he was losing his mind and would grow daft, and even his mother's
tears he scarcely saw. He was always thinking of Findelkind in
heaven.

When he went for water, he spilt one-half; when he did his
lessons, he forgot the chief part; when he drove out the cow, he
let her munch the cabbages; and when he was set to watch the oven,
he let the loaves burn, like great Alfred. He was always busied
thinking: "Little Findelkind that is in heaven did so great a
thing: why may not I? I ought! I ought!" What was the use of being
named after Findelkind that was in heaven, unless one did
something great, too?

Next to the church there is a little stone lodge, or shed, with
two arched openings, and from it you look into the tiny church
with its crucifixes and relics, or out to the great, bold, sombre
Martinswand, as you like best; and in this spot Findelkind would
sit hour after hour, while his brothers and sisters were playing,
and look up at the mountains or on to the altar, and wish and pray
and vex his little soul most woefully; and his ewes and his lambs
would crop the grass about the entrance, and bleat to make him
notice them and lead them farther afield, but all in vain. Even
his dear sheep he hardly heeded, and his pet ewes, Katte and
Greta, and the big ram Zips, rubbed their soft noses in his hand
unnoticed. So the summer droned away--the summer that is so short
in the mountains, and yet so green and so radiant, with the
torrents tumbling through the flowers, and the hay tossing in the
meadows, and the lads and lasses climbing to cut the rich sweet
grass of the alps. The short summer passed as fast as a dragonfly
flashes by, all green and gold, in the sun; and it was near winter