Part 2 (2/2)
”But the lady was quite friendly, Marianne,” soothed Sally, ”she was not at all offended.”
”That makes no difference, she is always so, she could not be otherwise, and just on that account, and on account of many other things, do you hear, Sally? Promise that you never again go that way when you want to come to me. Will you promise?”
”Yes, indeed I will. I do not intend to do it again. Good night, Marianne! Now I have forgotten the main thing: 'Lizebeth sends her greetings and she will come to see you on a fine Sunday.”
The last words came from some distance, for Sally had already started on a run while she gave the message, and when Marianne wanted to send her greetings, Sally was already far away. After a few more jumps Sally arrived at the house of the Justice of Peace, in front of which stood a large apple tree which shaded the stone well. Here stood Kaetheli who did not look sick at all, but splashed with two fat, red arms about the water in which she seemed to clean some object eagerly.
”Then you are not sick. Why didn't you come to school then?” Sally called out when she saw her.
”Oh, it is you? Good evening! I could not make out who was jumping about, and I hadn't the time to look,” Kaetheli said with some importance. ”That is also the reason why I did not go to school. I hadn't the time, for Mother has gone away today to see sick Grandmother, and then we got young chickens, twelve quite small ones, and that is why I have to wash a stocking, for I have run after the chicks everywhere and near the barn I stepped in the dirt quite deep. But come, I will show you the chickens. Never mind if I have only one stocking on.”
But Sally had only very little time left and besides, her head was full of quite different things and she wanted to hear Kaetheli tell of something else than the new chickens, so she said quite decisively: ”No, Kaetheli, I haven't time enough to see the chickens. I only wanted to know whether you were ill and I want to tell you something. I have seen the strange lady and the boy whom you know. He does look nice. Do you know his name?”
”He?” said Kaetheli, shrugging her shoulders. ”Of course I know. His name is Erick and just think, he goes to school at Lower Wood; I have seen him myself today, with his school sack, going there.”
That was a blow for Sally. He went to school at Lower Wood. What was now to come of her beautiful plans? Of all the planned Sundays which were to be so full of joy and delight, and the whole friends.h.i.+p with the prepossessing Erick? For how could Edi ever be brought to making friends with a fellow who went to Lower Wood to school, when he just as well might have gone to Upper Wood? Sally was very downcast, but she did not easily give up a pleasant intention. On the way home she wanted to think what could be done, therefore she stretched out her hand to the astonished Kaetheli, and this time the invitation, to at least come into the room and eat a piece of bread and b.u.t.ter, was not accepted; nor would she go with Kaetheli behind the barn where they could fetch down ripe cherries from the large cherry tree--it was all of no use.
”Another time, Kaetheli, it is already so late I must go home,” and Sally ran away. Kaetheli stood there much surprised and looked after her, and in her bright mind she thought: ”Sally has something new in her head, else I could have brought her to the cherry tree, for she is not always so anxious to go home; but I will find out what it is.”
Meanwhile Sally ran for a long stretch, then she began to walk slower, for she had to think over so many things and she was so lost in her plans that she forgot when she arrived at the garden which stretched from her home far into the meadows. Ritz stood on the low wall and beckoned with wild gestures, for Sally had not seen him at first.
”Do come a little quicker so that you can tell something, else we will have to go to bed, for Auntie has already looked twice at her watch.
Were you in the barn at Kaetheli's? How many cows are in it? Have you seen the young goat?”
But Sally had different things in her head. She hastily stepped into the house, while Ritz followed. The rest of the family were in the living-room. Mother and Auntie were mending stockings; Father was reading a large church paper. Edi, his head supported on both hands, sat lost in his history book. Sally had hardly opened the door when she cried out with much excitement: ”Oh, Mother, you ought to have seen how friendly the lady was, and she is so beautiful and so gentle and so good, and quite an aristocratic lady; and Erick in his velvet suit is like a knight, and so fine and polite. Edi could not find a nicer friend.”
They all looked surprised at Sally, and a pause followed this outburst.
Sally had quite forgotten that she was not to go to the strange people, and that she had given, as the object of her walk, the call on Kaetheli.
She now remembered everything and she grew very red.
”But, dear child,” said the mother, ”did you really, in spite of opposition from me, press into the home of the strange people? How could you enter the house without an excuse?”
”Not without an excuse, Mamma,” said Sally, somewhat embarra.s.sed.
”'Lizebeth had given me a message for old Marianne.”
”Which the inquisitive Sally fetched in the kitchen for the purpose of carrying out her plan, that is clear,” remarked Auntie. When the whole truth lay open to the light of day, Sally felt relieved and she returned with new zeal to her communication. She had much to describe: the empty room and the silk dress of the lady, and her sad glances, and then the knightly Erick with his joyous laughter and the merry eyes; but she could not describe it all so attractively as it seemed to her.
”So,” said Edi, looking up from his book, ”now you have another friend.
It will go, no doubt, with him as with little Leopold!” After giving her this fling he bent again over his book and read on, taking no notice of anything.
Sally did not find the desired sympathy. She was so full of her impressions that she felt Mother and Aunt should be all afire and aflame for her new friends.h.i.+p. Instead of that, the two kept on mending the stockings; Father did not even look up from his paper and Edi had only a satirical remark for sympathy. Sally had rather a bad reputation for making friends.h.i.+ps. Almost every week she saw some one who appealed to her so much, that she must make a friends.h.i.+p at once; but the friends.h.i.+ps were mostly of short duration, for she had imagined something else than she often found on looking closer. This made her quite unhappy at the time, but the next week she had already found some one else who filled her thoughts.
The last unfortunate friends.h.i.+p had brought forth Edi's satire to a greater degree. The tailor of Upper Wood had three sons, and since the father on his wanderings had spent some time in Vienna he gave his sons, in remembrance of the beautiful days which he spent there, the names of three Austrian grand dukes. It was this strange name that had first attracted Sally; to that was added that Leopold, the oldest of the sons, who had lived with his grandfather until now, but had come recently to Upper Wood, always wore elegant jackets and pants after the latest cut.
Leopold had entered Sally's cla.s.s and his appearance had at once inspired her. But he was so small and dainty that he received the name Leopoldy from the whole school. The rumor had preceded Leopold, that he had staid three years in the same cla.s.s in the town where his grandfather lived. So Edi looked down on Leopoldy from an elevation of a fourth cla.s.s boy and noticed with scorn how Sally found pleasure in the little fellow and befriended him. But that did not last long for, after a trial of a week, Leopoldy was set back two cla.s.ses, since he had been put in the fifth cla.s.s on account of his years, but not his deserts. In these eight days Sally had discovered, with sorrow, that Leopoldy was unusually silly, and Sally was glad that the enormous gap that lies between the fifth and third cla.s.s, made easier the rupture of this friends.h.i.+p which could not continue, for nothing could be done with Leopoldy. So it happened that no one listened with sympathy to the enthusiastic description which Sally gave of her new friends, for each one remembered Leopoldy, and that was not inspiring.
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