nightfall.

When he came out of his house in the morning, he was usually followed by
a little boy, who lingered on the threshold after his father had gone on
his way, and looked with his big black eyes for a long time in the
direction his father had taken; but where he was looking that no one
could have told, for his eyes had a faraway look, as if they saw nothing
that lay before them and near, but were searching for something
invisible to everybody.

On Sunday mornings, when the sun shone brightly, father and son would
saunter up the road together; and the close resemblance between them was
most striking, for the child was the man in miniature, only his face was
small and pale,--with his father's well-formed nose, to be sure; but his
mouth had an expression of great sadness, as if he could not laugh. In
his father's face this could not be detected, on account of the beard.

When they walked along together, side by side, they did not talk; but
the father usually hummed a tune softly,--sometimes quite aloud,--and
the lad listened attentively. On rainy Sundays they sat at the window
together in the cottage, and seldom talked then; but the man drew his
harmonica from his pocket, and played one tune after another to the lad,
who listened most earnestly. Sometimes he would take a comb, or even a
leaf, and coax forth music; or he would shape a bit of wood with his
knife, and whistle a tune upon that. It really seemed as if there were
no object from which he could not draw forth sweet sounds. Once,
however, he brought a fiddle home with him, and the boy was so delighted
with the instrument, that he never forgot it. The man played one tune
after another, while the child listened and looked with all his might;
and when the fiddle was laid aside, the little fellow took it up, and