It was quite dark, and Sami still had not come. Just as the other three were being sent to bed, he came in, so tired he could hardly stand. The woman asked him harshly, if he couldn’t come home with the others. The farmer assumed that the piece he had told Sami to weed had been too much for him to do, and he said consolingly: “It is right that you wanted to finish your work, but you must work faster.” Sami understood the signs which Stöffi made behind his father’s back, that he was to keep silent about the bear, and he was too much afraid of the three boys’ fists to say anything about it. He preferred to go straight to bed, for he was too tired to eat. But he couldn’t go to sleep. He had received so many new impressions, he had borne so much anguish, and had to do so much work besides, he could think of nothing else. But now his grandmother came before his eyes again as she had prayed with him at evening and had been so kind to him, and everything she had told him. He wanted so much to pray, it seemed to him as if his grandmother was near and told him the dear Lord would always comfort him if he prayed, and that comfort he was so anxious to have. He was so troubled, when he wondered if he could do his work the next day, so that the farmer would not be cross, and how his wife would be, for he was very much afraid of her, and how it would be with the boys, who forced him to make everything appear contrary to the truth. Then Sami began to pray and prayed for a long time, for he already began to feel comforted, because he could take refuge with the dear Lord and ask Him to help him, now that he had no one left in the world to whom he could speak and who could assist him. When at last his eyes closed from great weariness he dreamed he was sitting with his grandmother on the wall and above them all the birds were singing so loud and so joyfully that he had to sing with them: “Only trust the dear Lord!” CHAPTER FOURTH HARD TIMES The following morning Sami was awakened by loud tones, but it was no longer the birds singing; it was the farmer’s wife ordering the boys harshly to get up right away. She had already called them three times, and if this time they didn’t obey, their father would come. Then they all sprang out of bed and in a few minutes were down-stairs, where their father was already sitting at the table and would not have waited much longer. The day did not pass very differently from the one before, and thus passed a long series of days. There was already a change in the work. Sami, little by little, learned to do everything very well, for he took pains and followed his grandmother’s advice carefully. He always had something to do for the other boys still, so that he never finished his work a moment before supper-time. But he was no longer late. A change had also come about in this. Stöffi had learned that there was one thing Sami could not or would not do which he himself could do very well: he could not tell a lie.