curious to know why the children, with their school things, are following the wrong path and going out of the village; one raven, indeed, flies out as a scout and perches on a stunted willow by the pond.  The children, however, go quietly on their way till, by the alders beside the pond, they come upon the high-road, which they cross to reach a humble house standing on the farther side.  The house is locked up, and the children stand at the door and knock gently.  The girl cries bravely:  “Father! mother!”—­and the boy timidly repeats it after her:  “Father! mother!” Then the girl takes hold of the frost-covered latch and presses it, at first gently, and listens; the boards of the door creak, but there is no other result.  And now she ventures to rattle the latch up and down vigorously, but the sounds die away in the empty vestibule—­no human voice answers.  The boy then presses his mouth to a crack in the door and cries:  “Father! mother!” He looks up inquiringly at his sister—­his breath on the door has also turned to hoar frost.

From the village, lying in a shroud of mist, come the measured sounds of the thresher’s flail, now in sudden volleys, now slowly and with a dragging cadence, now in sharp, crackling bursts, and now again with a dull and hollow beat.  Sometimes there is the noise of one flail only, but presently others have joined in on all sides.  The children stand still and seem lost.  Finally they stop knocking and calling, and sit down on some uprooted tree-stumps.  The latter lie in a heap around the trunk of a mountain-ash which stands beside the house, and which is now radiant with its red berries.  The children’s eyes are again turned toward the door-but it is still locked.

“Father got those out of the Mossbrook Wood,” said the girl, pointing to the stumps; and she added with a precocious look:  “They give out lots of heat, and are worth quite a little; for there is a good deal of resin in them, and that burns like a torch.  But chopping them brings in the most money.”

“If I were already grown up,” replied the boy, “I’d take father’s big ax, and the beechwood mallet, and the two iron wedges, and the ash wedge and break it all up as if it were glass.  And then I’d make a fine, pointed heap of it like the charcoal-burner, Mathew, makes in the woods; and when father comes home, how pleased he’ll be!  But you must not tell him who did it!” the boy concluded, raising a warning finger at his sister.

She seemed to have a dawning suspicion that it was useless to wait there for their father and mother, for she looked up at her brother very sadly.  When her glance fell on his shoes, she said: 

“Then you must have father’s boots, too.  But come, we will play ducks and drakes-you shall see that I can throw farther than you!”

As they walked away, the girl said: 

“I’ll give you a riddle to guess:  What wood will warm you without your burning it?”

“The schoolmaster’s ruler, when you get the spatters,” answered the boy.