which supplied food for the mother and child, while the father received
his board through the week on the farms where he worked from morning until
night. Only on Sunday was he at home with his wife and little Toni. The
wife Elsbeth, kept her little house in good order; it was narrow and tiny,
but it always looked so clean and cheerful that every one liked to come
into the sunny room, and the father, Toni, was never so happy as when he
was at home in the stone hut with his little boy on his knee.

For five years the family lived in harmony and undisturbed peace. Although
they had no abundance and little worldly goods, they were happy and
content. The husband earned enough, so they did not suffer want, and they
desired nothing beyond their simple manner of life, for they loved each
other and their greatest delight was little Toni.

The little boy grew strong and healthy and with his merry ways delighted
his father's heart, when he remained at home on Sundays, and sweetened all
his mother's work on week-days, when his father was away until late in the
evening.

Little Toni was now four years old and already knew how to be helpful in
all sorts of small ways, in the house and the goat's shed and also in the
field behind the hut. From morning until night he tripped happily behind
his mother for he was as content as the little birds up in the old
fir-tree.

When Saturday night came the mother scrubbed and cleaned with doubled
energy, to finish early, for on that day the father was through his work
earlier than other days, and she always went with little Toni by the hand,
part way to meet him. This was a great delight to the child. He now knew
very well how one task followed another in the household. When his mother