What Sami Sings with the Birds | Page 7

coach with two horses
and high up on the top sat the driver. No one was inside. Sami was
lifted up, the driver placed him next himself and drove away. At any
other time this would have pleased Sami very much, but now he was
too sad. He kept thinking of his grandmother, who could no longer talk
with him and would never wake again. After some time the driver
began to talk to him. Sami had to tell him where he came from and to
whom he was going. He told him everything, how he had lived with his
grandmother, how she had fallen asleep early that day, and did not
wake up again; and that he was going to find a cousin in Zweisimmen

and would have to live with him. Sami's childish description touched
the driver so deeply that he finally said:
"It will be too late when we reach there, you must stay with me
to-night."
Then when he saw Sami's eyes close with the approaching twilight and
only open again when they went over a stone, and the two of them up
on the box were jounced almost dangerously against each other, he
grasped the boy firmly, lifted him up and slipped him backwards into
the coach. Here he fell at once fast asleep and when he finally opened
his eyes again, the sun was shining brightly in his face. He was lying in
his clothes on a huge, big bed in a room with white walls. In all his life
he had never seen such walls. He looked around in consternation. Then
the coachman of the day before came in the door.
[Illustration: "Where have you come from with all your household
goods?"]
"Have you had your sleep out?" he said laughing. "Come and have
some coffee with me. Then I will take you to your cousin. Some one
else must carry your bundle. It is too heavy for you."
Sami followed him into the coffee-room. Here the good man kept
pouring out coffee for the boy, but Sami could neither eat nor drink.
When the coachman had finished his breakfast, he rose and started with
Sami on the way to the sergeant's house. It was not far. At the house in
the meadow among the pear-trees he laid Sami's bundle down, shook
him by the hand and said:
"Well, good luck to you. I have nothing to do in there and have farther
to go."
Sami thanked him for all his kindness, and gazed after his benefactor,
until he disappeared behind the trees. Then he knocked on the door. A
woman came out, looked in amazement first at the boy, then at his big
bundle, and said rudely: "Where have you come from with all your

household goods?"
Sami informed her where he had come from and that his grandmother
was Mary Ann, and his father, Sami. Meanwhile three boys had come
running up to them, placed themselves directly in front of him, and
were looking at him from top to toe with wide-open eyes. This
embarrassed Sami exceedingly.
"Bring your father out," said the mother to one of her boys. Their father
was sitting inside at the table, eating his breakfast.
"What's the matter now?" he growled.
"There is someone here, who claims to be a relative of yours. He
doesn't know where he is going," exclaimed his wife.
"He can come in to me, perhaps I can tell him, if I know," replied the
man, without moving.
"Well, go in," directed the woman, giving Sami an assisting push. The
boy went in and replied very timidly, where he had come from and to
whom he had belonged. The peasant scratched his head.
"Make quick work of it," said the woman impatiently, who had
followed with her three boys.
"I think we have enough with the three of them, and there are people
who might need such a boy."
"This is quickly decided," said the peasant, thoughtfully cutting his
piece of bread in two; "send all four boys out."
After this command had been carried out, he continued slowly: "There
is no help for it. It was stipulated at the time the house was sold, that
room must be made in the house if either Mary Ann, Sami or the child
should come back. Besides, it is not so bad as it seems. Where three
sleep together there is room for a fourth, and he can do some work for
his food. The parish can do something for his clothes."

His wife had no desire to have a fourth added to her three boys, for her
own made enough noise and trouble for her. She protested, saying she
knew how it was with such stray children and they could expect to have
a fine time!