Mary Ann pondered over all these things, and when her thoughts returned from the distant past to the present moment, and she still heard the birds above her singing and rejoicing untiringly, she said to herself:
“They always sing the same song and we should be able to sing with them. Only trust in the dear Lord! He always helps us, although we may often think there is no possible way.”
Then Mary Ann left the low wall, took her basket up again on her arm and went through the fragrant meadows of Burier up towards Chailly. From time to time she cast an anxious look in the direction of St. Legier. She knew that young Marietta was lying sick up there and that her son Sami would now have hard work and care, for a much smaller Sami had just come into the world. Tomorrow Mary Ann would go over and see how things were going with her son and if she ought to stay with him and help.
Mary Ann had scarcely stepped into her little room and put on her house dress, to prepare her supper, when she heard some one coming along with hurried footsteps. The door was quickly thrown open and in stepped her son Sami with a very distressed face. Under his arm he carried a bundle wrapped up in one of Marietta’s aprons. This he laid on the table, threw himself down and sobbed aloud, with his head in his arms:
“It is all over, mother, all over; Marietta is dead!”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, what are you saying?” cried his mother in the greatest horror. “Oh, Sami, is it possible?”
Then she lifted Sami gently and continued in a trembling voice:
“Come, sit down beside me and tell me all about it. Is she really dead? Oh, when did it happen? How did it come so quickly?”
Sami willingly dropped down on a chair beside his mother. But then he buried his face in his hands and went on sobbing again.
“Oh, I can’t bear it, I must go away, mother, I can’t bear it here any longer, it is all over!”