When they met or passed anybody, John would cry, “See! this is my wife; look at her!” till Amrie besought him not to do it—when he said, “He could not for joy help it. I would call the whole world to rejoice with me—and I cannot tell how the men who are at work in the fields, or who are splitting wood, or doing any thing else, are not able to know how blessed I am.”
A poor woman came limping after them, and Amrie seized quickly a pair of her beloved shoes and threw them to her. The woman looked astonished, and nodded her thanks. Amrie felt for the first time in her life, that blessed emotion of giving away a thing which she valued herself. She never thought how much she had done for Mariann, but that she had given her shoes, appeared to her the first benevolence of her heart. She was more pleased than the woman who had received the shoes; she smiled at herself, as though she had a secret in her soul that made her heart leap for joy, and when John asked, “What is the matter? why do you smile like a child in its sleep?” she said, “Ah! it is all like a dream. I can now make a present—and am going home in thought with that old woman, and can see how happy she will be.”
“That is brave,” said John; “I like to see you generous.”
“Oh! how can you call it so, to give when one is happy? It is as though a full glass should overflow. I would give every thing away. I feel as you do, that I would call all men to be happy; I mean, I should like to feast them all. I think I am sitting at a long table, alone with you, but I cannot eat, I am satisfied.”
“Ah, that is well,” said John; “but do not throw away more of your shoes. When I look at them, I think how many beautiful long years you will wear them—how many beautiful long years you will run about in them, till they are worn out.”
“How came you to think of that? How many hundred times have I had the same thought, when I have looked at the shoes; but now tell me something of your home, else I shall always chatter of myself.”
John did that willingly, and while he related, and Amrie listened with wide-opened eyes, there always moved throughout it in her imagination, the happy image of the old woman with the new shoes. After John had described his family, above all, he praised the cattle—“They are all so well fed, so healthy and round, that no drop of water will stand upon them.”
“I cannot understand,” said Amrie, “how I can be so rich. When I think of it, it seems as though I had slept all my life, and had just been waked. No, no! It cannot be so; I am frightened when I think of the responsibility I shall feel. Tell me, will not your mother help me; she is active yet, I hope? I do not know how I shall help giving every thing to the poor; but no—that must not be, for it is not mine.”
“Giving does not make one poor, is a proverb of my mother’s,” said John.
It is impossible to say with what joy the lovers went on. Every word they uttered made them happier. Amrie asked, “Have you swallows at your house?”