So it had been settled between them that Vinzi was to go and that in return one of the three boys was to spend a summer with them. It would do him good to see a new place and different ways of working. Lesa believed that a man who lived in the valley was soon going to drive his cattle over the mountain and that would give them a good opportunity to send Vinzi.
The mother went to bed with a heavy heart that night. Vinzi was to be sent to perfect strangers into surroundings she did not know. Besides it was so far away that she could not even keep an eye on him. Why did it have to be? Another great sorrow was the thought that Vinzi must have done something to draw his father’s discontent upon him. She hardly slept that night. As soon as it had grown bright the next morning and before anyone in the house had wakened, she went into Vinzi’s chamber. She wanted to have a quiet hour with the boy in order to hear what he had done. She also had to prepare him for what was to happen, for she realized that it would probably be very soon. Vinzi, opening his large, dark eyes, gazed with surprise at his mother. She was sitting on the edge of his bed, holding his hand in hers.
“Tell me, Vinzi,” she began, “while nobody can disturb us, why you made father so angry yesterday. You had better tell me everything.”
Vinzi had to think a little. He remembered how furiously Mrs. Troll had sent him away the day before and he supposed his father had heard about it. He told her the whole incident of the music lessons and how raging Mrs. Troll had grown, also how desirous Alida had been to continue the lessons.
A great load fell from the mother’s heart when she found that Vinzi had done no wrong. She understood, however, that their neighbor’s words had specially irritated her husband, because Vinzi had for a long while caused him secret anxiety and grief. She found it necessary to explain to her boy, how wrong it had been to tell her nothing of the matter. She wondered if it had not occurred to him that nothing like that should have been begun without telling them at home. Vinzi here quite frankly admitted that he had been afraid of not getting his father’s permission, and as he had been so dreadfully eager to learn something about music, he and Stefeli had talked it all over and had decided that it was a good time to leave the pasture. They had thought their father would not mind so long as nothing happened to the cows. But the mother said that his secrecy had not been right and was bringing bad consequences, though she hoped these might also lead to good. Here she spoke of his father’s plan and their hope that Vinzi would learn to enjoy all the farm work his three cousins seemed to relish so much. She hoped he would heartily enter into everything with them and return bright and happy; which would make his father overjoyed. However delicately the mother had mentioned their decision, Vinzi had only heard the fact that he had to leave his home. The boy looked terror-stricken, but did not utter a word. The mother was glad enough that he did not complain, because his frightened face alone had brought the tears to her eyes.
Everything took its usual course that day. The children went up to the pasture again, and the cows, after they wandered about for a bit, had quietly settled down. Stefeli was quite accustomed to Vinzi’s long silent spells, when he seemed to listen to all kinds of sounds she could not hear. But that day he went too far.
“Say something to me, Vinzi. You might just as well not be here at all,” she finally said a little crossly.
“Oh yes, and I won’t be here much longer. I can’t help thinking of your being all alone when I can’t come to the pasture any more,” Vinzi said dolefully. Then Stefeli heard that he was to be sent up to a high mountain, to people he had never seen. She could not believe that anything so unheard-of could suddenly come to pass.
“When will you have to go?” she asked, wholly overcome by this dreadful change.
As his mother had not mentioned this, Vinzi did not know.