Damie, on the
other hand, came crying and complaining to his sister upon every
trifling occasion. He was, furthermore, always pitying himself, and when
he was tumbled over by his playmates in their wrestling matches, he
always whined: "Yes, because I am an orphan they beat me! Oh, if my
father and mother knew of it!"--and then he cried twice as much over the
injustice of it. Damie let everybody give him things to eat, and thus
became greedy, while Amrei was satisfied with a little, and thus
acquired habits of moderation. Even the roughest boys were afraid of
Amrei, although nobody knew how she had proved her strength, while Damie
would run away from quite little boys. In school Damie was always up to
mischief; he shuffled his feet and turned down the leaves of the books
with his fingers as he read. Amrei, on the other hand, was always bright
and attentive, though she often wept in the school, not for the
punishment she herself received, but because Damie was so often
punished.
Amrei could please Damie best by telling him the answers to riddles. The
children still used to sit frequently by the house of their rich
guardian, sometimes near the wagons, sometimes near the oven behind the
house, where they used to warm themselves, especially in the autumn.
Once Amrei asked:
"What's the best thing about an oven?"
"You know I can't guess anything," replied Damie, plaintively.
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