Madame Pfann urged her strongly to lighten her father's imprisonment by visiting him.
"You mean it well, I know," replied Thoma, "you are very good, but I cannot; I cannot go down the road, and up the prison stairs, and I should be no comfort to my father, quite the contrary. It is better as it is."
"It is not better, only more comfortable, more easy for you; you will not conquer yourself."
Madame Pfann arranged for Tobias to take the dog to its master.
She then went to see Cushion-Kate, who called out:
"You went to Landolin's first. I'll not let you into my house."
She bolted the door and Madame Pfann went quietly homeward.
"The house is changed when the husband's hat no longer hangs on its accustomed nail," the farmer's wife often said. Her thoughts were not many, but those she had she liked to repeat like a pater noster.
When, on the morning after her husband's arrest she said this for the first time, and was about handing Thoma the keys, Peter called out:
"Mother, give me the keys; I am the son of the house, and I must take the reins now."
If the stove had spoken they could not have been more astonished. Peter, whom they had all looked upon as a dull, idle fellow, who did only what he was told, and never undertook anything of himself--Peter of a sudden gave notice of what he was and what he wanted, and even his voice, generally heavy and drawling, became somewhat commanding and energetic. In reality a transformation had begun in Peter. He ceased to be taciturn and became almost talkative. His natural effort to aid his father had called forth a latent energy, which no one, least of all himself, had ever suspected, and which once aroused, continually grew in strength. Other awakenings assisted in changing his trouble into a joyous sense of courage; yes, almost of presumption. It was not only at home, but in the whole neighborhood that people saw with astonishment how his father's absence had changed him. The head-servant, Tobias, smiled as he went about his work at the thought that he had had a hand in helping Peter into the saddle. And, indeed, Peter was, literally, much on horseback, riding everywhere on the bay mare, to tell the people who were at the house congratulating Thoma at the time of the accident, what they had seen. Some of them thought they knew all about it; and some, on the other hand, declared they had seen nothing; for they did not want the trouble of testifying in court.