“Oh, father! dear father!” cried poor little Karl, “you cannot mean what you say. Send our stove away? We shall all die in the dark and cold. Listen! I will go and try to get work to-morrow. I will ask them to let me cut ice or make the paths through the snow. There must be something I can do, and I will beg the people we owe money to, to wait. They are all neighbors; they will be patient. But sell Hirschvogel! Oh, never, never, never! Give the money back to the man.”
The father was so sorry for his little boy that he could not speak. He looked sadly at him; then took the lamp that stood on the table, and left the room.
Hilda knelt down and tried to comfort Karl, but he was too unhappy to listen. “I shall stay here,” was all he said, and he lay there all the night long. The lamp went out; the rats came and ran across the room; the room grew colder and colder. Karl did not move, but lay with his face down on the floor by the lovely rainbow-colored stove. When it grew light, his sister came down with a lamp in her hand to begin her morning work. She crept up to him, and laid her cheek on his softly, and said:&&
“Dear Karl, you must be frozen. Karl! do look up; do speak.”
“Ah!” said poor Karl, “it will never be warm again.”
Soon after some one knocked at the door. A strange voice called through the keyhole,&&
“Let me in! quick! there is no time to lose. More snow like this and the roads will all be blocked. Let me in! Do you hear? I am come to take the great stove.”
Hilda unfastened the door. The man came in at once, and began to wrap the stove in a great many wrappings, and carried it out into the snow, where an ox-cart stood in waiting. In another moment it was gone; gone forever!
Karl leaned against the wall, his tears falling like rain down his pale cheeks.
An old neighbor came by just then, and, seeing the boy, said to him: “Child, is it true your father is selling that big painted stove?”