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"I am so glad you came, Cornelli," she said with animation. "Dino has talked so much about you that we, too, wanted to meet you." "I want to sit beside you," said Mux, dragging his chair to Cornelli's side. "Just stay where you are! That is my seat," Agnes cut him short. She could not be misunderstood, for she pushed back the chair and Mux quite vigorously.
"Now we shall have supper," said the mother, "and when the children's work is done we shall all sing together. Don't you sing, too, Cornelli?" "I probably do not know the songs, and so I can't sing," she replied shyly. After supper Mux fled back to Cornelli with his book. He wanted to renew his conversation with her, but his mother had a different plan.
Halm had asked each of the children to think out some surprise for Mr. Hellmut. For Mux, however, she wrote a beautiful birthday verse. As the little boy's head was filled solely with thoughts of the barn and stable, the kitchen and the goat cart, the plums, the beetles and ants, it took a great deal of time and trouble to fix the verse in his memory.
I am sure that the violets are out and that everything is getting green in the woods. Soon there will be lots of flowers in the garden, and later on the roses, and then all the berries and forget-me-nots in the meadows will come out. I know now that it is nowhere as beautiful as at home. I should love to show the mother and the girls everything, and I know that Mux would adore the little kid.
And Mux led his new friend to a whole pile of apple peels which lay in a bucket. "Isn't Agnes stupid to cry when we get good apple tarts afterwards." "But why did she cry?" asked Cornelli, full of sympathy. She knew exactly what it was like when one simply had to cry. "We don't know," retorted Mux. "But why does the maid not peel the apples?" asked Cornelli again.
The mother approved this good wish, but added: "I have to tell you, though, that Mux has gotten this idea from his favorite book, where the picture of a general on horseback interests him more than anything else. This, of course, is a passing impression, like many others." "One can never urge proper and successful work too soon nor too often; please do not overlook that, my friend!"
Then the hours of the day began, each more lovely than the last, and Mux could not tell which was the best. As the boy spent most of the day in the stable, the hayloft, and the barn, his mother had been obliged to make him a special stable costume. The little boy loved to watch the milking of the cows, and he never tired of admiring the horses and the goat. Matthew had become his best friend.
"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.
When Nika was near enough to hear him he said: "A fat gentleman has been here, and when he was gone mother said: 'Oh God! and you are not to paint any more trees and flowers." Nika, not having seen Mr. Schaller, did not understand these words. Unruffled and silent, she passed Mux and went into the other room, which disappointed Mux terribly.
I had heard of dancing at funerals. Either this was such a dance, or else some wild orgy to propitiate the spirits that preside over the destiny of coons. Throughout this gruesome rite Mux held the frog in his mouth, and I watched, expecting, hoping every moment that he would swallow it.
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