forgot all about everything, till it grew so very dark that only the
tracks on the pure, white snow, and a little twinkle of light from the
hut window helped them to find their way home again.

In the wood-cutter's home lived some one else whom the children loved
dearly. This was old grandmother Ingeborg, who was almost as good as
the dear mother who had gone to take their baby sister up to heaven,
and had never yet come back to them.

All day long, while the merry children played about the door, or
watched their father swing the bright swift ax that fairly made the
chips dance, Dame Ingeborg spun and knit and worked in the little hut,
that was as clean and bright and cheery as a hut with only one door and
a tiny window could be. But then it had such a grand, wide
chimney-place, where even in summer great logs and branches of fir and
pine blazed brightly, lighting up all the corners of the little room
that the sunbeams could not reach.

Here, when tired with play, the children would gather, and throwing
themselves down on the soft wolf-skins that lay on the floor before the
fire, beg dear grandmother Ingeborg for a story. And such stories as
she told them!

So the long winter went peacefully and happily by, and at last all
hearts were gladdened at sight of the glorious sun, as he slowly and
grandly rose above the snow-topped mountains, bringing to them sunshine
and flowers, and the golden summer days.

One bright day in July, father Peder went to the fair in Lyngen.