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A great, oppressive weight fell from Churi's heart, and he was so touched by Erick's kindness and generosity that he did not sleep from thinking what he could possibly do for Erick to show him his gratitude. It had really been so.
Churi grumbled: "Another time you leave me alone, or " With this he shook his fist at Erick and then ran away, for he hoped to catch Kaetheli before she should reach her goal. When the latter had rested a little she came running back again, for she indeed had felt Erick's chivalrous service and she was very grateful to him.
The lady had seen the little black book in Erick's box and had taken off the close-fitting cover and had found written in fine gold letters the name, "Hilda von Vestentrop". She at once assumed that this must be the maiden name of Erick's mother; but she knew nothing further. Now she had learned through Sally's prayer that Denmark had been her native land, and that a father was living there.
"I was just going to ask," said the mother, "what you intended to do with A.M. Arndt's war songs?" Sally had taken along from all tables and book-cases what seemed to her a collection of songs. These two books she had found in her father's study and now she explained that she had to find Erick's lost song, and what Kaetheli had told her about what was in it.
She folded the hands of the departed one on her breast, then she sat down on Erick's bed, looking now at the serious face of the dead mother, now at the care-free sleeping boy, and wept quietly, until the rays of the morning sun fell into the quiet room and roused Marianne to the consciousness that a new, sad day had begun a day on which Erick had to be told that he never again on this earth could take hold of the loving hand of his mother.
There was a great deal to do in the way of protecting a number of rather uncertain investments which Pelter, Japson & Company had made for Mr. Anderson Rover while they were his brokers. "It's a mighty good thing that we got after Pelter, Japson & Company when we did," was Erick's comment. "If we hadn't, they would have put us in the worst kind of a hole, even if they had remained honest.
Erick's eyes grew larger and larger with astonishment and expectation, for he only now comprehended, what he was going to meet: all that had stood before his mental eyes as the highest and most splendid, ever since he could think, and that his mother had painted for him in the bright coloring of her childhood's remembrances, again and again, the distant, beautiful estate, the handsome horses, the pond with the barge, the large house with the winter-garden, everything he was now to see, and live there with this grandfather, for whom his mother had planted such a love and reverence in her boy's heart, that he saw in him the highest of what could be found on this earth, all this over-powered Erick so much that he was not able to comprehend his good fortune, and with a deep breath he asked: "Are you sure, Grandfather?"
And so it came about that on the same Sunday afternoon, all Upper and Lower Wooders, as well as the Middle Lotters, knew Erick's family and fate, and they had to talk loud and zealously before every door, over this change of luck that had come to Erick. In the parsonage, too, the evening was spent with unusually animated conversation.
He bent to Erick's ear and whispered: "I will never again hurt you as long as I live, Erick, and when you come back again, you just reckon on me; no one shall ever touch you, and you shall have all the crabs and strawberries and hazel nuts which I can find." But on the other side someone else had sprung on the carriage step and clamored for Erick's attention.
Erick rose; he hesitated for a moment, then he asked somewhat falteringly: "Must I go now directly to be auctioned? I am afraid Marianne has gone by now." "No, no," the pastor answered quickly, "you will not go there at all, not at all. Now you go down to Mamma, she will keep you for the present." Erick's eyes shone for joy.
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