hurrying or
resting.

There are people who, when they go to get the least thing, a plate or a
jug, disturb the thoughts of everybody in the room, and seem to drag, so
to speak, the attention of all present about with them. Amrei, on the
contrary, knew how to manage and accomplish everything in such a way
that it was restful to watch her work, and people were consequently so
much the more grateful for everything she did for them. How often had
the Farmer complained about the fact that, when the salt was wanted,
some one always had to rise from the table to get it! But now Amrei
herself set the table, and she took care to put the salt-cellar on
immediately after the cloth was spread. When the Farmer praised Amrei
for this, his wife said with a smile:

"You talk as if you had not lived at all until now, and as if you had
always been obliged to eat your food without salt or seasoning!"

And then John told them that Amrei was also called the Salt Countess,
and he related the story of the King and his Daughter.

It was a happy family--in the parlor, in the yard, in the field. The
Farmer often said that his food for years had not tasted so good to him
as it did now; and he used to get Amrei to prepare things for him three
or four times a day, at quite irregular hours. And he made her sit with
him while he ate it.

The wife, with a feeling of proud satisfaction, took Amrei into the
dairy, and then into the store-rooms. In the latter place she opened a
large, gaily-painted chest, full of fine, bleached linen, and said:

"This is your outfit--nothing is lacking but shoes. I am very glad that
you kept the shoes you got with your wages, for I have a superstition
about that."

When Amrei questioned her about the way things had been done in the
house hitherto, she nodded approvingly. She did not, however, express
any approval in words, but the confidential tone in which she discussed
ordinary matters made it quite evident that she felt it. The very
supremity of satisfaction lay in her words. And when she began to
depute certain matters in the household management to Barefoot, she
said:

"Child, let me tell you something; if there is anything about our ways
of doing things in the house that doesn't please you, you needn't be
afraid to alter it so that it suits you. I am not one of those who think
that things must always remain just as they were originally arranged,
and that no changes should be made. You have a perfect righ