Martella returned from the fields in good spirits, and during the morning lunch was quite cheerful. She was constantly talking of the daughter-in-law, and the cow-calf that had come into the family during the night before.
I then said to her, "I will give you the cow-calf. It is yours."
She made no answer, but looked at me with an air of surprise.
Rothfuss told me that when in the stable, she had said to the calf: "You belong to me. But of course, you know nothing of it. You really belong to your mother. But your mother belongs to the master, the master belongs to Ernst, and Ernst belongs to me; and that is how it is."
When evening came, Rothfuss expressed his opinion in the following words:
"If her inside is like her outside, she need not be made any better than she already is."
Our oldest maid-servant, Balbina, seemed quite kindly disposed to the new arrival, and Martella said that Balbina had told her something with the air of imparting a secret of which she was the only possessor. And what was it? "Why, nothing more than that it is sinful to lie and steal."
I have given the story of this first day in its smallest details. It is only for the first green leaves of spring that we have an attentive eye. They go on, silently increasing, until they become so numerous that they excite no comment.
CHAPTER IX.
Martella did not become attached to any one in the house except Rothfuss, whom she was constantly plying with questions about Ernst's childhood. When in pleasant evenings during the week, and on Sunday afternoons in clear weather, the youths and maidens would march through the village, with their merry songs, she would sit with Rothfuss on the bench by the stable, or, unattended by any companion save her dog, would be up in the woods that lay back of our house.