While she was packing the woman kept on talking very angrily about Sami’s wickedness and insolence, so that he now for the first time understood it all. The boys had stated that he had reproached them for not being God-fearing people; they had punished him for it, and through his resistance he had overturned the cart. Sami now tried to explain to the woman that it had not happened so, but she said she knew enough, threw his tied-up bundle beside his bed, and went out.
Now for the first time Sami was able to think over what had happened to him and what was going to come. Then he was angry because he had to bear such injustice and not once have a chance to speak. And now he was driven out, or perhaps he would be sent to people where it would be even worse for him. Then he was so overcome with anger and fear and anguish, that he began to cry aloud and called out:
“Yes, yes, Grandmother, you said if I was God-fearing everything would happen to me for the best; and I have been, and now it has happened this way!”
But with the thought of his grandmother, there rose in his heart all the memories of his life with her, how they had wandered so peacefully through the meadows, and how beautiful it had been under those trees, how the birds had sung and the brook murmured, and suddenly Sami was mightily overcome, and he exclaimed:
“Away! away! Over there! over there!”
From that moment on a bright light rose in his heart. It was hope in a new life as beautiful as the first had been. Then Sami said his evening prayer gladly and fell asleep.
CHAPTER FIFTH
THE BIRDS ARE STILL SINGING
The next morning when Sami sat at the table with the family, no one said a word to him. The farmer’s wife pushed a piece of bread towards his coffee-cup and made up an unfriendly face. The farmer was no different. The three boys looked sourly down at their coffee-cups, for they had no good consciences, and all three feared that their lies of the day before might yet be found out, if Sami should happen to speak.