r
of honor, but that there was a possibility of her descending even lower
that she was, startled Amrei. For herself she thought nothing of it, but
from that time forth she would not allow Damie to keep the geese with
her. He was a man--or was to be one--and it might do him harm if it were
said of him, later on, that he had kept geese. But, to save her soul,
she could not make this clear to him, and he refused to listen to her.
For it is always thus; at the point where mutual understanding ends,
vexation begins; the inward helplessness translates itself into a
feeling of outward injustice and injury.

Amrei, nevertheless, was almost glad that Damie could remain angry with
her for so many days; for it showed that he was learning how to stand up
against the world and to assert his own will.

Damie, however, soon got a place for himself. He was employed by his
guardian, Farmer Rodel, in the capacity of scarecrow, an occupation
which required him to swing a rattle in the farmer's orchard all day
long, for the purpose of frightening the sparrows away from the early
cherries and vegetable-beds. At first this duty appealed to him as
sport, but he soon grew tired of it and gave it up.

It was a pleasant, but at the same time a laborious office that Amrei
had undertaken. And it often seemed especially hard to her that she
could do nothing to attach the creatures to her; indeed, they were
hardly to be distinguished from one another. And it was not at all an
idle remark that Black Marianne made to her one day when she returned
from Mossbrook Wood:

"Animals that live in flocks and herds," she said, "if you take each one
separately, are always stupid."

"I think so, too," replied Amrei. "These geese are stupid because they
know how to do too many different things. They can swim, and run, and
fly, but they are not really at home either in the water, or on land, or
in the air. That's what makes them stupid."

"I still maintain," replied Marianne, "that there's the making of an old
hermit in you."

The Holderwasen was not one of those lonely, sequestered spots which the
world of fiction seems to select for its gleaming, glittering legends.
Through the centre of the Holderwasen ran a road to Endringen, and not
far from it stood the many-colored boundary-stakes with the
coats-of-arms of the two sovereign princes whose dominions came together
here. In rustic vehicles of all kinds the peasants used to drive past,
and men, women, a