He ran so wildly that the barrel bounded against the trees until, after a violent blow, it was smashed to pieces. The dog ran off as fast as ever he could.
Dear me! How the wood had changed! There was not a star in the sky and the moon had vanished.
Everything was enveloped in a pale grey light. Birds’ song filled the air. In the distance, far away outside the wood, a hundred cocks crowed one after the other.
I again thought of my dear parents. I pictured their agony during the long and terrible night, and my heart beat quickly at the thought of being with them once more.
I would soon find the road. If only I could discover in which direction lay the village.
I heard a bell ringing, “Ding, Ding, Ding, Dong.” Was it seven o’clock? Unfortunately the wind whistled so loudly in the tree-tops that the first “Ding” seemed to come from the north, while the last seemed to come from the west. What was I to do?
Then I had a happy thought. I chose one of the highest trees, a poplar, whose lower branches hung nearly to the ground. I climbed up like a cat from bough to bough and reached the top—from there I could see right over the wood. On one side I saw fields and meadows as far as the eye could see, and on the other I saw my village, my dear little village.
The poplar I had climbed was only twenty yards from the edge of the wood. It was so high that the topmost branches on which I was perched were much higher than the surrounding trees.
My village lay there at the bottom, not far from the edge of the wood. Not far from the wall of the churchyard was the white house, the white house where my parents lived. Oh, if I could only be there, how I longed to be at home.
But I was high up above all the other tree-tops, waving my cap so vigorously in the air that the few remaining nuts fell out. While I was perched there on the top of the tree, it began to sway gently from left to right, then backwards and forwards. Then it swayed so violently that it passed over the top of first two, then three, and then ten trees. The morning breeze seemed to take pleasure in it, and blew stronger and stronger—“whip, whip—whoop, whoop,” the tree-top swayed out beyond the top of the trees on the edge of the wood.