He loved to find her in the vegetable garden, which was also full of surprises for him.

It was like a marvel to the little boy that the green peas hung here in abundance, whereas they were only served at home on feast days.
He became quite scared when Esther picked a basketful.

But when he warned her, saying, "Don't take them all, for then we won't have any more," she only laughed and said: "They always grow again; in a week there will be plenty more." If Mux looked a little timidly at the large cabbage heads, Esther said to him: "Don't be afraid of them, Mux.

If I cook cabbage, everybody else likes it so much that you won't have to eat it at all, and you can take the potatoes which I serve with it." Mux often accompanied Esther to the kitchen, where he soon picked up a lot of useful knowledge.

There was no pastry the exact recipe of which as well as how it tasted Mux could not tell.