But father Sami said perhaps he was hungry, for since the evening before no one had paid any attention to the little baby. This seemed to the sympathetic Mary Ann quite too cruel, and she realised that if she didn’t care for the poor little mite it would die. She wrapped him up again carefully in his blanket, but not around his head, and carried him upright on her arm, not under it, as one carries a bundle. Then she ran all around her room to collect milk, a dish and fire together, so that the starving little creature might have some nourishment. As she sat on her stool, and the little one eagerly sipped the milk, while his tiny little hand tightly clasped his grandmother’s forefinger like a life-preserver, she said, greatly touched: “Yes, indeed, you little Sami, you poor little orphan, I will do what I can for you and the dear Lord will not forsake us.” And to the big Sami she said: “I will keep him, but don’t take any rash steps! In the first great sorrow many a one does what he later regrets. See, you can’t run away from sorrow, it runs with you. Stay and bear what the dear Lord sends. He is not angry with you. Hold to him still in time of sorrow, then the sun will shine tomorrow! It will be the same with you as it has been with so many others.” Sami had listened in silence, but like one who does not understand what he hears. “Good night, mother! May God reward you for what you do for the boy,” he said then, after wiping his eyes again. Then he pressed his mother’s hand, and went out of the door. CHAPTER SECOND AT THE GRANDMOTHER’S Old Mary Ann had now to begin over again, where she had left off twenty-one years before, to bring up a little Sami. But then she was fresh and strong, she had her husband by her side, and lived at home among friends and acquaintances. Now she was in a strange land and was a worn-out woman, and felt that her strength would not last much longer. But little Sami did not realise all this. He was tended and cared for as if his grandmother wanted to make up to him every moment for what he had lost, and she was always saying to him, pityingly: “You poor little thing, you have nobody in the world now but an old grandmother.” Moreover it was so. Father Sami could not be consoled. As soon as his young wife was buried he went away, and must have landed a long time ago in the far away country. Little Sami grew finely, and as his grandmother talked with him a great deal, he began very early to imitate her. His words became more and more distinct, and when the end of his second year came, he talked very plainly and in whole sentences. His grandmother didn’t know what to do for joy, when she realised that her little Sami spoke not a word of French, but pure Swiss-German, as she had heard it only in her native land. He spoke exactly like his grandmother, who was indeed the only one he had to talk with.