



Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and Distributed Proofreaders









WHAT SAMI SINGS WITH THE BIRDS

BY

JOHANNA SPYRI




TRANSLATED BY HELEN B. DOLE

1917

[Illustration: "Up in the ash-trees the birds piped and sang merrily
together."]




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

   FIRST OLD MARY ANN

   SECOND AT THE GRANDMOTHER'S

   THIRD ANOTHER LIFE

   FOURTH HARD TIMES

   FIFTH THE BIRDS ARE STILL SINGING

   SIXTH SAMI SINGS TOO




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


UP IN THE ASH-TREES THE BIRDS PIPED AND SANG MERRILY TOGETHER.

WHERE HAVE YOU COME FROM WITH ALL YOUR HOUSEHOLD GOODS?

SUCH STRAY WAIFS AS YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DO ANYTHING.




WHAT SAMI SINGS WITH THE BIRDS




CHAPTER FIRST

OLD MARY ANN


For three days the Spring sun had been shining out of a clear sky and
casting a gleaming, golden coverlet over the blue waters of Lake Geneva.
Storm and rain had ceased. The breeze murmured softly and pleasantly up
in the ash-trees, and all around in the green fields the yellow
buttercups and snow-white daisies glistened in the bright sunshine. Under
the ash-trees, the clear brook was running with the cool mountain water
and feeding the gaily nodding primroses and pink anemones on the
hillside, as they grew and bloomed down close to the water.

On the low wall by the brook, in the shadow of the ash-trees, an old
woman was sitting. She was called "Old Mary Ann" throughout the whole
neighborhood. Her big basket, the weight of which had become a little
heavy, she had put down beside her. She was on her way back from La Tour,
the little old town, with the vine-covered church tower and the ruined
castle, the high turrets of which rose far across the blue lake. Old Mary
Ann had taken her work there. This consisted in all kinds of mending
which did not need to be done particularly well, for the woman was no
longer able to do fine work, and never could do it.

Old Mary Ann had had a very changeable life. The place where she now
found herself was not her home. The language of the country was not her
own. From the shady seat on the low wall, she now looked contentedly at
the sunny fields, then across the murmuring brook to the hillside where
the big yellow primroses nodded, while the birds piped and sang in the
green ash-trees above her, as if they had the greatest festival to
celebrate.

"Every Spring, people think it never was so beautiful before, when they
have already seen so many," she now said half aloud to herself, and as
she gazed at the fields so rich in flowers, many of the past years rose
up and passed before her, with all that she had experienced in them.

As a child she had lived far beyond the mountains. She knew so well how
it must look over there now at her father's house, which stood in a field
among white-blooming pear-trees. Over yonder the large village with its
many houses could be seen. It was called Zweisimmen. Everybody called
their house the sergeant's house, although her father quite peacefully
tilled his fields. But that came from her grandfather. When quite a young
fellow, he had gone over the mountains to Lake Geneva and then still
farther to Savoy. Under a Duke of Savoy he had taken part in all sorts of
military expeditions and had not returned home until he was an old man.
He always wore an old uniform and allowed himself to be called sergeant.
Then he married and Mary Ann's father was his only child. The old man
lived to be a hundred years old, and every child in all the region round
knew the old sergeant.

Mary Ann had three brothers, but as soon as one of them grew up he
disappeared, she knew not where. Only this much she understood, that
her mother mourned over them, but her father said quite resignedly
every time: "We can't help it, they will go over the mountains; they
take it from their grandfather." She had never heard anything more
about her brothers.

When Mary Ann grew up and married, her young husband also came into the
house among the pear-trees, for her father was old and could no longer do
his work alone. But after a few years Mary Ann buried her young husband;
a burning fever had taken him off. Then came hard times for the widow.
She had her child, little Sami, to care for, besides her old, infirm
parents to look after, and moreover there was all the work to be done in
the house and in the fields which until now her husband had attended to.
She did what she could, but it was of no use, the land had to be given up
to a cousin. The house was mortgaged, and Mary Ann hardly knew how to
keep her old parents from want. Gradually young Sami grew up and was able
to help the cousin in the fields. Then the old parents died about the
same time, and Mary Ann hoped now by hard work and her son's help little
by little to pay up her debts and once more take possession of her fields
and house. But as soon as her father and mother were buried, her son
Sami, who was now eighteen years old, came to her and said he could no
longer bear to stay at home, he must go over the mountains and so begin a
new life. This was a great shock to the mother, but when she saw that
persuasion, remonstrance and entreaty were all in vain her father's words
came to her mind and she said resignedly, "It can't be helped; he takes
it from his great-grandfather."

But she would not let the young man go away alone, and he was glad to
have his mother go with him. So she wandered with him over the mountains.
In the little village of Chailly, which lies high up on the mountain
<DW72> and looks down on the meadows rich in flowers and the blue Lake
Geneva, they found work with the jolly wine-grower Malon. This man, with
curly hair already turning grey and a kindly round face, lived alone with
his son in the only house left standing, near a crooked maple-tree.

Mary Ann received a room for herself and was to keep house for Herr
Malon, and keep everything in order for him and his son. Sami was to work
for good pay in Malon's beautiful vineyard. The widow Mary Ann passed
several years here in a more peaceful way than she had ever known before.

When the fourth Summer came to an end, Sami said to her one day:

"Mother, I must really marry young Marietta of St. Legier, for I am so
lonely away from her."

His mother knew Marietta well and besides she liked the pretty, clever
girl, for she was not only always happy but there were few girls so good
and industrious. So she rejoiced with her son, although he would have to
go away from her to live with Marietta and her aged father in St. Legier,
for she was indispensable to him. Herr Malon's son also brought a young
wife home, and so Mary Ann had no more duties there, and had to look out
for herself. She kept her room for a small rent, and was able to earn
enough to support herself. She now knew many people in the neighborhood,
and obtained enough work.

Mary Ann pondered over all these things, and when her thoughts returned
from the distant past to the present moment, and she still heard the
birds above her singing and rejoicing untiringly, she said to herself:

"They always sing the same song and we should be able to sing with them.
Only trust in the dear Lord! He always helps us, although we may often
think there is no possible way."

Then Mary Ann left the low wall, took her basket up again on her arm and
went through the fragrant meadows of Burier up towards Chailly. From time
to time she cast an anxious look in the direction of St. Legier. She knew
that young Marietta was lying sick up there and that her son Sami would
now have hard work and care, for a much smaller Sami had just come into
the world. Tomorrow Mary Ann would go over and see how things were going
with her son and if she ought to stay with him and help.

Mary Ann had scarcely stepped into her little room and put on her house
dress, to prepare her supper, when she heard some one coming along with
hurried footsteps. The door was quickly thrown open and in stepped her
son Sami with a very distressed face. Under his arm he carried a bundle
wrapped up in one of Marietta's aprons. This he laid on the table, threw
himself down and sobbed aloud, with his head in his arms:

"It is all over, mother, all over; Marietta is dead!"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, what are you saying?" cried his mother in the
greatest horror. "Oh, Sami, is it possible?"

Then she lifted Sami gently and continued in a trembling voice:

"Come, sit down beside me and tell me all about it. Is she really dead?
Oh, when did it happen? How did it come so quickly?"

Sami willingly dropped down on a chair beside his mother. But then he
buried his face in his hands and went on sobbing again.

"Oh, I can't bear it, I must go away, mother, I can't bear it here any
longer, it is all over!"

"Oh, Sami, where would you go?" said his mother, weeping. "We have
already come over the mountains, where would you go from here?"

"I must go across the water, as far as I possibly can, I can't stay here
any longer. I cannot, mother," declared Sami. "I must go across the great
water as far as possible!"

"Oh, not that!" cried Mary Ann. "Don't be so rash! Wait a little, until
you can think more calmly; it will seem different to you."

"No, mother, no, I must go away. I am forced to it; I can't do any
different," cried Sami, almost wild.

His mother looked at him in terror, but she said nothing more. She seemed
to hear her father saying: "It can't be helped. He takes it from his
grandfather." And with a sigh she said:

"It will have to be so."

Then there sounded from the bundle a strange peeping, exactly as if a
chicken were smothering inside. "What have you put in the bundle, Sami?"
asked the mother, going towards it, to loosen the firmly tied apron.

"That's so, I had almost forgotten it, mother," replied Sami, wiping
his eyes, "I have brought the little boy to you, I don't know what to
do with it."

"Oh, how could you pack him up so! Yes, yes, you poor little thing," said
the grandmother soothingly, taking the diminutive Sami out of one
wrapping and then a second and a third.

The father Sami had wrapped the little baby first in its clothes, then in
a shawl, and then in the apron as tight as possible, so that it couldn't
slip out on the way, and fall on the ground. When little Sami was freed
from the smothering wrappings and could move his arms and legs he fought
with all his limbs in the air and screamed so pitifully that his
grandmother thought it seemed exactly as if he already knew what a great
misfortune had come to him.

But father Sami said perhaps he was hungry, for since the evening before
no one had paid any attention to the little baby. This seemed to the
sympathetic Mary Ann quite too cruel, and she realised that if she didn't
care for the poor little mite it would die. She wrapped him up again
carefully in his blanket, but not around his head, and carried him
upright on her arm, not under it, as one carries a bundle. Then she ran
all around her room to collect milk, a dish and fire together, so that
the starving little creature might have some nourishment. As she sat on
her stool, and the little one eagerly sipped the milk, while his tiny
little hand tightly clasped his grandmother's forefinger like a
life-preserver, she said, greatly touched:

"Yes, indeed, you little Sami, you poor little orphan, I will do what I
can for you and the dear Lord will not forsake us."

And to the big Sami she said:

"I will keep him, but don't take any rash steps! In the first great
sorrow many a one does what he later regrets. See, you can't run away
from sorrow, it runs with you. Stay and bear what the dear Lord sends. He
is not angry with you. Hold to him still in time of sorrow, then the sun
will shine tomorrow! It will be the same with you as it has been with so
many others." Sami had listened in silence, but like one who does not
understand what he hears.

"Good night, mother! May God reward you for what you do for the boy," he
said then, after wiping his eyes again. Then he pressed his mother's
hand, and went out of the door.




CHAPTER SECOND

AT THE GRANDMOTHER'S


Old Mary Ann had now to begin over again, where she had left off
twenty-one years before, to bring up a little Sami. But then she was
fresh and strong, she had her husband by her side, and lived at home
among friends and acquaintances. Now she was in a strange land and was a
worn-out woman, and felt that her strength would not last much longer.
But little Sami did not realise all this. He was tended and cared for as
if his grandmother wanted to make up to him every moment for what he had
lost, and she was always saying to him, pityingly:

"You poor little thing, you have nobody in the world now but an old
grandmother."

Moreover it was so. Father Sami could not be consoled. As soon as his
young wife was buried he went away, and must have landed a long time ago
in the far away country.

Little Sami grew finely, and as his grandmother talked with him a great
deal, he began very early to imitate her. His words became more and more
distinct, and when the end of his second year came, he talked very
plainly and in whole sentences. His grandmother didn't know what to do
for joy, when she realised that her little Sami spoke not a word of
French, but pure Swiss-German, as she had heard it only in her native
land. He spoke exactly like his grandmother, who was indeed the only one
he had to talk with.

Now every day her baby gave her a new surprise. First he began to say
after her the little prayer she repeated for him morning and evening;
then he said it all alone. She had to weep for joy when the little one
began to sing after her the little Summer song she had learned in her own
childhood and had always sung to him, and one day suddenly knew the whole
song from beginning to end and sang one verse after another without
hesitation.

In spite of all the grandmother's trouble and work, the years passed so
quickly to her, that one day when she began to reckon she discovered that
Sami must be fully seven years old. Then she thought it was really time
that he learned something. But suddenly to send the boy to a French
school when he didn't understand a word of French seemed dreadful to her,
for he would be as helpless as a chicken in water. She would rather try,
as well as she possibly could, to teach him herself to read. She thought
it would be very hard but it went quite easily. In a short time, the
youngster knew all his letters, and could even put words together quite
well. That something could be made out of this which he could understand
and which he did not know before was very amusing to him, and he sat over
his reading-book with great eagerness. But to go out with his grandmother
to deliver her mending and to get new work was a still greater pleasure
to him, for nothing pleased him better than roaming through the green
meadows, then stopping at the brook to listen to the birds singing up in
the ash-trees.

The changeable April days had just come to an end and the beaming May sun
shone so warm and alluring that all the flowers looked up to it with
wide-open petals. Mary Ann with Sami by the hand, her big basket on her
arm, was coming along up from La Tour. The boy opened both his eyes as
wide as he could, for the red and blue flowers in the green grass and the
golden sunshine above them delighted him very much.

"Grandmother," he said taking a deep breath, "to-day we will sit on the
low wall for twelve long hours, won't we, really?"

"Yes, indeed," assented his grandmother, "we will stay there long enough
to get well rested and enjoy ourselves; but when the sun goes down and it
grows dark, then we will go. Then all the little birds are silent in the
trees and the old night-owl begins to hoot."

This seemed right to Sami, for he didn't want to hear the old owl hoot.
Now they had reached the wall. A cool shadow was lying on it; below the
fresh brook murmured, and up in the ash-trees the birds piped and sang
merrily together and one kept singing very distinctly:

"Sing too! Sing too!"

Sami listened. Suddenly he lifted up his voice and sang as loud and
lustily as the birds above, the whole song that his grandmother had
taught him:

  Last night Summer breezes blew:--
  All the flowers awake anew,
  Open wide their eyes to see,
  Nodding, bowing in their glee.

  All the merry birds we hear
  Greet the sunshine bright and clear;
  See them flitting thru the sky,
  Singing low and singing high!

  Flowers in Summer warmth delight:--
  What of Winter and its blight?
  Snowy fields and forests cold?
  Flowers are by their faith consoled.

  Song