Cornelli Part 24

"I have to tell you something else, Mr. h.e.l.lmut," Mrs. Halm continued.

"I am perfectly sure that a child's first impressions are very important. It is natural that Cornelli missed her mother's guidance, but she was not by any means a neglected child when she came to me.

From what she and Dino have told me I am perfectly sure that Martha gave Cornelli the best one can possibly give a child on spiritual education. I esteem old Martha very highly, for she must love and understand children as few people do."

"My wife used to say the same thing, and that is why I had such confidence in Martha. Unfortunately a time came later on when I feared that she was wrong, and I did not realize what she meant to Cornelli.

You have reminded me of my great debt--"

At this moment such loud laughter and rejoicing sounded from below that both stepped to the open window.

Mux was screaming loudly, and seemed quite beside himself. "Mama, Mama," he cried out, "just look at a living goat boy and a real goat!

Come down and see me!"

Mux was sitting on the seat of a lovely wicker carriage, with two reins in one hand and a whip in the other, while a young and slender goat was pulling him. Agnes and Cornelli were running beside the carriage as protectors, while Dino held the goat lightly by the reins to keep her from running off. All the children were screaming with delight at the wonderful ride.

Matthew was standing beside the bushes to watch this trial trip, for he thought that his help might be needed. He had built the carriage for Cornelli and had already several times harnessed the goat so as to teach her how to behave when Cornelli returned. When Matthew had first shown the little conveyance to the children, Cornelli had said right away that Mux had to take the first ride in order to realize the scene he loved so much in his picture book.

Mux simply screamed to his mother in wild joy. To see the wonderful spectacle from near by, she came down to the garden.

The Director also left the house, but he went another way. Not long afterwards he went up Martha's little stairway to the porch where the old woman sat on her stool mending.

"Oh, Mr. h.e.l.lmut!" she called out in her surprise. Opening the door she led her visitor into her room, for the porch was very narrow.

Mr. h.e.l.lmut entered.

"Martha," he said in a business-like tone, "I have spoiled your business by taking your boarder away from you forever. That requires a compensation, and so I have just bought your little cottage from the farmer over there, besides the little piece of ground in front of it.

Now you will have more room for your carnations, and if you manage well, you can surely have some pleasant days from the rent which you save. Are you satisfied?"

"Oh, Mr. h.e.l.lmut! Is this little house really my own, now, and will I really have a garden besides? Oh, Mr. h.e.l.lmut!"

But her benefactor would not let her say any more. After heartily shaking her hand, he hurried away.

The large raspberries were peeping out between the green leaves, and the golden plums were dropping from the heavily laden branches. From morning till night on these beautiful summer days Mux fairly swam in uninterrupted bliss. Before he had even opened his eyes in the morning, he would call out to his mother in his sleep: "Oh, mother, are we in Iller-Stream still? Are we still here?" 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. The gardener constantly thought out pleasant surprises for Mux, who showed a decided taste for farming.

If Matthew had to do some important work where Mux was in his way, he always devised a plan to keep the boy amused elsewhere: "Go down there to the raspberry hedge, Mux!" he would say. "The berries are finest and biggest there, because the sun has cooked them through. Go to the plum tree afterwards and wait for me!"

Mux would obey promptly, wandering over to the plum tree from the raspberry bushes, which he had lightened considerably. He then would sit thoughtfully under the plum tree, waiting till Matthew returned.

The gardener then shook the tree so mightily that a flood of golden plums came rolling down over Mux, who could freely enjoy the wealth about him.

If Matthew could not be found and Cornelli and Dino were busy with their own plans and did not need him, Mux knew another friend who always gave him a good reception, that friend was Esther. He loved to find her in the vegetable garden, which was also full of surprises for him. It was like a marvel to the little boy that the green peas hung here in abundance, whereas they were only served at home on feast days.

He became quite scared when Esther picked a basketful. But when he warned her, saying, "Don't take them all, for then we won't have any more," she only laughed and said: "They always grow again; in a week there will be plenty more."

If Mux looked a little timidly at the large cabbage heads, Esther said to him: "Don't be afraid of them, Mux. If I cook cabbage, everybody else likes it so much that you won't have to eat it at all, and you can take the potatoes which I serve with it."

Mux often accompanied Esther to the kitchen, where he soon picked up a lot of useful knowledge. There was no pastry the exact recipe of which as well as how it tasted Mux could not tell. In this manner he lived through heavenly days.

They were no less heavenly for the other children. Dino and Cornelli had started the large undertaking of laying out Martha's garden after their own plan. They were so busy inventing things and carrying them out that they could hardly ever be found.

Agnes struggled with Dino for first place in Cornelli's affection, but Dino was always the victor. Cornelli never forgot that he had been her first friend, who had held fast to their friends.h.i.+p. For this she remained faithful to him.

It was a consolation to Agnes that she could play on the lovely piano whenever she wanted to and that Cornelli was always home in the evenings, when she could sing with her. Mr. h.e.l.lmut would sit in his arm-chair while the two girls sang one song after another, and he could never hear enough. Beaming with joy, he would say to Mrs. Halm from time to time: "The child has her mother's voice, except that her mother's voice was still fuller and softer."

Mrs. Halm's face would beam, too, as she would say: "Just have a little patience, Director. You are sure some day to hear Cornelli's voice when there will be nothing more to desire in it. Her teacher's highest wish is to train her voice." For answer the father nodded and lay back in his chair smiling contentedly.

Nika, too, was completely changed. No shadows dimmed her eyes, for she could wander about all day with her paint box from one lovely spot to another, up to the beech wood or to the hill where the big oak tree stood. There she could sit on a bench and look down, over the house and garden, and far below into the wide, green valley. Nika was very happy to be able to spend all her time in painting, without ever being disturbed or called away by unwished-for duties.

When the mother saw the happy faces of her girls and Dino's improved health, she felt very happy, too. Suddenly, however, the thought would rise in her: How will it be when these lovely days are over and we have to start living again in the narrow confines of town and in the shadow of those coming years?

The holidays were nearing their end, but n.o.body yet had time to think of that, for the Director's birthday was drawing near and this was to be the great feast day for everybody. Mrs. Halm had asked each of the children to think out some surprise for Mr. h.e.l.lmut. 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. Nika, needing no advice, had long ago decided what to do. Every day as soon as the meals were over, she silently disappeared. Agnes and Cornelli bolted the door of the music room and let mysterious songs issue from behind it.

Only Dino was still undecided about his task. When he was left alone with his mother and Mux one day, and all the others were busy with their preparations, he said: "Tell me what I could do, mother."

"Draw him a picture of the beautiful goat," Mux advised. He knew that Dino could draw animals well, and to him there was no finer animal in all the world than the goat.

"What a knowing goat boy you are, Mux," Dino exclaimed. Despite his refusal to draw the goat, he had nevertheless gotten an idea from his little brother. "Oh, I'll draw the two brown horses," he called out joyously. "I'll make one trotting and the other walking. Matthew must lead them up for me."

So the boy ran happily to the stable, and after that day he and Matthew had many meetings in secret.

The birthday came at last.

When the Director entered the dining room in the morning, such a beautiful duet resounded from the next room that he was compelled to draw nearer. Agnes and Cornelli were both singing a lovely song with such deep feeling that the Director could hardly speak. When they had ended, he patted them both on the shoulder with fatherly tenderness and then pa.s.sed into the next room. Here Mux approached him and said his verse faultlessly in a loud, clear voice. On the table the Director found two beautiful drawings of his brown horses, and his joy over them was so great that he did not put them down for quite a while. But finally he saw all at once a large picture resting in the middle of the table. His house, with the surrounding garden, the luminous meadow with the view toward the valley and the distant mountains beyond, was painted in such fresh and absolutely natural colors that Mr. h.e.l.lmut was quite overcome. This was the view he had loved so pa.s.sionately from his childhood.

"Cornelli, come here!" the father called. "Just look at this picture!

Don't you have a beautiful home? Do you love your home as much as your father loves it?"

"Oh yes, Papa, I love it so much!" said Cornelli. "And I have to think every day that I never knew how beautiful it was before I went away.

But ever since I came home again, I know. Oh, how beautiful it looks in the picture!"

Agnes had been standing behind Cornelli. Suddenly she exclaimed pa.s.sionately: "Oh, Cornelli, if only you didn't have such a beautiful home!"

"Agnes," the mother said in alarm, "what unseemly words are you saying?"

The Director looked in astonishment at Agnes, whose eyes were flas.h.i.+ng fire while she regarded the painting.

"Have you had a disagreement with Cornelli? Is that the reason why you don't want her to have such a beautiful home?" he asked with a sly smile.

Agnes flushed scarlet.

"Oh no, Mr. h.e.l.lmut, I did not mean it that way. I have never fought with Cornelli, and I only fight with Dino because he wants to have Cornelli all the time. If Cornelli didn't have this beautiful home and if she were like me and had to give up all her music lessons and had to earn her living, we could do fine things together. She has such a beautiful voice that we could hire a harp and could travel into strange cities and sing before the houses. Later on we could give concerts and begin a singing school. But I can't do anything alone."

At this outbreak, which no sign from her could check, the mother became alternately hot and cold from fright. Agnes' eyes still flashed with pa.s.sionate excitement like burning coals.

"I approve of the singing school, but especially of sitting down to breakfast. I hope very much that we have the usual chocolate to drink to-day, for it is a good old custom for birthdays which should not be neglected. So a singing school is to be founded," he continued, while Mux gazed solemnly at the three huge cakes which were placed beside the three big chocolate pots. "The wandering harp players are a little too poetical for me, but I like the idea of a school, Agnes. As I, too, wish to profit from it, I want it to be built on my estate. Lots of our workmen in the foundry have small children, whose mothers are busy with the housework and their small babies. So Agnes and Cornelli are going to found a singing school in Iller-Stream, where all the children will go, whose mothers have no time for singing. Upon their arrival the children shall all be given a bowl of milk and a piece of bread apiece to make their voices fuller. Now we have settled all about the school. I shall also have my two teachers instructed, so that they won't ever be out of practice. I have also some work for Nika: she shall fill my house with lovely pictures from top to bottom. To inspire her with plenty of new ideas, I am going to send her to her professor in town for lessons. Dino shall help me keep my two horses in trim by giving them plenty of exercise, for that will be good for him and them.

I can use Mux by having him trained to become the manager of my estate.

The good beginning he has made in the knowledge of farming under Matthew's guidance shall be continued while the ground is covered with green and the trees are bearing fruit. The mother shall stay here for the protection of you all. So tell me, now, how you like my plan. Shall it be thus?"

Absolute silence followed. The children hardly dared to realize that the words they had just heard were true, and the mother was filled with deep emotion. She could not utter a word, and tears flowed from her eyes. Could it be possible that her great sorrow and heavy cares were suddenly lifted from her? Could it really be true?