He was still tired, and said so.
“And I woke you up! I’ll tell you what, you must go to sleep and take a good nap.”
She began drying him off, as if that were a usual thing in her day’s work. Then she rolled him up in a sheet and carried him off like a sack of clothes. He could not but notice the way she laid him down. Then she covered him warmly.
“Straighten out your legs, my boy.”
Walter did as she said, and experienced an indescribable feeling of comfort. And when she punched him and patted him and tucked him in, and said: “Poor child, you can sleep good now. This is Femke’s bed, you know——” then he was more than comfortable; he was delighted.
When he awakened at about four o’clock in the afternoon he heard whispering voices. He listened, at first to find out where he was, and then to understand what was being said.
It seemed as if there were a plot further to confuse Sietske with Femke in his mind.
“Yes, Sietske; but what does he mean by lying out like that? If I were his mother——”
The answer was:
“Cousin, I don’t suppose his mother knows about it. Hermann did the same thing once. That’s the way boys are.”