This lady’s beloved and gifted son had died not long before; on this account she had fallen into such deep sadness that her health had suffered greatly and therefore she had been brought to the sanitarium to recover.

The animated conversation was suddenly interrupted by a letter which was handed to the doctor.

“A letter from an old friend, who is sending me a patient to the sanitarium.  He is a young boy, hardly as old as our Max—­there, read it.”  Whereupon the doctor handed the letter to his wife.

“Oh, the poor boy!” exclaimed his wife.  “Is he here?  Bring him in.  Perhaps it will do him good to see the children.”

“I think he is quite near,” said the doctor; he went out, and soon came in again with the sexton and Toni.  He led the former into a bay window and began talking with him in a low tone.  Meanwhile the doctor’s wife drew near to Toni, who on entering had pressed into the nearest corner.  She spoke kindly to him and invited him to come to the table and eat something with her children.  Toni did not move.  Then lively little Marie jumped down from her chair and came to Toni with a large piece of bread and butter.

“There, take a bite,” she said encouragingly.

Toni remained motionless.

“See, you must do so,” and the little girl bit a good piece from the bread and held it to him, then again a little nearer, so he only needed to bite into it.  But he stared in front of him and made no motion.  This silent resistance frightened Marie and she drew back quietly.

Then the doctor came, took Toni by the hand and went out followed by the sexton.

Poor Toni’s appearance had made a great impression on the children.  They had become perfectly quiet.

Later when they had gone to bed and the two women were sitting alone together, the doctor came back again.  In reply to their urgent questions he informed them about all that the sexton had told him concerning Toni’s illness and his life with his mother, and that no one had ever noticed anything wrong with the boy before, only he had always been a quiet, gentle child and more slenderly built than any of the other village children.

The women asked how he had come into this condition in the summer up on the beautiful mountain, and the doctor explained that it was not so strange, if one knew how terrible the thunder storms were up in the mountains.  “Besides,” he concluded, “a delicate child, such as this boy, all alone without a human being near, for whole weeks, even months long, without hearing a word spoken, might well be so terrified through fear and horror in the awful loneliness that he would become wholly benumbed.”

Then the lady from Geneva, who took an unusual interest in poor Toni’s fate, exclaimed in great excitement: 

“How can a mother allow such a thing to happen to her child!  It is wholly inconceivable, quite incomprehensible!”

“You really can have no idea,” replied the doctor soothingly, “what poor mothers are obliged to let happen to their children.  But don’t believe that it causes them less pain than others.  You see how many suffer that we know nothing about, and how hard poverty oppresses.”