"Can you play 'I Sing to You with Heart and Mouth?'" she asked.
Yes, Vinzi knew it well, and after seeking a little for the right pitch, played with assurance. The mother sang well and her husband joined in with a strong bass, and suddenly Jos lifted his fine voice. Faz growled after his father, then jumped to his mother's high notes, and Russli squeaked in between. But the other voices were so strong, that these false notes did not disturb the song. Mrs. Lesa was so delighted that she begged for another song directly the first was finished, and then another and another.
The cousin was highly pleased and declared, "That was a splendid entertainment and we will have another tomorrow. It is a good thing to praise God with beautiful music."
When Vinzi went to his hayrick, his heart was so full of thanksgiving that he sat in the doorway a long time looking up into the sky with its myriad of stars.
"Oh, how beautiful it is here, and it grows more lovely! To praise God with music is something beautiful, Cousin Lorenz said and tomorrow we will do it again, and so every day," said Vinzi to himself.
His pipe had pleased his cousin, and that thought added to Vinzi's happiness. It seemed as though he must sing aloud, that to do so would only be joining in the great song of praise that sounded all around him, from the twinkling stars, the gleaming chapel, the gurgling stream and the golden moon sailing so majestically above the towering crags.
The pungent perfume of the hay was lifted by the night wind, and it was that which at last roused Vinzi. The night had grown cool, and he quickly closed his door and sought his comfortable bed.
From that day on, there was music in Lorenz Lesa's house every evening. One might have supposed it was the chief work of the day. In fact, the toil of the day was really behind the singers and so they could enter into the pleasure of their leisure hours with special joy. It was Vinzi's particular delight to see that his Cousin Lorenz and his wife Josepha were the ones who longed most for the music.
Every night at supper she would say, "I suppose Vinzi will soon begin to play," and after the regular time had been given to music, her husband would suggest, "It's not too late for another little song, is it?" For now that he had started to sing again, he kept recalling the songs he had sung in his youth, and if Vinzi did not know them, all he did was to sing them over several times and then Vinzi could play them perfectly. The others would follow his piping, and so learn the tune. This afforded Lorenz immense satisfaction, and after an evening so spent, he would shake Vinzi's hand and say, "Your music makes a fellow feel quite young again. Your shawm pipes the joy of youth into my heart."