Here is indeed something new for them. It is almost night; no house is near, and they have no sleeping-place but the great wagon. But their cheerful mother packs them all away in the back part of the wagon, on some straw, covering them with shawls as well as she can, and bids them good-night, saying, "You can see the stars whenever you open your eyes."
It is a new bed and a hard one. However, the children are tired enough to sleep well; but they woke very early, as you or I certainly should if we slept in the great concert-hall of the birds. Oh, how those birds of the woods did begin to sing, long before sunrise! And Christian was out from his part of the bed in a minute, and off four miles to the store, to buy some bread for breakfast.
An hour after sunrise he was back again, and Louise had gathered sticks, of which her father made a bright fire. And now the mother is teaching her little daughter how to make tea, and Fritz and Gretchen are poking long sticks into the ashes to find the potatoes which were hidden there to roast.
To them it is a beautiful picnic, like those happy days in the grape season; but Louise can see that her mother is a little grieved at having them sleep in the wagon with no house to cover them. And when breakfast is over she says to the father that the children must be taken back to the village to stay until the house is built. He, too, had thought so; and the mother and children go back to the little town.
Christian alone stays with his father, working with his small axe as his father does with the large one; but to both it is very hard work to cut trees; because it is something they have never done before. They do their best, and when he is not too tired, Christian whistles to cheer himself.
After the first day a man is hired to help, and it is not a great while before the little house is built—built of great, rough logs, still covered with brown bark and moss. All the cracks are stuffed with moss to keep out the rain and cold, and there is one window and a door.
It is a poor little house to come to after leaving the grand old one by the Rhine, but the children are delighted when their father comes with the great wagon to take them to their new home.
And into this house one summer night they come—without beds, tables, or chairs; really with nothing but the trunks and linen-chests. The dear old linen-chests, see only how very useful they have become! What shall be the supper-table for this first meal in the new house? What but the largest of the linen-chests, round which they all gather, some sitting on blocks of wood, and the little ones standing! And after supper what shall they have for beds? What but the good old chests again! For many and many a day and night they are used, and the mother is, over and over again, thankful that she brought them.
As the summer days go by, the children pick berries in the woods and meadows, and Fritz is feeling himself a great boy when his father expects him to take care of the old horse, blind of one eye, bought to drag the loads of wood to market.
Louise is learning to love the grand old trees where the birds and squirrels live. She sits for hours with her work on some mossy cushion under the great waving boughs, and she is so silent and gentle that the squirrels learn to come very near her, turning their heads every minute to see if she is watching, and almost laughing at her with their sharp, bright eyes, while they are cramming their cheeks full of nuts—not to eat now, you know, but to carry home to the storehouses in some comfortable hollow trees, to be saved for winter use. When the snow comes, you see, they will not be able to find any nuts.