“No, no, Martha, you don’t know how it is,” Cornelli said, quite frightened. “I’ll do everything they say, but I can never push my hair away, for then it would be worse still and everybody could see it.”
Martha shook her head.
“I do not know what you mean, Cornelli. Please come to me just as often as you can. I shall always love you more than anybody who might ever come here. If you did not come, it would hurt me dreadfully. Then I would rather not have the rector’s son here, glad as I am now that he is coming.”
“All right, Martha, then I shall come,” Cornelli promised. “We can easily be alone together in the kitchen, for I want to see you alone. I shall not come on Monday, for that is the day they arrive. On Tuesday, though, I’ll come. Then we’ll go together to the kitchen.”
Martha promised this and Cornelli went home in the same way as she had come. Not once did she run to the meadow to pick forget-me-nots or other flowers that were sparkling there.
When Monday came, she was wondering if a carriage would arrive with a proud city boy and a lady with a high feather hat, both of whom would look down on her with disdain. Cornelli settled down beside the garden fence, for from there she could conveniently survey the road. But she saw no carriage, though she watched through both the morning and the afternoon. She really was very glad, for she was quite sure that nobody had arrived. Next day when the time came for her to be free, she walked over to Martha’s little house.
“Oh, I am so glad that nobody has come. Now I can be alone with you and don’t have to go to the kitchen—”
Cornelli had said these words on entering, but she suddenly stopped. A boy she had never seen sat at the table in the room and Martha was just clearing away the supper things. So he had come after all and had even heard what she had said. Oh, it was dreadful! But the boy was laughing.
Cornelli wanted to withdraw quickly, but the boy called out: “Please come in and let us get acquainted. Mrs. Martha has already told me about you. Just come in,” he continued, when he saw that Cornelli still hesitated. “If you want to be alone with Mrs. Wolf I can easily go to my own room.”
Cornelli felt that it was very nice of the boy not to resent her words and to be willing to give place to her. She therefore entered. Martha had already put a chair in readiness for her and greeted her heartily.
“I expected you, Cornelli,” she said. “Just sit down here a little with our guest. His name is Dino Halm and he already knows your name. I am sure you will have a good time together. I’ll go up in the meantime and if you need me you can find me in the room upstairs.”
Martha, thinking that the children could get acquainted better if they were left alone, had planned to unpack her new arrival’s things while they were together. She put his belongings neatly away in the wardrobe and the drawers in order to make him feel at home in his tidy little chamber.
“Why did you think that we did not come?” asked Dino as soon as Martha had left the room and Cornelli was sitting beside him silently.
“Because I did not see the carriage,” she replied.
“The carriage? Well, I can believe you,” said Dino. “We walked more than an hour, in fact, nearly two, before we got here from the station. Do you just hop into a carriage when you go to the station?”
“Yes, I do; I always go there with Papa,” replied Cornelli.
“But where do the horses always come from?” Dino wanted to know.
“From our stable,” was the answer.
“Have you your own carriage and two horses of your own, just to be able to drive about?” Dino questioned, full of astonishment.
“Yes, we have the two brown ones and six others to carry away the iron from the foundry.”
“Good gracious, eight horses!” Dino exclaimed. “You are lucky to be able to sit in a carriage with your father and drive around!”
“Can’t you do that?” asked Cornelli.
“Never in my life,” Dino replied in a voice full of conviction. “First of all, I do not have a father. Besides that, we do not own a stable and horses. How lucky you are! Have you anything else in the stable?”
“Oh yes, lots more. Six cows and a large gray stable cat,” Cornelli informed him. “Then there is an old nanny goat and a young snow white kid, about whose neck I tied a red ribbon. You are going to drink milk from our cow, did you know that?”
“Oh, I shall love to do that!” Dino exclaimed. “Do you think I’ll be allowed to go to the stable and look at the horses?”
“Certainly you will; Matthew will love to show them to you, and Martha will willingly let you go. If I only could go with you!” And Cornelli uttered a deep sigh.
“Well, I should think you certainly could do that, when the stable belongs to you. Who would hinder you, I’d like to know?” Dino said. “Do you know what we’ll do? We’ll hitch the little kid to a cart. Won’t that be lovely? It can pull you and I shall be the coachman. I once saw such a little carriage on a promenade in town.”
Cornelli had already had that thought herself, but she knew now that she could never again go to the stable. It was suddenly clear to her that she could not run about as before and that she could not be happy any more. The chief reason for it all was clear to her, the reason that prevented her from being carefree and bright as in the
