Now every day her baby gave her a new surprise. First he began to say after her the little prayer she repeated for him morning and evening; then he said it all alone. She had to weep for joy when the little one began to sing after her the little Summer song she had learned in her own childhood and had always sung to him, and one day suddenly knew the whole song from beginning to end and sang one verse after another without hesitation. In spite of all the grandmother’s trouble and work, the years passed so quickly to her, that one day when she began to reckon she discovered that Sami must be fully seven years old. Then she thought it was really time that he learned something. But suddenly to send the boy to a French school when he didn’t understand a word of French seemed dreadful to her, for he would be as helpless as a chicken in water. She would rather try, as well as she possibly could, to teach him herself to read. She thought it would be very hard but it went quite easily. In a short time, the youngster knew all his letters, and could even put words together quite well. That something could be made out of this which he could understand and which he did not know before was very amusing to him, and he sat over his reading-book with great eagerness. But to go out with his grandmother to deliver her mending and to get new work was a still greater pleasure to him, for nothing pleased him better than roaming through the green meadows, then stopping at the brook to listen to the birds singing up in the ash-trees. The changeable April days had just come to an end and the beaming May sun shone so warm and alluring that all the flowers looked up to it with wide-open petals. Mary Ann with Sami by the hand, her big basket on her arm, was coming along up from La Tour. The boy opened both his eyes as wide as he could, for the red and blue flowers in the green grass and the golden sunshine above them delighted him very much. “Grandmother,” he said taking a deep breath, “to-day we will sit on the low wall for twelve long hours, won’t we, really?” “Yes, indeed,” assented his grandmother, “we will stay there long enough to get well rested and enjoy ourselves; but when the sun goes down and it grows dark, then we will go. Then all the little birds are silent in the trees and the old night-owl begins to hoot.” This seemed right to Sami, for he didn’t want to hear the old owl hoot. Now they had reached the wall. A cool shadow was lying on it; below the fresh brook murmured, and up in the ash-trees the birds piped and sang merrily together and one kept singing very distinctly: “Sing too! Sing too!” Sami listened. Suddenly he lifted up his voice and sang as loud and lustily as the birds above, the whole song that his grandmother had taught him: Last night Summer breezes blew:-- All the flowers awake anew, Open wide their eyes to see, Nodding, bowing in their glee.