Jacob Alberts
From now on Wienke came to see the old woman in her room daily. Soon she sat down of her own accord on the Angora footstool and Trien' Jans gave her little pieces of meat or bread of which she always kept some on hand, and let her throw them on the floor; then the gull shot out of some corner, screeching, with outstretched wings, and fell upon them. At first the child used to be frightened and screamed at the big flapping bird; but soon it was like a game they had learnt, and as soon as she stuck even her head through the crack of the door the bird shot out towards her and lighted on her head or shoulder till the old woman came to her aid and the feeding could begin. Trien' Jans, who in general could not bear even to have anyone stretch out his hand towards her Klaus, now looked on patiently while the child gradually won the bird entirely away from her. It let Wienke catch it willingly; she carried it about and wrapped it in her apron, and, when, on the mound, the little yellow dog sometimes sprang about her and jumped jealously at the bird, she would cry out: "Not you, not you, Perle!" and would lift the gull so high in her little arms that it would free itself and fly away shrieking across the mound, and the dog would try to secure its place in her arms by jumping and rubbing against his little mistress.
When Hauke's or Elke's eyes chanced to fall on this odd group, like four leaves all held fast on one stem by only a common lack, a tender glance would indeed fly towards their child; when they turned away there remained in their faces only pain which each bore for himself, for they had never yet unburdened their hearts to each other about the child. One summer morning as Wienke was sitting with the old woman and the two animals on the big stone in front of the barn door, her parents, the dikegrave with his white horse behind him, the reins over his arm, passed by; he was going out on the dike and had fetched his horse from the fens himself; on the mound his wife had slipped her arm through his. The sun shone down warmly; it was almost sultry, and now and then there came a puff of wind from the south-southeast. The child must have found it tiresome where she was: "Wienke wants to go," she called, shook the gull from her lap, and reached for her father's hand.
"Come along then," he said.
But Elke exclaimed: "In this wind? She'll be blown away!"
"I'll hold on to her; and the air is warm today and the water merry; she can see it dance."
So Elke ran into the house and fetched a little shawl and a cap for her child. "But there's going to be bad weather," she said; "see that you hurry and go and get back again soon."
Hauke laughed: "That won't catch us!" and lifted the child up to his saddle in front of him. Elke remained out on the mound for a while and, shading her eyes with her hand, watched the two trotting out on the road and over to the dike; Trien' Jans sat on the stone and mumbled something incomprehensible with her faded lips.
The child lay without moving in her father's arm; and it seemed as if, oppressed by the thundery air, she were breathing with difficulty. He bent his head to her: "Well, Wienke?" he asked.