the little birds up in the old
fir-tree.

When Saturday night came the mother scrubbed and cleaned with doubled
energy, to finish early, for on that day the father was through his work
earlier than other days, and she always went with little Toni by the hand,
part way to meet him. This was a great delight to the child. He now knew
very well how one task followed another in the household. When his mother
began to scrub, he jumped around in the room, with delight and cried out
again and again: "Now we are going for Father! Now we are going for
Father!" until the moment came when his mother took him by the hand and
started along.

Saturday evening had come again in the lovely month of May. Outdoors the
birds in the trees were singing merrily up to the blue sky; indoors the
mother was cleaning busily, in order to get out early into the golden
evening, and meanwhile now outside, now in the house, little Toni was
hopping around and shouting:

"Now we are going for Father!"

It was not long before the work was finished. The mother put on her shawl,
tied on her best apron and stepped out of the house.

Toni jumped for joy and ran three times around his mother, then seized her
hand and shouted once more:

"Now we are going for Father!"

Then he tripped along beside his mother in the lovely, sunny evening.
They wandered to the Wild brook, over the wooden bridge, which crosses it,
and came to the narrow foot-path, winding up through the flower-laden
meadows to the farm where the father worked.

The last rays of the setting sun fell across the meadows and the sound of
the evening bells came up from Kandergrund.

The mother stood still and folded her hands.

"Lay your hands together Toneli," she said, "it is the Angelus."

The child obeyed.

"What must I pray, Mother?" he asked.

"Give us and all tired people a blessed Sunday! Amen!" said the mother
devoutly.

Toneli repeated the prayer. Suddenly he screamed: "Father is coming!"

Down from the farm some one was running as fast as he could come.

"That is not Father," said his mother, and both went towards the running
man. When they met, the man stood still and said, gasping:

"Don't go any farther, turn around, Elsbeth. I came straight to you, for
something has happened."

"Oh, my God!" cried the woman in the greatest anguish, "has something
happened to Toni?"

"Yes, he was with the wood-cutters, and then he was struck. They have
brought him back; he is lyin