"Sleep, baby, sleep!

The large stars are the sheep,

The little stars are the lambs, I guess,

And the silver moon is the shepherdess.

Sleep, baby, sleep!"

Over and over she sang it, until at last the heavy lids closed
over the blue eyes. Then she crept quietly down the creaking
stairs in the dark, and ate her bread and cheese and drank her
soup by candle-light with her father and mother, Seppi and Fritz,
all seated about the kitchen table.

By nine o'clock the room was once more silent and deserted, the
little mouse was creeping quietly from his hole in the wall, and
Bello lay by the door asleep with his nose on his paws. High over
Mt. Pilatus the moon sailed through the star-lit sky, bathing the
old gray farm-house in silver light and playing hide and seek
with shadows on the snow-capped peaks.

"Cuckoo," called the tiny wooden cuckoo nine times, and at once
the bells in the village steeple answered him. "That's as it
should be," ticked the cuckoo. "That church-bell is really very
intelligent. Let me see; to-morrow morning I must wake the
roosters at three, and the sun at four, and the family must be up
by five. I'll just turn in and get a wink of sleep myself while I
can," and he popped into the clock ones more and shut the door.