He prayed the "Our Father" quite through, kneeling up softly in bed, and lingering fondly, but not very hopefully, on the "Give us our daily bread."
And then again he fell into rather melancholy reflections how very often he had prayed that same prayer and been hungry, and into distracting speculations how the daily bread could come, until at last he ventured to add this bit of his own to his prayers:
"Dear, holy Lord Jesus, you were once a little child, and know what it feels like. If Lenichen and I are not good enough for you to send us bread by the blessed angels, do send us some by the poor ravens. We would not mind at all, if they came from you, and were your ravens, and brought us real bread. And if it is wrong to ask, please not to be displeased, because I am such a little child, and I don't know better, and I want to go to sleep!"
Then Gottlieb lay down again, and turned his face to the wall, where he knew the picture of the Infant Jesus was, and forgot his troubles and fell asleep.
The next morning he was awaked, as so often, by Lenichen's little bleat; and he rose triumphantly, and took his crust to her bedside.
Lenichen greeted him with a wistful little smile, and put up her face for a kiss; but her reception of the crust was somewhat disappointing.
She wailed a little because it was "hard and dry," and when Gottlieb moistened it with a few drops of water, she took it too much, he felt, as a mere common meal, a thing of course, and her natural right.
He had expected that, in some way, the hungry hours it had cost him would have been kneaded into it, and made it a kind of heavenly manna for her.
To him it had meant hunger, and heroism, and sleepless hours of endurance. It seemed strange that to Lenichen it should seem nothing more than a hard, dry, common crust.
But to the mother it was much more.