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Updated: June 17, 2025
It was true of her, what Marianne had observed when she went to sleep for the first time in the old woman's house; she was waking and sleeping, laughing and weeping, almost all at the same time. Every occurrence and every emotion affected her very strongly, but she soon got over it and recovered her balance. She continued to weep. "You make one's heart so heavy," said Damie complainingly.
Greatly were both of them astonished when they learned, on arriving at the office, that this had already been done. The Village Council had already taken the necessary steps, and Damie was to have his rights and corresponding obligations as one of the village poor.
But that evening, when, according to an arrangement of the village authorities, "Crappy Zachy" came to get Damie, and Black Marianne called for Amrei, the children refused to separate from each other, and cried aloud, and wanted to go home.
She was especially pleased when any strange workman, who happened to be employed in the village, borrowed the hymn-book which John had left behind him for that purpose; for it seemed to her as if John himself were praying in his native church, when the words were spoken and sung out of his book. And now Damie was obliged to go to church twice every Sunday with John's hymn-book.
This worthy represented himself to people as a kind-hearted fellow who would give away anything he had; but as a matter of fact he bullied and ill-used his entire household, and especially Damie, for whose keep he received but a small sum of money.
She went into the charcoal-burner's log cabin, and there lay a cloth sack, hardly half full, and on the sack was her father's name. "Oh, how you have been dragged about!" she said, almost aloud. But she soon got over her excitement in her curiosity to see what Damie had brought back. "He must at least still have the shirts that I made for him out of Black Marianne's linen.
Damie was ashamed of his misfortune, and would hardly show his face to any one; for it is a peculiarity of weak natures that they feel their strength, not in their own self-respect, but always wish to show how much they can really do by some visible achievement. Misfortune they regard as evidence of their own weakness, and if they cannot hide it, they hide themselves.
And so great was the acknowledged authority of Little Barefoot already, and so natural did it seem that she should dictate to her brother, that he was always called "Barefoot's Damie," as if he were not her brother, but her son. And yet he was a head taller than she, and did not act as if he were subordinate to her.
On board the ship, before it sailed out into the wide ocean, he would have to sign a paper, attesting his embarkation, and not until then would the money be paid. The brother and sister returned sorrowfully to the village. Damie had been seized with a fit of his old despondency, because a thing had now to be carried out which he himself had wished.
"Are they fireproof?" replied Damie, angrily. "Don't ask such stupid questions!" Barefoot was ready to cry at this ungracious reception by her brother; but she quickly remembered, as if by intuition, that misfortune in its first shock often makes people harsh, unkind, and quarrelsome. So she merely said: "Thank God that you have escaped with your life!
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