“’I lay in heaviest fetters,
     Thou com’st and set’st me free;
     I stood in shame and sorrow,
     Thou callest me to Thee;
     And lift’st me up to honor
     And giv’st me heavenly joys
     Which cannot be diminished
     By earthly scorn and noise.’”

The sick woman had folded her hands while she spoke, and in her eyes there was a wonderful light; but now she sank back on her pillows, exhausted and pale.  Marianne stood there quietly and now and then had to wipe her eyes.

“But now I must run to the doctor,—­it is high time,” she said, frightened.  “Mrs. Dorn, can I give you anything?”

“No, I thank you,” the sick woman answered softly.  “I thank you for everything, my good Marianne.”

The latter now hastily left the house and ran as fast as she could through the silent night toward Lower Wood.  From time to time she had to stop to get her breath.  Then she looked up to the bright star-covered sky and prayed:  “Dear God, help us all.”  She had great difficulty in awakening the doctor in Lower Wood at two o’clock in the night; but at last he heard her knocking and followed her soon after on the road to her house.  When they entered together the room of the sick woman, the light had burned down and threw a faint light on the quiet, pale face.  The mother had stretched out her arm upon the bed of her child.  The boy had encircled her slender, white hand with both his plump hands, and held it firmly.  The doctor approached and looked closer at the sleeper; he bent over her for some moments.

“Marianne,” he said, “loosen the hand out of the little boy’s.  The woman is sleeping her eternal sleep, she will nevermore awaken on this earth.  She must have died suddenly from heart failure, while you were away to fetch me.”

The doctor left the quiet house at once, and Marianne did as he had told her.  She folded the hands of the departed one on her breast, then she sat down on Erick’s bed, looking now at the serious face of the dead mother, now at the care-free sleeping boy, and wept quietly, until the rays of the morning sun fell into the quiet room and roused Marianne to the consciousness that a new, sad day had begun—­a day on which Erick had to be told that he never again on this earth could take hold of the loving hand of his mother.

CHAPTER V

Disturbance in School and Home

Never before had the schoolmaster of Upper Wood had such hard work with his schoolchildren as on the morning after this night.  Of course there were times that some were more restless and more dense than usual; but there were usually a good many with whom he could work successfully.  But today it seemed as though a crowd of excited spirits had taken possession of the children.  All the boys cast uncanny, warlike glances at each other, even suppressed threatenings were thrust hither and thither, and when the teacher turned his back such threatening gestures were made to those who faced him, that they, one and all, rolled their eyes with wrath and gave the most ridiculous answers.  They all were so eager for the battle, that they could no longer distinguish between friend and foe, and each shook his clenched fist at the other.