She soon imparted to Mariann that a wonderful thing had happened to her. The Esquire Landfried, of whose wife she thought so often, had spoken with her, had said something of her to Rodel, and had made her a present. She showed her the money.
Mariann cried, laughing, “Ah, that I could have guessed. That is like the Landfried! That is noble! to give the poor child a false groschen!”
“Why, is it then false?” asked Amrie, and the tears sprang into her eyes.
“That is a worn-out birds’ groschen, worth only half a kreutzer.”
“He would have given me the other half,” said Amrie, gravely. And now for the first time she showed an inward opposition towards Mariann. The latter rejoiced at every thing wicked that she heard of people. Amrie, on the contrary, ascribed every thing to good motives. She was always happy. She forgot all realities in the happy dreams of her solitude. She expected nothing from others. She was therefore surprised if she received any thing, and was always thankful for the slightest favor.
“He has given me only half a kreutzer; that is enough, and I am satisfied.” She repeated this proudly to herself, while she ate her solitary supper, as though she were yet speaking to Mariann, who was not in the house, but meantime milked her goat.
In the night, she stitched the coin between two pieces of cloth, and hung it as an amulet around her neck, and concealed it on her breast. It seemed as though the impression of the bird upon the money waked the bird in the heart upon which it rested. Full of inward joy, she sang and hummed her songs all day from morning till evening; and thus she thought always again of Farmer Landfried’s lady. She had now seen both, and had of both a memento, and it seemed to her as though they left her only for a short time there; and that the Berner chaise, with the two white horses, would come again,—the farmer’s people sitting within,—and bring her away. And they would say, “Thou art our child;” for certainly the Landfried would relate at home how he had met her.
With penetrating glances she looked into the autumn sky,—it was so clear, so cloudless,—and then upon the earth, where the meadows were yet green; and the hemp, lying in rows, spread out to dry, appeared like a fine net upon the ground, the autumn flowers looking up between,—the ravens flying above, their black wing feathers glistening in the bright sunshine. No wind blew; all was calm. The cows ruminated upon the stubble-fields; cracking of whips and songs echoed from all the meadows; and the pear-tree shivered its branches together, and shook down its leaves; autumn was there.
When at evening Amrie went home, she looked askingly in Mariann’s face; she thought it must tell her that the Landfried had sent to fetch her. With a heavy heart, she drove her geese to the stubble-field that was so far away from the road that led to the Holder Green, where she longed to return. But the hedges were already leafless. The larks, in their heavy downward flight, scarcely twittered a single note,—and yet there came no message; and Amrie felt as timid, in prospect of the winter, as she would have been before a prison. She consoled herself a little with the reward she received, which was especially rich. Not one of her fledglings had fallen—not one was lamed. Mariann not only sold the feathers that Amrie had collected, at a good price, but advised her not to follow the old custom,—which, at the time her salary was paid, for every goose that had been herded, to give a piece of church-consecrated cake. Mariann advised her to exchange the cake for good, sound bread. Thus they had bread the winter through, of very old baking indeed; but, as Mariann said, “Amrie’s teeth were as sound and white as those of a mouse, and could nip through every thing.”
Throughout the village, nothing was now heard but the thresher’s flail, and Amrie said, “The whole summer long, the corn in the ear heard only the song of the lark; now, men bruise its head with the flail, and how different is the sound!”