Father nodded yes; and Sarelke and Dolfke skipped along the boards to the hutch and came back each carrying a long white rabbit by the ears.
Dolfke held his close to the ground, hidden behind a tree, so that it shouldn’t see the other’s blood and foresee its own death. While father was sharpening his knife, Fonske took a cord and tied the hind-legs of Sarelke’s rabbit and hung it, head down, on a nail under the eaves. Father struck it behind the ears so that it was dazed and, rolling its eyes, remained hanging stock-still. Before it had time to scream, the knife was in its neck and the throat was cut open. A little stream of dark blood trickled to the ground and clotted; and some of it hung like an icicle from the beard, which dripped incessantly with red drops.
Fonske carefully put his finger to the rabbit’s nose and licked off a drop of blood.
“It’s going home,” said Sarelke.
“Is it dead, father?” sighed Wartje.
“Stone-dead, my boy.”
He ripped one buttock with his knife and pulled off the skin; then the other, so that the blue flesh was laid bare and the little purple veins. One more tug and the creature hung disfigured beyond all knowledge, in its bare buttocks and its fat, bulging paunch, with its head all over blood and its eyes sticking out. The belly and breast were cut open from end to end and the guts removed; the gall-bladder was flung into the cess-pool; two bits of stick, to keep the hind-legs and the skin of the stomach apart, and the thing was done. The other was treated likewise; and the two rabbits hung skinned and cleaned, stiffening high up on the gable-end.
Meanwhile mother had got supper ready: a heap of steaming potatoes soaking in melted butter and, after that, bread-and-butter and a pan of porridge. Horieneke, by way of a treat, got a couple of eggs and a slice of the new cakebread; and she sat enjoying this at the small table. After supper, the boys had to be washed and cleaned. They started undressing here and undressing there; serge breeches and jackets flew over the floor; and one after the other they were taken in hand by mother, beside a kettle of water, where they were rubbed and rinsed with foaming soap-suds. Then each was given a clean shirt; and away to bed with them! They jumped and, with their shirt-tails waving behind them, skipped about and smacked one another until father came along and stopped their game. Mother had still her floor to scrub; and Horieneke read out evening prayers while the boys knelt beside their bed.
Now all grew still. Father smoked a pipe and took a stroll in the moonlight through the orchard, where he had always something to look after or to do. Indoors the broom went steadily over the floor; whole kettlefuls of water were poured out and swept away and rubbed dry. Then the stove was lit; and, while mother blacked the shoes, father made the coffee. They mumbled a bit together—about to-morrow’s doings, about the children, the work, the hard times and their troublesome landlord, the farmer of the woodside—when there came a noise from the little bedroom and the door creaked softly. Horieneke suddenly appeared in the middle of the floor in her little nightgown; and, before father and mother had got over their surprise, the child was on her knees, asking:
“Forgive me, father and mother, for all the wrong that I have done you in my life; and I promise you now to be always good and obedient....”