Cornelli Part 11

Cornelli felt that it was very nice of the boy not to resent her words and to be willing to give place to her. She therefore entered. Martha had already put a chair in readiness for her and greeted her heartily.

"I expected you, Cornelli," she said. "Just sit down here a little with our guest. His name is Dino Halm and he already knows your name.

I am sure you will have a good time together. I'll go up in the meantime and if you need me you can find me in the room upstairs."

Martha, thinking that the children could get acquainted better if they were left alone, had planned to unpack her new arrival's things while they were together. She put his belongings neatly away in the wardrobe and the drawers in order to make him feel at home in his tidy little chamber.

"Why did you think that we did not come?" asked Dino as soon as Martha had left the room and Cornelli was sitting beside him silently.

"Because I did not see the carriage," she replied.

"The carriage? Well, I can believe you," said Dino. "We walked more than an hour, in fact, nearly two, before we got here from the station.

Do you just hop into a carriage when you go to the station?"

"Yes, I do; I always go there with Papa," replied Cornelli.

"But where do the horses always come from?" Dino wanted to know.

"From our stable," was the answer.

"Have you your own carriage and two horses of your own, just to be able to drive about?" Dino questioned, full of astonishment.

"Yes, we have the two brown ones and six others to carry away the iron from the foundry."

"Good gracious, eight horses!" Dino exclaimed. "You are lucky to be able to sit in a carriage with your father and drive around!"

"Can't you do that?" asked Cornelli.

"Never in my life," Dino replied in a voice full of conviction. "First of all, I do not have a father. Besides that, we do not own a stable and horses. How lucky you are! Have you anything else in the stable?"

"Oh yes, lots more. Six cows and a large gray stable cat," Cornelli informed him. "Then there is an old nanny goat and a young snow white kid, about whose neck I tied a red ribbon. You are going to drink milk from our cow, did you know that?"

"Oh, I shall love to do that!" Dino exclaimed. "Do you think I'll be allowed to go to the stable and look at the horses?"

"Certainly you will; Matthew will love to show them to you, and Martha will willingly let you go. If I only could go with you!" And Cornelli uttered a deep sigh.

"Well, I should think you certainly could do that, when the stable belongs to you. Who would hinder you, I'd like to know?" Dino said.

"Do you know what we'll do? We'll hitch the little kid to a cart. Won't that be lovely? It can pull you and I shall be the coachman. I once saw such a little carriage on a promenade in town."

Cornelli had already had that thought herself, but she knew now that she could never again go to the stable. It was suddenly clear to her that she could not run about as before and that she could not be happy any more. The chief reason for it all was clear to her, the reason that prevented her from being carefree and bright as in the old times.

She did not answer, but gave forth a profound sigh, profounder than the one she had uttered before.

"Why do you sigh, as if you had to carry a mountain about with you--a load that keeps you from going forward? Why do you do it?" asked Dino.

"I can't tell anyone. You couldn't, either, if you had the trouble I have," replied the little girl.

"Oh, yes, I could. There is nothing in the world I couldn't tell,"

Dino a.s.serted. "If you can't confide in other people, you can always tell your mother, for she can always smooth everything out for you.

Just go to her and tell her about it. That will relieve you and everything will come right."

"Yes, and now I can say what you said to me before. You are lucky and much luckier than I am," said Cornelli with a trembling voice. "I never can go to my mother because I have none. Now you see how well off I am! I am sure you would never exchange with me, would you?"

Dino looked quite frightened.

"I did not know that you had no mother," he said, full of pity. In his mind he saw his own mother, the way she looked at him, so full of love that it always lightened his heart whenever anything troubled him. And poor Cornelli had to miss all that!

Even the stable with the horses, the large garden with all the fruit, about which Martha had told him so much, appeared to him now in a different light.

Full of decision he said: "No indeed, I would not change with you."

But a great pity for the motherless child welled up in Dino's heart and he longed to be her protector. He could understand now why Cornelli looked so strange; he had even noticed it as soon as he had seen her.

There was no mother to fix everything the way it should be.

"We'll try to be friends, Cornelli! But you must push your hair back from your forehead first of all; one can hardly see your eyes. n.o.body wears hair like that. I don't see how such long hair can stay there without blowing off. What on earth did you paste it on with?"

"With glue," replied Cornelli.

"How nasty! Come, I'll cut it all off, and then your eyes and your forehead will be clear. You can hardly see that way."

Dino had seized the scissors that were lying beside Martha's work basket, but Cornelli, struggling against him with both hands, fairly screamed: "Let it be. It has to be that way. Put the scissors away!"

"I won't hurt you. But don't scream so loud!" said Dino quietly, putting down the scissors again. "I only wanted to do you a favor. If my two sisters, Agnes and Nika, could see you, they would laugh at you; they would not like the way you pasted on those locks."

"I know that. But they do not need to see me at all," said Cornelli crossly. "n.o.body needs to see me. I know that n.o.body likes me, but I don't care."

With these words Cornelli ran away. Dino was terribly astonished and stood looking at the door through which Cornelli had disappeared without even a word of farewell.

When Martha again entered the little room and was looking at Cornelli's empty chair, Dino said: "What a queer child she is. I never thought she would be so unfriendly."

He related how they had pa.s.sed the time together and how Cornelli had suddenly run off without even saying good-bye. He had not wanted to offend her.

Martha shook her head and said: "Cornelli never was that way before.

I am so worried about her, for she is absolutely changed. You must not think that she is queer and runs away like that and suddenly gets cross. She never was that way at all; this is something new. If I only could hear her sing and laugh again as of old. I hoped that her old gaiety would come back with such a good playfellow as you are. Maybe it will; after all, this is only the first day of your acquaintance.

"I am sure Cornelli will not come back to me," said Dino, still quite puzzled. "She ran away so full of anger."

When Cornelli had exclaimed, "I don't care," it probably was not true.

On reaching home she quietly stole to her room. Sitting down on a stool, she put her head in both hands and began to cry bitterly.

CHAPTER VI

A FRIEND IS FOUND

Cornelli had not appeared at Martha's cottage for quite a number of days, and so Martha was filled with grief and anxiety. There were many reasons for this. First of all, she loved the child as if she had been her own and missed her daily visits terribly. She also knew that there was something the matter with Cornelli and that this was the reason why she did not come. From the time the child was small, she had run over to her old friend every single day and had told her everything.

Martha was also sorry for her guest's sake that Cornelli stayed away.