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She said that she had taken little Amrei to live with her, not from a desire to be kind, but in order that she might have some living being about her. She liked to appear rough before people, and thus enjoyed, all the more, the proud consciousness of independence. The exact opposite to her was Crappy Zachy, with whom Damie had found shelter.
Crappy Zachy looked at Barefoot for a longtime, and then shook his head; evidently he did not know her. Amrei crept along close to the wall, and so out of the room again. She ran across Farmer Dominic, whose face was radiant with joy today. "Beg pardon," said he; "does the mistress belong to the wedding guests?" "No, I am only a maid. I came with Farmer Rodel's daughter, Rose." "Good!
Your Rose is a very respectable girl nobody can deny that but she's nothing extraordinary, and one might ask, what's the price of a dozen such?" "Be quiet! I won't have that!" "Yes, yes, I'll be quiet, and not disturb you while you're writing. Now, write at once." Farmer Rodel was obliged to do as Crappy Zachy wished, and when he had done writing, he said: "What do you think?
But she soon found out that they would not only have been glad to let her go, but that they were positively angry with her because she had not gone. Crappy Zachy opened his eyes wide at her and said: "Child, you have an obstinate head of your own the whole village is angry with you for spurning your good fortune. Still, who knows whether it would have been good fortune?
Damie, who had learned from Crappy Zachy to knit wool, now sat beneath the parental roof again; and at night, when the brother and sister were asleep in the garret, each one of them would wake the other when they heard Black Marianne down stairs, running to and fro and muttering to herself. But Damie's transmigration to Black Marianne's was the cause of new trouble.
Crappy Zachy had led Damie there by the hand, but Amrei had come alone, without Black Marianne; many were angry at the hard-hearted woman, while a few hit a part of the truth when they said that Marianne did not like to visit graves, because she did not know where her husband's grave was.
The mother sat silent for a time, but after awhile she said: "You've referred him to Crappy Zachy. It was at Crappy Zachy's that Josenhans's boy was boarded out." Thus her pronouncing the name aloud showed that her former remembrances were dawning upon her; and now she became conscious what those remembrances were.
Amrei also looked at him, and asked Crappy Zachy: "Is that a bridegroom?" "Why?" "Because he has a ribbon in his button-hole." Instead of answering her, the first thing that Crappy Zachy did was to go up to a group of people and tell them what a stupid speech the child had made; and from among the graves there arose a loud laugh over her foolishness.
She heard some one behind her say: "Why, she can dance better than anybody in this part of the country!" Down from the musicians' platform Crappy Zachy handed a glass to Amrei. She took a sip, and handed it back; and Crappy Zachy said: "If you dance, Amrei, I'll play all my instruments so that the angels will come down from the sky and join in."
Don't let him notice that you know anything about it either." Crappy Zachy went away, and Farmer Rodel called his sister and his wife into the little back room. After exacting a promise of secrecy, he imparted to them that a suitor for Rose was coming the next day, a prince of a man, who had a first-rate farm in fact, it was none other than John, the son of Farmer Landfried of Zumarshofen.
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