The farmer did not notice the boy especially, but began at once to state his wants, whereupon the commissioner drew Renti forward and said: "You have come at an opportune time. Here is a boy ready to go right home with you. And he will do what is right, won't you, Renti?"
The boy nodded his head. There was something about him that the farmer liked.
"Then come along," said the farmer.
So Renti trotted along beside him. Barefooted, with no other clothes than the little jean trousers and coarse shirt he had on,—for his little jerkin had fallen into rags,—Renti entered upon his life at Lindenhof.
The farmer's wife looked out in surprise when she saw her husband returning so soon with a boy. She scrutinized the newcomer more carefully than her husband had, for she knew the boy would be with her a great deal of the time, and she was particular as to the people she had about her. Renti had big brown eyes that looked out upon the world and its people with open, frank gaze. Thick brown hair waved about his brow. The woman liked him.
"I'll manage somehow about his clothes," she said to herself, for she surmised that the garments he had on were his only ones.
On the following morning Renti was at once sent out to take the cows to pasture. There he met Gretchen, who had but a few days before been initiated into the duties of herding and who was very glad to find that she was to have a companion.
Into this new life for Renti there came a joy that he had never known before,—he had found a home. Out on the sunny meadow, under the alders with Gretchen, the boy was happy. Joy shone in his eyes from morning till night, and when he was not talking to Gretchen he had to express his happiness in singing or yodeling.
The farmer's wife was kind to him. She had a neat suit—trousers and jacket—made for him for Sundays, and a white shirt to go with it. Then she taught him to wash carefully at the well every morning, and he was pleased and willing about it all, for he himself liked to look neat. In his little room there was a real bed, such as he had never had before, and no one was ever cross to him now, as his former masters and mistresses had often been. So Renti was as happy as the birds in the air, and his whistling stopped only with their own songs, and probably would have continued all night if the housewife had continued her demands for wood and water that long. He always did the kitchen errands at night, for the housewife was systematic and wanted everything made ready for the next morning.