"We come to entrust a treasure to you," said Windekind. "Will you take care of it for us?"
"Why not? why not?" whispered the wild-rose. "Watching does not tire me, and I do not think to go away from here, if no one carries me off. And I have sharp thorns."
Then came the field-mouse—the cousin of the mouse at the school. He dug a passage under the roots of the rose-bush, and pulled in the little key.
"If you want it back again, you must call on me. And then the rose need not be harmed."
The rose interlocked its thorny twigs close over the entrance, and took a solemn oath to guard the trust. The butterflies were witnesses.
The next morning, Johannes woke up in his own little bed, with Presto, the clock, and the wall-hangings. The cord around his neck, and the little key upon it, had disappeared.
IV
"Oh, boys, boys! How dreadfully tedious it is in summer!" sighed one of the three big stoves which stood together, fretting, in a dark corner of the garret in the old house. "For weeks I have not seen a living soul nor heard a sensible word. And that emptiness within. It is horrible!"
"I am full of spider-webs," said the other. "In winter that would not happen."