I wrote this on the wood. "Two and two," she went on, "Two and two is man and wife. Three and three the child of their life. Four and five to eight and nine-- For griefs are countless, darling mine. Pray as if thou hadst no hand, Work as if thou knewest no God, Carry fuel, and think the while, God will cook the broth for me." When I had written these things, Frau Drachenbinder let down the coffer lid, bolted it carefully, and said, "You've done me a great service--and there's a great stone lifted off my heart. That coffer there is my legacy to my grandchild.--And now you must tell me what I owe you for this." I shook my head. I wouldn't ask for anything, not anything at all. "What--learn to write so finely and then come all this long way and suffer cold the long night through and then in the end take nothing for it--that would be fine indeed!" she cried. "Why, my boy, I couldn't allow it!" I glanced through the open door into the next room where the little church stood. It certainly would be heavenly company for my little bed at home. She guessed at once. "You're thinking of my little house-altar!" she said. "Then, in God's name, you shall have it. I can't shut it up in the chest--my dear little church--and the people would only steal it from me when I'm gone. With you it will be respected, I know, and you'll think of old Frau Drachenbinder in sacred moments, when you're saying your prayers." And she gave me the little church as it stood. And that was the greatest bliss of all my childhood. I dearly wanted to take it on my shoulders at once and carry it away over the hills to my home. But she said, "You dear little goose, that's impossible. When the man's back, he'll contrive something for you." And sure enough, when the man was back again and had eaten the midday meal with us, he knew what to do. He bound the little church on to my back with a string, then stooped down in front of the wood block, and said, "Now, boy, mount again!" So for the second time I got up on his back, thrust my feet in his breeches pockets, and clung with my hands round his neck. The old woman held the waking child so that it might put out its little hand to me, uttered more thanks, and then dived behind the stove and crowed as before. I rode away from the place, and with every movement the saints in the church kept tapping behind my back and the bells in the towers kept tinkling. When the man had climbed with me as far as the heights of the Bürstling, and there again bound the snow-shoes fast to his feet, I asked him why Frau Drachenbinder was continually screaming for joy and laughing.