"If that's all," replied the old man, lifting up and showing them the bowl full of fruit, "you must keep what you've got. You remember the agreement: nothing here for lazybones to eat."
But in the end he was prevailed on to relent; the banquet proceeded, and a thrush in a juniper bush provided the music.
So the day passed. But Reinhard had, after all, found something, and though it was not strawberries yet it was something that had grown in the wood. When he got home this is what he wrote in his old parchment-bound volume:
Out on the hill-side yonder
The wind to rest is laid;
Under the drooping branches
There sits the little maid.
She sits among the wild thyme,
She sits in the fragrant air;
The blue flies hum around her,
Bright wings flash everywhere.
And through the silent woodland
She peers with watchful eyen,
While on her hazel ringlets
Sparkles the glad sunshine.
And far, far off the cuckoo
Laughs out his song.
I ween Hers are the bright, the golden
Eyes of the woodland queen.
So she was not only his little sweetheart, but was also the expression of all that was lovely and wonderful in his opening life.
* * * * *