heard it.
It happened within seconds: The oak was supposed to fall to the right of him, he attempted to run to the left — he who couldn’t run! He couldn’t get his left leg to move fast enough, he stumbled and fell to his knees. He rose again but never reached an upright position; he took no more steps in his flight from the tree. He had the reins around his neck, the horses were restless and pulled him over.
The farmer fell as if his legs had been cut out from under him; over him fell the oak.
It crashed and thundered as its branches broke and splintered. The team came to a stop, the reins coiling behind as they fell from the master’s neck. They had pulled their load, the last one in the grove, their labor was completed, and now they rested.
The roar from the fall died down and silence fell over team and tree, until the sons rushed up and called out: Father!
The last oak of the grove had been felled but under it lay the farmer himself. This mighty tree, waiting here for him while the years had run by — it had been waiting for this November evening when they would fall together.
None of the sons had seen their father stumble and be pulled over by the reins. Now he had vanished; he must be under the fallen tree, the lush branches must be hiding him. They grabbed their axes and started to cut through the branch-work — boughs as big as trunks were separated and rolled away in horrible urgency. The sons were hewing their way to their father. Four axes were swinging and with each cut they were nearing him. Soon they could see his clothing; they saw his boots, heels up; they found his hat, brushed from his head. They worked in silence as they cut their way through the enormous oak. The last branch was like a tree in itself, and it lay across their father’s back; he was pressed under it. In its fall the giant had seized the farmer with one of its strongest arms and pressed him against the ground. He was a prisoner of the oak.
The four sons cut their father free, liberated him from the mighty tree’s grip. They rolled away the heavy limb that pressed his back and stood around him, axes in hand.
He lay on his stomach, his face against the earth. They bent over him. His legs moved a little, his shoulders rose perceptibly. His boot toes scraped against the ground, but his head lay still. But he moved. He was alive.
The sons had been silent as they worked their way toward the father; now they spoke:
“Father! Are you hurt? Can you talk?”
They received not a word in reply, only a deep breath. But when they took him by the shoulders he stirred again. He tried to turn over; slowly, with its own strength, his body turned on its back. Even his head began to move, and the sons saw a face distorted, barely recognizable. It was not cut, no injury was visible, but great puffs of froth showed in the corners of his mouth; his teeth were bared, in a cramp-like bite; his eyebrows were pulled together at the root of his nose, which was poking up at them, enormous, protuberant, like a knot.
“How did it happen? Are you terribly hurt?”
A hissing sound escaped the mouth of the fallen one. He groaned, his teeth clenched so hard it showed in his cheekbones. It was pain that had changed his face.
He felt his back with his hands and groaned again. Then he began slowly to pull up his knees. He could move both arms and legs.
When the sons had first seen him on his stomach, pressed down under the oak, they had not expected him to move again. And as yet they did not know what had happened to him, as yet he said nothing. He rose slowly to his knees, his facial muscles tightening. Again he felt his back, his hands groping about. But his back seemed to be all right; it could not be broken.
The farmer looked about as if in great confusion. He looked at his sons around him, from one to the other, searching for an answer: Was it really true? Could he still move? Then he must be alive. He was alive, and no one was more surprised than he.
He looked at the fallen oak beside him. One of its heaviest limbs had pressed upon his back, and now when he looked closer he understood why he was alive; he had fallen into a small hollow. Without this slim depression his body would have been crushed.
If he hadn’t fallen into that hollow he would never have risen again. If he had happened to fall a foot to the right or a foot to the left he would have remained fallen. If he had taken one step more before he fell he would have been dead.
The farmer said to his sons who stood there apprehensively that he had had a close call. The bough had almost got him. Only a hairsbreadth and they might have had to carry home a corpse this evening.
They stood silent at the thought. Then they asked about his injuries. Did he want them to carry him home?
The father replied that the oak had given him a sound lash across the back and he did not feel well after it. But he thought he could get home on his own legs. If they took the horses and the tools he would try to walk.
Cautiously he attempted to rise from his kneeling position. He wasn’t successful; the attempt caused him such intense pain that everything turned black before his eyes and he felt dizzy. When he tried to move one foot he reeled. He sank down on his knees again.
There was nothing to do but accept the sons’ offer.
They made a litter for their father from a few branches of the oak they had felled, tying them together with the reins. It was a clumsy, primitive litter, but it would hold for the short distance home. There were four of them and each could carry a corner.
So this evening the farmer was carried home by his sons after his last full working day.
— 4—
For a few months Karl Oskar stayed in bed and put plasters on his injured back. A thick blue-black swelling appeared across the small of his back where the oak had hit him. He rubbed the injured part with different kinds of salves for which he sent to the new drugstore in Center City. Some he also mixed himself and with the aid of neighbors. He tried cotton oil and camphor, sheep-fat, pork, unsalted butter. He had leeches put on the swelling — they sat so close, those nasty sucking critters, that they covered his whole back; they drank his blood and swelled up until they were so fat and thick and round they couldn’t suck any more and fell off and died. Rows of itching wounds were left from their sharp bites.