He had been late again a couple of times, but had never told the reason. Finally, however, the farmer had spoken harshly: “Now speak out, and tell why you can’t get through your work faster; you are quick enough when anyone is watching you.” Then Sami had accordingly told all the truth, and the father had threatened to beat the boys if they didn’t do their work themselves. Afterwards Stöffi had thrashed Sami to punish him, and had warned him that he would do it every time Sami complained of him. Sami had replied that he had never complained and didn’t want to do so, but when his father questioned him he could only tell him the truth. Stöffi tried to explain to him that it didn’t matter whether he told the truth or not, but here he found Sami more obstinate than he had expected, and no matter what fearful threats he hurled at him, he always said the same thing in the end: “But I shall do it.” This firmness was the result of Sami’s sure conviction that the dear Lord heard and knew everything and that lying was something wicked, which did not please Him. So Stöffi had to find some other way to get off from his work early and make Sami finish what he left. He found that all three could never dare abandon their work and leave it for Sami, but one of them might do so each evening, and he threatened to punish his brothers severely if they would not agree to this. Then there would always be three or four evenings in succession when Stöffi wanted to go away early; then the brothers had to stay and work, and this led to many a quarrel, with heavy blows which regularly fell upon Sami. So he never had any happy days. But every evening he could be alone with his thoughts of his grandmother, of all the beautiful bygone days and all the good words she had spoken to him. Nobody troubled him, or called to him, or pulled him then, as usually happened all day long. Thus the Summer and Autumn passed away, and a cold Winter had come. There was no more work to be done in the fields and meadows, but there were all sorts of things to be done to help the farmer in the barn and his wife in the house and the kitchen. This Sami had to do. Meanwhile their own three boys could go to school, which had now begun again, for they had to get some education. Sami could get that by and by. In the Summer he had acquired a good deal of quickness and now did his work so skilfully that the farmer said a couple of times: “I would not have believed it, for in the Summer he was always the last.” Sami now thought that everything would go easier than in the Summer, but something came which was much harder to bear than the extra burden of work, which was too much for the others.