The aunt handed Wiseli a large brown stocking, at the same time sending Chappi to the barn. The two brothers followed him out. "Remember that it is the foot you are knitting on, and don't make it too short," cautioned the aunt, and then she returned to the kitchen. Wiseli was glad to be alone. She sat down on the bench behind the stove so that she might hold her work in her lap, for the stocking was so heavy that she could not otherwise manage the needles. She had just begun her knitting when the aunt returned to say, "You had better come to the kitchen now, so that you can learn how I do the work, for I want you to do it next time." Wiseli followed to the kitchen, where she tried to help, but there seemed to be little that she dared to do. She kept thinking how gladly she would have done any number of tasks for her mother, because she would have been kind. The comparison brought the tears, so she desperately fought against thinking about herself. "Now pay attention!" cautioned the aunt, as she walked about doing the work while Wiseli stood by the stove; "I want you to know how to do it the next time." They were still there when the father and sons came up the walk from the barn, stamping the snow from their heavy boots. "They are coming; run, Wiseli, and open the door," said the aunt. Then the woman drained a large kettle of potatoes, which she took from the stove, ran to the living room and dumped them in the middle of the warped dining table. Next she brought a large pan of sour milk, and said to Wiseli, "The knives and forks are in the table drawer; you can put them on." Wiseli found five knives and five forks in the drawer and put them on the table; then supper was ready. The father and the boys took their places on the bench behind the table next the window. There was a chair at one end of the table, and one at the side next the kitchen, which the aunt took. The uncle motioned Wiseli to take the other chair, saying to his wife, "She can sit there, I suppose?" "Of course," snapped the aunt, and then went out to the kitchen on pretense of being busy. She kept coming back for only a moment at a time. The uncle, understanding her, said impatiently, "I wish you would sit still and eat your supper." "I don't find the time to sit still," she retorted; "I should like to know who is going to look after things out there if I don't." Just at that moment she noticed that Wiseli was not eating her supper. "Why are you sitting with your hands in your lap?" she demanded. "She hasn't anything to eat with," replied Rudi, who had already solved the problem to his own satisfaction, for he could not understand how anybody could help eating so long as there was anything on the table.