“That is right,” said Betti, delighted. “You see, Tina will not take me in the carriage; she says I am too big. Will you take me every day in the carriage to the meadow for ever so many hours?”
“Yes, indeed, I will do that gladly,” promised Sami, “and you shall have all the flowers. Then I will take you besides to the trees where all the birds sing ‘Only trust the dear Lord!’ and where the finch cries so loud above them all: ‘Trust! Trust! Trust! Trust!’ Have you heard him too?”
At this description little Betti’s eyes grew bigger and brighter with expectation.
“Come now, let’s go right away to the birds,” she exclaimed, jumped up and ran in haste to the carriage.
Sami followed.
At this moment Tina, with a very red face, came running up from below. Her looks did not portend anything good.
“So I have found you at last,” she cried angrily from a distance. “Everybody is running around looking for you—your three brothers, the servants, the coachman—everybody! I have run myself half dead for you. Sit down in the carriage, you naughty little thing. The little tramp can go where he likes. No, he must come back again; his bundle is lying in the courtyard. So he can pull the carriage if he has to come with us.”
Little Betti did not seem very much frightened by this lively speech. She climbed quickly into the carriage and said gaily: “Go ahead, Sami!”
He obeyed quite crushed, for now he could only return for his bundle; then he would have to go away again, and he had so firmly believed this was the place where he was to stay according to his grandmother’s advice, and it had pleased him so much. He had started out in the morning full of trust from the song of the birds, and now he was returning very down-hearted the same way.
When the three on their way home came to the courtyard, a tall man was standing there, looking out up and down the road; a lady was coming out of the house and going in again very restlessly, and three young boys were running first one way and then another, screaming at the top of their voices: