If his mother was taking the goat out of the shed so that she could nibble the grass around the hut, he went with her step by step, for his mother had told him he must watch her so that she would not run away.

If his mother was sitting in winter by her spinning-wheel, he sat the whole time beside her, mending his winter shoes with strong strips of cloth, as she had taught him to do.  He had no greater wish than to see his mother happy and contented.  His greatest pleasure was, when Sunday came and she was resting from all work, to sit with her on the little wooden bench in front of the house and listen as she told him about his father and talk with her about all kinds of things.

But now the time had come for Toni to go to school.  It was very hard for him to leave his mother and remain away from her so much.  The long way down to Kandergrund and up again took so much time, that Toni was hardly ever with his mother any more through the day, but only in the evening.  Indeed he always came home so quickly that she could hardly believe it possible, for he looked forward with pleasure all day long to getting home again.  He lost no time with his school-mates but ran immediately away from them as soon as school was over.  He was not accustomed to the ways of the other boys since he had been constantly alone with his quietly working mother and used to performing definite tasks continually without any noise.

So it was altogether strange to him and he took no pleasure in it, when the boys coming out of the school-house, set up a great screaming, one running after another, trying to see which was the stronger, and throwing one another on the ground, or wrestling so that their caps were thrown far away and their jackets half torn off.

The wrestlers would often call to him: 

“Come and play!” and when he ran away from them they would call after him:  “You are a coward.”  But this made little difference to him; he didn’t hear it long, for he ran with all his might in order to be at home again with his mother.

Now a new interest for him arose in the school:  he had seen beautiful animals drawn on white sheets, which the children of the upper classes copied.  He quickly tried to draw them, too, with his pencil and at home continued drawing the animals again and again as long as he had a bit of paper.  Then he cut out the animals and tried to make them stand on the table, but this he could not do.  Then suddenly the thought came to him that if they were of wood they could stand.  He began quickly with his knife to cut around on a little piece of wood until there was a body and four legs; but the wood was not large enough for the neck and the head; so he had to take another piece and calculate from the beginning how high it must be and where the head must be placed.  So Toni cut away with much perseverance until he succeeded in making something like a goat and could show it with great satisfaction to his mother.  She was much delighted at his skill and said: