"But there is nothing but poverty and want in your home. There you would have to sleep on miserable moss beds and suffer from cold and hunger. Probably your parents, sisters, brothers and friends are dead long ago, and if you look for them you will find only tracks of wolves in the snow-drifts on the lonely field where your cottage used to stand."
"Yes," said the children, "but we must go home."
"But you have been away from your home for many years, you were only six and seven years old when you were carried away. You have forgotten the road you came on. You can't even remember how your parents look."
"Yes," said the children, "but we must go home."
"Who is going to show you the way?"
"God will help us," answered the boy, "and besides, I remember that a large birch tree stands in front of my father's cottage, and many lovely birds sing there every morning."
"And I remember that a beautiful star shines through the branches of the birch at night," said the little girl.
"Foolish children," said the people in the foreign land, "you must never think about this again; it will only bring you sorrow."
But still the children always thought about going home, not because they were disobedient, but because it was impossible for them to forget their country, impossible to cease longing for father and mother.
One moonlight night the boy could not sleep for the thoughts of home and parents. He asked his sister if she were asleep.