ean
sweep.

It seems quite remarkable that in our time two children should wander
through the land because of a cruel sickness. But these children did not
frighten people with the rake and the broom. They said rather: "We will
not content ourselves with merely raking the yard and sweeping the
floors, we will use mop and brush, water and soap. We will keep clean
inside and outside of the door and we ourselves will be clean in both
mind and body. In this way we will conquer the sickness."

One day, while still in Lapland, Akka took the boy to Malmberget, where
they discovered little Mats lying unconscious at the mouth of the pit.
He and Osa had arrived there a short time before. That morning he had
been roaming about, hoping to come across his father. He had ventured
too near the shaft and been hurt by flying rocks after the setting off
of a blast.

Thumbietot ran to the edge of the shaft and called down to the miners
that a little boy was injured.

Immediately a number of labourers came rushing up to little Mats. Two of
them carried him to the hut where he and Osa were staying. They did all
they could to save him, but it was too late.

Thumbietot felt so sorry for poor Osa. He wanted to help and comfort
her; but he knew that if he were to go to her now, he would only
frighten her--such as he was!

The night after the burial of little Mats, Osa straightway shut herself
in her hut.

She sat alone recalling, one after another, things her brother had said
and done. There was so much to think about that she did not go straight
to bed, but sat up most of the night. The more she thought of her
brother the more she realized how hard it would be to live without him.
At last she dropped her head on the table and wept.

"What shall I do now that little Mats is gone?" she sobbed.

It was far along toward morning and Osa, spent by the strain of her hard
day, finally fell asleep.

She dreamed that little Mats softly opened the door and stepped into the
room.

"Osa, you must go and find father," he said.

"How can I when I don't even know where he is?" she replied in her
dream.

"Don't worry about that," returned little Mats in his usual, cheery way.
"I'll send some one to help you."

Just as Osa, the goose girl, dreamed that little Mats had said this,
there was a knock at the door. It was a real knock--not something she
heard in the dream, but she was so held by the dream that she could not
tell the real from the u