What Sami Sings with the Birds by Johanna Spyri
page 8 of 60 (13%)
page 8 of 60 (13%)
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"No, mother, no, I must go away. I am forced to it; I can't do any different," cried Sami, almost wild. His mother looked at him in terror, but she said nothing more. She seemed to hear her father saying: "It can't be helped. He takes it from his grandfather." And with a sigh she said: "It will have to be so." Then there sounded from the bundle a strange peeping, exactly as if a chicken were smothering inside. "What have you put in the bundle, Sami?" asked the mother, going towards it, to loosen the firmly tied apron. "That's so, I had almost forgotten it, mother," replied Sami, wiping his eyes, "I have brought the little boy to you, I don't know what to do with it." "Oh, how could you pack him up so! Yes, yes, you poor little thing," said the grandmother soothingly, taking the diminutive Sami out of one wrapping and then a second and a third. The father Sami had wrapped the little baby first in its clothes, then in a shawl, and then in the apron as tight as possible, so that it couldn't slip out on the way, and fall on the ground. When little Sami was freed from the smothering wrappings and could move his arms and legs he fought with all his limbs in the air and screamed so pitifully that his grandmother thought it seemed exactly as if he already knew what a great misfortune had come to him. |
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