"Maybe so; but I think not."
"Don't you see a child there, running across the road? Is that it? Is it?"
"No, that's not our child. It can't run yet; but it can crawl about like a young dog."
"Who cut down the willow?" suddenly asked Walpurga.
"It was blown down by the storm, last spring."
Walpurga asked questions, but heeded not what she asked nor the answers she received. "Just see, how clear the brook is, and how swiftly it flows. I think it never used to flow so quickly. And they've built a new house here, and there they've felled the trees, and, just look at the beautiful little water-wagtails. They're larger and more beautiful with us than anywhere else."
They met a boy on a gray mare which he was riding to water. "That's Grubersepp's Waldl. How stout he's growing!"
"And it's a good beginning, that the first one to meet us should be a boy," said Hansei. "Waldl!" he called out to the lad, "come over to our house this evening and I'll give you some cherries." The boy made no reply and rode on.
"The two cows grazing there near the little girl, are ours," said Hansei.
Everything comes; everything except the mother and the child.