"To be sure, it would have been more sensible if we had done the thing in a more normal way. You should have gone home first, and meanwhile I should have stayed somewhere—at Coaly Mathew's in the forest, if we could have done no better. Then you could have come with your mother to fetch me, or could have written to me, and I could have come to you with my Damie. But do you know what I think?"
"Not everything you think."
"I think that regret is the most stupid feeling one can possibly cherish. Do what you will, you cannot make yesterday into today. What we did, in the midst of our rejoicing, that was right, and must remain right. Now that our minds have been become more sober again, we can't waste any time reproving ourselves. What we have to think of now is, how shall we do everything right in the future? But you are such a right-minded man that you will know what is right. And you can tell me everything you think, only tell me honestly; if you say what you mean, you won't hurt me, but if you keep anything back from me, you will hurt me. But you don't regret it, do you?"
"Can you answer a riddle?" asked John.
"Yes, as a child I used to be able to do that well."
"Then tell me what this is—it is a simple, plain word: Take away the first letter, and you're ready to tear your hair out; put it back again, and all is firm and sure?"
"That's easy," said Barefoot, "easy as anything; it's Truth and Ruth."
At the first inn by the gate they stopped off; and Amrei, when she and John were alone in the room, and the latter had ordered some good coffee, said:
"How splendidly the world is arranged! These people have provided a house, and tables, and benches, and chairs, and a kitchen, in which the fire is burning, and they have coffee, and milk and sugar, and fine dishes, and it is all ready for us as if we had ordered it. And when we go farther on we find more people and more houses, with all we want in them. It's like it is in the fairy-tale, 'Table, be covered!'"
"But you have to have the 'Loaf, come out of the bag!' too," said John, and he reached into his pocket and drew forth a handful of money. "Without that you'll get nothing."