"Here come the stragglers," cried the young people when they saw
Reinhard and Elisabeth advancing among the trees.

"This way," shouted the old gentleman. "Empty your handkerchiefs,
upside down, with your hats! Now show us what you have found."

"Only hunger and thirst," said Reinhard.

"If that's all," replied the old man, lifting up and showing them the
bowl full of fruit, "you must keep what you've got. You remember the
agreement: nothing here for lazybones to eat."

But in the end he was prevailed on to relent; the banquet proceeded,
and a thrush in a juniper bush provided the music.

So the day passed. But Reinhard had, after all, found something, and
though it was not strawberries yet it was something that had grown in
the wood. When he got home this is what he wrote in his old parchment-
bound volume:

Out on the hill-side yonder
The wind to rest is laid;
Under the drooping branches
There sits the little maid.

She sits among the wild thyme,
She sits in the fragrant air;
The blue flies hum around her,
Bright wings flash everywhere.