“Yes, I have heard some from uncle Lorenz. If I only had words to one I know, I could teach them that,” answered Vinzi.
“Then you are like me. I forget the words, too, but you are still too young to do that,” was the old man’s opinion.
“I haven’t forgotten them. I never knew them,” said Vinzi seriously.
The old man measured him with a penetrating glance, trying to see if this was meant to be a joke. But Vinzi looked far too earnest. “How can you know a song if it has no words?” he asked.
“I know a few words of it and the way it should sound, but it is so hard to make up enough words for a whole song, and I can’t do it. When I was sitting among the roses this morning, I heard the song and I could sing it, except for the words. If only some one could write me a song.”
Vinzi looked longingly up to the grandfather.
“Maybe I know a person who could do it,” replied the latter, very pleased at the possibility of helping Vinzi. “What would your song be about?”
“About the alp-roses and the sunshine on them. The sunshine on the mountains and the foaming water and all the beautiful things I saw there.”
Vinzi’s eyes sparkled as he eagerly described this. The melody he had heard kept going in his head and he could barely keep himself from singing it aloud.
“I’ll let Pater Silvanus know about this and we’ll see what he can do.”