But she had scarcely settled down beside Vinzi when both jumped up again. They noticed simultaneously that the brown cow had strolled as far as a fence which formed the boundary between their own and another pasture. In order to get through she was pushing hard against the boards. Soon the children had fetched her back and the cow was slowly wandering to the proper field. Stefeli discovered an especially inviting spot where fragrant mountain pinks were nodding in the grass. “Come, Vinzi, we’ll stay here. I am sure we couldn’t possibly hear the tunes any more.” To this Vinzi gladly assented. A great peace enveloped the heights, and the cows were quietly wandering about. Schwärzeli was usually either at the head or the rear of them, but she gave no more disorderly leaps. Only when changing ground she trotted about a bit.
The children looked with happy faces at the lovely scene before them. After enjoying it silently for a while, Stefeli said, “I should just love to be a cow-herd all my life. Would you like it, too, Vinzi?”
“No, I should not like it,” was his answer.
“But why not?” Stefeli questioned a little reproachfully. “It couldn’t anywhere be more beautiful than here.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Vinzi admitted, “but I should not like to take care of cows all my life. I should like another profession better than watching them and keeping them from running away.”
“What would you rather do?” Stefeli wanted to know.
After meditating a little Vinzi answered, “I don’t know what the profession is in which I could do what I like best of all.”
“What do you like to do best? I never saw you do it, I think,” Stefeli said, quite surprised that she should not know.
“I like above all to listen to the bells and all the sounds in the branches of the trees. Also those that drift down from the mountains on all sides. Can you hear how it seems to sing everywhere about us? Can you hear it?” Vinzi’s eyes grew more large and gleaming while he listened.
Stefeli pricked up her ears. “Those are only the gnats,” she said in a slightly disdainful voice.