"Very little, but I told him a lot," Mäzli said. "He has a headache, Apollonie, and just think! nobody ever brings him any water, and Mr. Trius even turns the key and bolts the door before he goes to him."
Apollonie broke out into such lamentations and complaints after these words that Mäzli could not bear it.
"But he has the water long ago, Apollonie. I am sure Mr. Trius gave it to him. Please don't go on so," she said a trifle impatiently. But this was only oil poured on the flames.
"Yes, no one knows what he does and what he doesn't do," Apollonie lamented, louder than ever. "The poor master is sick, and all his servant does is to stumble about the place, not asking after his needs and letting everything go to rack and ruin. Not a cabbage-head or a pea-plant is to be seen. Not one strawberry or raspberry, no golden apricots on the wall or a single little dainty peach. The disorder everywhere is frightful. When I think how wonderfully it used to be managed by the Baroness!" Apollonie kept on wiping her eyes because present conditions worried her dreadfully. "You can't understand it, Mäzli," she continued, when she had calmed down a trifle. "You see, child, I should be glad to give a finger of my right hand if I could go up there one day a week in order to arrange things for the master as they should be and fix the garden and the vegetables. The stuff the old soldier is giving him to eat is perfectly horrid, I know."
Mäzli hated to hear complaints, so she always looked for a remedy.
"You don't need to be so unhappy," she said. "Just cook some nice milk-pudding for him and I'll take it up to him. Then he'll have something good to eat, something much better than vegetables; oh, yes, a thousand times better."
"You little innocent! Oh, when I think of forty years ago!" Apollonie cried out, but she complained no further. Mäzli's answers had clearly given her the conviction that the child could not possibly understand the difficult situation she was in.
Mäzli chattered gaily by Apollonie's side, and as soon as she reached home, wanted to tell her mother what had happened. But the child was to have no opportunity for that day. The mother had been very careful in keeping the contents of Miss Remke's letter from the children in order not to spoil their last two weeks together. Unfortunately Bruno had that day received a letter from Salo, in which he wrote that in ten days one of the ladies was coming to fetch Leonore home, as she was completely well. Salo remarked quite frankly that he himself hardly looked forward to Leonore's coming, as he saw in each of her letters how happy she was in Aunt Maxa's household and how difficult the separation would be for her. Whenever he thought how hard it would be for her to grow accustomed to the change again, all his joy vanished at the prospect of her return. Bruno had read the whole letter aloud and had therewith conjured up such consternation and grief on every side that the mother hardly knew how to comfort them. Leonore herself was sitting in the midst of the excited group. She gave no sound and had unsuccessfully tried to swallow her rising tears, but they had got the better of her and were falling over her cheeks in a steady stream.
Mea was crying excitedly, "Oh, mother, you must help us. You have to write to the ladies that they mustn't come. Please don't let Leonore go!"
Bruno remarked passionately that no one had the right to drag a sick person on a journey against the doctor's wishes. The doctor had said the last time he had been here that Leonore was to have not less than a month for her complete recovery.