"But why, Rudi?" asked the herdsman in surprise.
"Because you were so hot," answered Rudi.
Franz Martin was more and more astonished. "But I was awake at sunrise. When did you come up?"
"Yesterday at five, or perhaps four, o'clock," stammered Rudi timidly. "The milker did not come until long afterward."
"What! you were up here all night? What did you do or want here?"
But the herdsman saw that Rudi was quite terrified. The visions of the night recurred to him, and with fatherly kindness he patted the boy's shoulder and said encouragingly, "With me you need not be afraid, Rudi. Here, drink another glass of milk and then tell me everything that happened from the time that you got here."
Cheered thus, Rudi took new courage. He drank the milk in long draughts; it tasted delicious to the hungry, thirsty boy. Then he began to relate: "I came up here to sit in the bushes a little while, but only as I did every day, not on account of the cheese rolls. And then, after the milker had brought the milk and you did not come for so long, I looked for you, and I found you on the ground, and you were red and hot and seemed thirsty. So I ran down quickly to the swamp and got all the big strawberries I could find and brought them up to you, and you were glad for them. But you pointed to your head and wanted water on it. I fetched the little bowl out of the hut, and the pail, and filled them at the brook, and poured the water over your head and gave you to drink, for you were very thirsty. Whenever the pail was empty I went to the brook and filled it; but because the water ran off your head so fast I thought a heavy cloth would keep wet a long time. So I got the cloth out of the hut and laid it thick and wet on your head and dipped it in the pail whenever it got dry and hot; and then at last you awoke when it was morning, and I was very glad. I was afraid you might get very sick."
Franz Martin had been listening with earnest attention. Now everything that he had gone through in the night was plain to him,—how he thought an angel had come to him with strawberries, and how he afterward enjoyed the water of Clear Brook as the real water of life. Franz Martin sat and gazed at Rudi in dumb amazement, as though he had never seen a boy before. Such a boy as this he had certainly never seen. How was it possible, he said to himself, that this boy, whom every one, young and old, never called anything else but "Stupid Rudi," had been clever enough to save his life, which had certainly been in great danger?—for what a fever had been consuming him the herdsman knew perfectly well. Had Rudi not quieted this fever with his cooling showers, who knows what might have developed by morning? And how could this boy, whom no one thought worthy of a friendly word, be capable of such self-sacrifice that he would sit up and care for him all night?
Tears came to the eyes of the big, stalwart man as he looked at the timid, despised little fellow, and thought this all over. Then he took the boy by the hand and said: "We will be good friends, Rudi; I have much to thank you for and I shall not forget it. Do me one more favor. I am so weak and shaky that I must lie down and rest. You go down to my mother and tell her to come to me. Say that I am not quite well. But you must come back with her, for I have much to talk over with you to-day. Don't forget."
In his whole life Rudi had never been so happy. He ran down the mountain, leaping and skipping for joy. Franz Martin had himself told him to come again, and now he need no longer hide, but might walk right into the hut, and, better still, Franz Martin had said that he would be good friends with him. At each new thought Rudi leaped high into the air, and before he knew it he had reached the Hillside. Just as he was coming down from above in jumps toward the neat little cottage with the shining windows, Frau Vincenze came up from below in her Sunday clothes, prayer book in hand. The boy ran toward her, but for several moments could say nothing; he was quite out of breath with running.