From this day forward the cousin never spoke another word against Rico in the grandmother's hearing; nor, indeed, did she often speak of him at all. She believed, as did all the neighbors far and near, that the lad was dead; and she was thankful that nobody knew about the words he had said to her on that last evening.
The next morning after this event was made known, Stineli's father went out to the thrashing-floor and picked himself out a stout stick. He said that he would call some of the neighbors together: they must go search for the lad somewhere towards the glaciers and up by the ravines.
Stineli crept out after him, and he said, when he noticed her, "That is right, come and help me to search; you can get into the corners better than I can."
At last, after they had found a big beanpole, Stineli ventured to say, "But father, if Rico went along the high-road, then he could not fall into any thing, could he?"
"Oh, perhaps he might," replied her father. "Such thoughtless boys as he often stray off the road, and fall into ravines and places: they don't know themselves where they are going, and he was always moving about more or less."
That this was true of Rico nobody knew better than Stineli; and she became dreadfully anxious from that time forth, which anxiety increased every day to such a degree that she could neither eat nor sleep for sorrow, and did her work, day after day, as if she did not know what she was about.
Rico was not found: nobody had seen any thing of him. They ceased to search for him, and the folks soon began to find consolation in the thought, "It is just as well for the little fellow, after all; he was forsaken, and had no one to care for him."
A LITTLE LIGHT.
Stineli grew more and more thin and quiet from day to day. The little ones called out complainingly, "Stineli never tells us stories now, and never laughs any more." Her mother said to her father, "Do you notice how changed she is?" And her father replied, "It is because she grows so fast. She must get a little goat's milk early in the mornings."