What Sami Sings with the Birds

by Johanna Spyri

Sami was so overcome because everything was still exactly the same as he had known it before, that he stood speechless for a long time and listened, looking around him and listening again. It seemed so good to him and he had never felt such happiness in his heart since that evening when he had sat there with his grandmother. Now his grandmother rose so vividly before him, that he suddenly threw himself down on the wall and wept. She was no longer there, and would come back to him no more. But all the good words she had spoken to him here that evening rose vividly in his heart, and it seemed as if he distinctly heard her talking again, and as if she must really be quite near and see him.

Sami straightened himself up again, sat a while longer listening, and then began to think what he should do. At first he wanted to go to Malon and ask him if he could work for him, perhaps get out the weeds in his vineyard. But he could not explain to him why he was there again; they would not understand each other and Malon might think he had done something wrong and had been sent away for it by his cousin. But perhaps the woman who always gave mending to his grandmother would set him to work in her garden. She lived down below, near the Lake. He jumped down from the wall. Once more he looked at the hillside, and up into the tree, but he could come here again; he was here and could stay here.

On the way he thought how he could explain to the woman what he wanted to do for her. He would bend down and show her how he could pull up the weeds; then he would show her by a gesture that he knew how to hoe.

There stood already the old castle of La Tour before him, with its two high, weather-beaten towers, which he had looked at so many times. All around and high up thick ivy covered the old walls, and above them multitudes of merry birds were chirping. Sami had to stop and listen to their happy singing for a while, then he went along by the high old wall around the courtyard, for he wanted to see if it was still the same as before down below in the lonely place where the water kept falling on the old stones and singing a gentle song. He had once stood there a long time with his grandmother. There lay the place before him, but it was not lonely. A big wagon was standing there, with a grey cover stretched over it. No horse stood in front of it, but a thin nag was nibbling the hedge, and this evidently belonged to the wagon. Near the old castle tower a fire was blazing merrily; a man was sitting by it, hammering with all his might. Close by him four little children were crawling around on the ground. Sami stood still at this unexpected sight, then came slowly a little nearer. Then he heard the man warning the children not to come so near the fire. This he was doing in Sami’s own language, exactly as all the people in Zweisimmen had spoken. This gave courage to Sami; he came along quite near, and watched the man mend a hole in an old pan.

“Does it please you?” asked the man, after Sami had looked on attentively for some time. The boy answered by nodding his head.

“Are you French, that you can’t talk?” asked the man again.

Sami then said he could talk, but not at all in French, but he was glad that the tinker spoke German, because otherwise he would not be able to understand anyone there.

“Whom do you belong to?” asked the man again.

“Nobody,” answered Sami.

Then the man wanted to know where he had come from and why he had come among the French. Sami told him his history, and how he had only come there again that morning.