"Only get me another beating for that, too!" was the answer.

There was nothing else for it; she could not let the poor little
frightened thing stay there in the coal-hole. So, with eyes closed to
the consequences of her own determination, she exclaimed: "Then you must
come up into the kitchen with me, and sleep on the bench there
to-night."

This time, Nikolai did not weigh the probabilities of what Mrs. Holman
would say or do; he only took hold of her skirt with both hands. And
with the boy close in her wake, Maren sailed up the kitchen stairs
again.

While she was looking out some of her old shawls and skirts to put under
him, taking some of the clothes from her own bed, and making it as
comfortable and warm as she could for him on the bench, Nikolai seemed
to have forgotten all his troubles.

There was so much that was new up here. There were such a number of
shining tin things hanging all over the wall, and then the cat was an
old friend. He had seen it many a time down in the yard, and now he had
to squeeze himself together to get hold of it, it had crept so far under
the bed.

There! He had knocked down the tin kettle with his back!

He fled in terror to the door. But Maren picked it up quite quietly;
there was not a word of scolding, a thing he wondered more at than
either the tin things or the cat.