That night, while the mother and her little girl were eating their supper, the gentlemen came back again, bringing Joseph with them.  He could not walk now, nor spring from rock to rock with his Alpen staff; he had fallen and broken his leg, and he must lie still for many days.  But he could keep a cheerful face, and still sing his merry songs; and as he grew better, and could sit out again on the broad bench beside the door, he took his knife and pieces of fine wood, and carved beautiful things,—­first a spoon for his little sister, with gentians on the handle; then a nice bowl, with a pretty strawberry-vine carved all about the edge.  And from this bowl, and with this spoon, she ate her supper every night,—­sweet milk, with the dry cakes of rye bread broken into it, and sometimes the red strawberries.  I know his little sister loved him dearly, and thanked him in her heart every time she used the pretty things.  How dearly a sister and brother can love each other!

Then he made other things,—­knives, forks, and plates; and at last one day he sharpened his knife very sharp, chose a very nice, delicate piece of wood, and carved this beautiful chamois, just like a living one, only so small.  My cousin, who was travelling there, bought it and brought it home.

When the summer had passed, the father came down from the high pastures; the butter and cheese making was over, and the autumn work was now to be done.  Do you want to know what the autumn work was, and how Jeannette could help about it?  I will tell you.  You must know that a little way down the mountain-side is a grove of chestnut-trees.  Did you ever see the chestnut-trees?  They grow in our woods, and on the shores of some ponds.  In the spring they are covered with long, yellowish blossoms, and all through the hot summer those blossoms are at work, turning into sweet chestnuts, wrapped safely in round, thorny balls, which will prick your fingers sadly if you don’t take care.  But when the frost of the autumn nights comes, it cracks open the prickly ball and shows a shining brown nut inside; then, if we are careful, we may pull off the covering and take out the nut.  Sometimes, indeed, there are two, three, or four nuts in one shell; I have found them so myself.

Now the autumn work, which I said I would tell you about, is to gather these chestnuts and store them away,—­some to be eaten, boiled or roasted, by the bright fire in the cold winter days that are coming; and some to be nicely packed in great bags, and carried on the donkey down to the town to be sold.  The boys of New England, too, know what good fun it is to gather nuts in the fall, and spread them over the garret floor to dry, and at last to crack and eat them by the winter hearth.  So when the father says one night at supper-time, “It is growing cold; I think there will be a frost to-night,” Jeannette knows very well what to do; and she dances away right early in the evening to her little bed, which is made in a wooden box built up against the side of the wall, and falls asleep to dream about the chestnut woods, and the squirrels, and the little brook that leaps and springs from rock to rock down under the tall, dark trees.