"For sure, child: just see how clear the sun is setting."

He pointed to the west; and the boys stood on tip-toe to see the sinking,
dull-glowing disk hang glittering in its gulf of orange cloud-reefs,
pierced through and through with bright rays that melted away high in the
pale blue and grey, while that disk hung there so calmly, as though
frozen into the sky for ever.

Father had one or two things to do and then the boys might come along to
the rabbits.

"The two white ones, eh, father?"

Father nodded yes; and Sarelke and Dolfke skipped along the boards to the
hutch and came back each carrying a long white rabbit by the ears.

Dolfke held his close to the ground, hidden behind a tree, so that it
shouldn't see the other's blood and foresee its own death. While father
was sharpening his knife, Fonske took a cord and tied the hind-legs of
Sarelke's rabbit and hung it, head down, on a nail under the eaves.
Father struck it behind the ears so that it was dazed and, rolling its
eyes, remained hanging stock-still. Before it had time to scream, the
knife was in its neck and the throat was cut open. A little stream of
dark blood trickled to the ground and clotted; and some of it hung like
an icicle from the beard, which dripped incessantly with red drops.

Fonske carefully put his finger to the rabbit's nose and licked off a
drop of blood.

"It's going home," said Sarelke.