em as their Christmas presents the very same night.

Grandmother's pressing the children to go before it was time, so that
they should not get home late, had only the effect that they tarried on
the way, now here, now there. They liked to sit by the hazelwoods on the
"neck" and open nuts with stones; or, if there were no nuts, they played
with leaves or pegs or the soft brown cones that drop from the branches
of fir-trees in the beginning of spring. Sometimes, Conrad told his
little sister stories or, when arrived at the red memorial post, would
lead her a short distance up the side-road and tell her that here one
could get on the Snow-Mountain, that up there were great rocks and
stones, that the chamois gamboled and great birds circled about up
there. He often led her out beyond the forest, when they would look at
the dry grass and the small bushes of the heather; but then he returned
with her, invariably bringing her home before twilight, which always
earned him praise.

One winter, on the morning before Christmas, when the first dawn had
passed into day, a thin dry veil was spread over the whole sky so that
one could see the low and distant sun only as an indistinct red spot;
moreover, the air that day was mild, almost genial, and absolute calm
reigned in the entire valley as well as in the heavens, as was indicated
by the unchanging and immobile forms of the clouds. So the shoemaker's
wife said to her children: "As today is pleasant and it has not rained
for a long time and the roads are hard, and as father gave you
permission yesterday, if the weather continued fine, you may go to visit
grandmother in Millsdorf; but ask father once more."

The children, who were still standing there in their little nightgowns,
ran into the adjoining room where their father was speaking with a
customer and asked him again for his permission, because it was such a
fine day. It was given and they ran back to their mother.

The shoemaker's wife now dressed the children carefully, or rather, she
dressed the little girl in snug-fitting warm dresses; for the boy began
to dress himself and was finished long before his mother had the little
girl straightened out. When they were both ready she said: "Now, Conrad,
be nice and careful. As I let your little sister go with you, you must
leave betimes and not remain standing anywhere, and when you have eaten
at grandmother's you must return at once and come home; for the days are
very short no