"I want to tell
you, Apollonie, that it was not Loneli's fault in the least. Those
rascals enjoy sticking out their feet and seeing people tumble over
them."
"The child can't possibly have behaved properly, Kurt, or the district
attorney's sons would not have teased her."
"I'll fetch Bruno right away and he'll prove to you that Loneli did
nothing whatever. He saw it," Kurt cried eagerly with the intention of
fetching his brother, who had already started up the hill. But his
mother detained him. It was not her wish to fan Bruno's rage afresh by
the discovery that Loneli had been considered guilty. She therefore
narrated the incident to Apollonie just as Bruno had reported it.
Loneli's blue eyes glistened with joy when the story was told according
to the truth. She knew that the words spoken by the rector's widow had
great weight with her grandmother.
"Can you see now that it was not Loneli's fault?" Kurt cried out as soon
as his mother had finished.
"Yes, I see it and I am happy that it is so," said Apollonie. "How could
one have suspected that boys who had a good education should want to hurt
others without cause? The young Falcon would never have done such a
thing, I know that. He only ran into the vegetable garden because his
two friends were chasing him from both sides."
Uncle Philip laughed: "I am glad you are so just to me, Mrs. Apollonie.
Even when you scolded the Falcon properly for tramping down your plants,
you knew that it was not in maliciousness he did it but in self-defence.
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