“Children, tomorrow Cornelli’s father is expecting to hear from me. He will want to know if he is to come to fetch her home, or if he is to leave her here another week. Cornelli herself shall decide, but we all want her to stay.”
“Don’t go, don’t go! Tell him not to come for a long while,” Mux implored her. The little boy had slipped in behind his mother and was keeping a tight hold on Cornelli, as if her papa might come at once to pull her away.
“No, no, Cornelli, you won’t go away yet,” Dino now said. “Tomorrow I am allowed to get up for the first time and you must be there to see if I can still walk. After that you must stay here till I go to school; won’t you, Cornelli? You don’t want to go, do you?”
“You must not urge her too much,” said the mother. “Maybe Cornelli would rather go home, and by your talking you might keep her from saying so.” But being urged by the two children was such a joy to Cornelli that she never even hesitated.
“I should love to stay,” she said.
“Oh, how splendid!” Dino exclaimed. “Please ask for at least two or three weeks, Mama. It is so nice to have Cornelli with us.”
“I shall ask Cornelli’s father to let us have his daughter a while longer,” said the mother, “I cannot possibly settle the time, her father will do that.”
“Oh, yes, a while longer is just right. Then it is so easy to ask for a little more time, for we can say that we meant that by a little longer,” said Dino.
The same day, later on, while Dino was resting, Cornelli was sitting with Mux. They were both so happy over the prospect of remaining together that Mux opened the piano and asked Cornelli to sing with him. Cornelli could not play, so promised that she would try to sing. She asked Mux to choose a song, but he knew none.
“You sing one,” he proposed, “and I might know it, too.”
Cornelli was just in the mood to sing once more. She began a song with her bright, full voice and Mux listened admiringly.
The snow’s on the meadow,
The snow’s all around,
The snow lies in heaps
All over the ground.
Hurrah, oh hurrah!
All over the ground.Oh cuckoo from the woods,
Oh flowers so bright,
Oh kindliest sun,
Come and bring us delight!
Hurrah, oh hurrah!
Come and bring us delight!When the swallow comes back
And the finches all sing,
I sing and I dance
For joy of the Spring.
Hurrah, oh hurrah!
For joy of the Spring.
Suddenly the door flew open and Agnes burst into the room.
“But why didn’t you ever say anything?” she cried out. “To think of it! Why did you never say a word, Cornelli?”
“But what should I have said?” Cornelli asked, very much frightened.
“You must not be afraid,” Mux now calmed her, “I’ll help you, if she should want to hurt you.”
“Don’t be so unnaturally stupid, Mux!” his sister ejaculated as she ran to the next room. Here her mother was already standing in the open door. “Have you heard it, Mother? Come out and let Cornelli sing her song again!”
“Yes, indeed! I have heard it with pleasure and great wonder,” said the mother, approaching Cornelli. “You have a voice, dear child, that we all should love to hear again. Have you often sung before?”
“Oh yes,” said Cornelli. “Martha has taught me many songs, but—”
“What do you mean by but?” Agnes quickly interrupted her. “I know now what a voice you have. I have to go quickly to my music lesson, but you must sing a lot with me tonight. No buts will be allowed then.”
“Oh, Cornelli, won’t you sing with us tonight?” asked the mother kindly. “We know now how well it sounds, and I do not see why you should still hesitate.”
“I can’t sing properly when I am afraid, for then it does not sound well,” Cornelli replied.
“Why should you be afraid?” asked the mother. “You know us all so well now.”
“Oh, because I am not like Agnes and Nika. I can’t do anything they do and I don’t look the way they do,” said Cornelli. With these words she frowned again in the old way, so that one could see it through the thick fringes of hair that covered her forehead.
The mother said no more and went out.
“Just stay with me, Cornelli; then you don’t have to be afraid of anything,” Mux said protectingly. “I am afraid of nothing in the whole world—except of the dark,” he added quickly, for he had seen Cornelli’s penetrating eyes looking at him through her hair, and felt that he had to tell the truth, for she was sure to find him out. “No,” he continued, “I won’t be even afraid of that if you stay with me all the time.”
Agnes had finished her school work sooner than ever that day. She ran to the piano and called to Cornelli: “Come here! Mux can play alone, for we must sing now.”
So Cornelli went up to the piano.
“I shall sing the first stanza of this song and then you can sing it with me the second time,” Agnes said and began: “The beauteous moon is risen.”
“Oh, I have known that song a long time. Shall I sing the second voice?” asked Cornelli.
“What? Can you really sing second voice? Can you really do it? Oh, that would be wonderful! Go ahead and do it!” said Agnes excitedly.
So the two girls sang alone together, for Nika had not finished her work, and the regular time for the evening songs had not yet come. Agnes was radiantly happy while she was making experiments with a new voice.
Nika was still absorbed in her work, the mother only entered the room now and then, and as Agnes was singing with her, Cornelli did not have
