When the widow remarried, she and her daughter moved to a big house in the country. The little girl didn’t want to leave the city. All the friends and family she knew, other than her mother, were there and she didn’t want to leave them. Her grandmother scolded the little girl for being so foolish and praised the mother for capturing the heart of such a good man.

Just as the girl feared there weren’t any children her age near her new home, and her mother was too busy rearranging the house to suit their needs to have much time for her. The only creatures that did have the time were the birds in the trees and the mice in the fields, but they were wary of humans and so they fled when she approached.

All in all it was a lonely time for the child. But it wasn’t all bad. She had to admit that her new home was very beautiful, and a certain sense of wonder crept into her heart as she watched the countryside around her change, in small ways, constantly. She missed the community she had known but she began to see that she was part of something even bigger, and everything was in motion, alive.

Also there were many other little joys to be found in her new life. Her stepfather, a very kind but very busy man, had a very sweet tooth. Her mother would make a tray of Buchteln for him every morning which all the family and their farmhands would enjoy. They were delicious!

If it wasn’t raining, and usually it wasn’t, she would take her bowl and spoon out to the backyard, sit on a tree stump surrounded with colourful little wildflowers, and enjoy her lovely little feast.