The Silver Cup Read Free Page B

him and pushed more dirt into a hill that he delighted in squashing. He looked at her and smiled with his grimy face; she rubbed his head, and he held open his arms for a hug.
    The family gathered for the midday meal, and as they finished, Martin said, “Yesterday, my friend Dieter caught a perch as long as his forearm. How would you like some more fish, Mother? ”
    â€œMore fish? You didn’t have enough for dinner? And am I to do the cleaning again?” Agnes sighed loudly. “Well, if you’re going fishing, make yourself useful,” she replied. “Take Thomas. He’s underfoot.”
    Scowling, Martin took Thomas by the sleeve and pulled him along. Thomas stumbled behind, bewildered but obedient.
    Agnes had sewn little sacks from scraps of worn cloth, and Margarete and Elisabeth began filling the sacks with dried lavender buds mixed with rosemary and tansy leaves. The sacks and fresh straw were added to all the bedding to make it sweet and hold down the fleas. Anna watched her aunt and thought, I know our bed has fleas, but Martin deserves his flea bites. Anyway, I clean and clean, and all anyone notices is what I forget to do. I’ll never be like Agnes.
    When Anna returned to her empty cottage, she sighed to fill the silence, and then she gasped. A rust-chested robin stood on the table, pecking at a crust of bread. And Anna knew what every one knew: when a robin flies into a house, death will follow. She shooed the bird out the garden door and tossed the pecked bread to the chickens in the yard.
    Spreading a blanket on the floor, Anna collected the bedding straw, which she bundled into the blanket and heaved near the garden. A few days earlier, Gunther had left a pile of fresh rye straw in a corner of the house, and now she gathered and packed the straw into the bed. She tucked a large piece of hemp cloth around the corners, using sharp wooden pegs to hold it in place. She had neither lavender nor tansy, but Gunther had a basket of soothing mugwort leaves that he often put in his shoes. Anna hoped the leaves might keep the fleas at bay. Besides, mugwort was plentiful, and she had nothing better, so she slipped a few leaves under each corner of the woven cover.
    Anna swept the floor, spread fresh rushes, and was resting in the doorway, leaning on her broom. The afternoon had turned raw, and the sky was leaden. The trees murmured and creaked in the wind; damp from her work, Anna felt a chill as she gazed at the speeding clouds. Her daydreaming ended when Martin came striding along. He was dragging Thomas by a rope tied around the little boy’s waist. Thomas was as pale as wax and soaking wet. His hair was caked with mud, and his knees and hands were scratched and bleeding.
    â€œLook what I caught!” said Martin, proudly displaying a string of three silvery fish with bright orange fins. “Won’t Mother be delighted?”
    â€œWhat happened to Thomas?” cried Anna rushing to untie the dazed little boy.
    â€œHim?” Martin shrugged. “I suppose he fell in the stream. Stinks like dung doesn’t he? You’d better clean him up, or Mother will beat him.”
    Anna hurried Thomas into the house and sat him by the hearth. He was shivering. She added wood to the fire and heated some water for washing. He whimpered and hiccuped, so she hummed a soothing lullaby and gently cleaned the scrapes. After the heat dried most of the mud, she brushed his clothes and combed his downy hair. While Thomas sipped a cup of warm milk, rocking back and forth, Anna turned to Martin.
    â€œMartin, what happened?”
    â€œHe has the sense of a muck worm. I told him to sit still while Dieter and I fished.”
    â€œDieter was with you?” asked Anna, wrinkling her nose.
    Martin nodded. “I always fish with Dieter. Dieter bet Thomas would float, because he’s innocent.”
    â€œYou didn’t!”
    Martin shrugged. “ I didn’t throw him in, but he