The boys were very much pleased with this proposition, and all eagerness to begin.  Elsli showed them how to make the fire with small bits of dry wood at first, and to put the larger sticks on afterwards.  Then the potatoes must be washed very clean, and put into the pot, and a very little water poured upon them.  The boys worked away merrily, and meanwhile Elsli fetched the sour milk.  The boys watched the pot unceasingly, but when the potatoes began to burst apart, first one and then another, they were frightened and called aloud for Elsli.  She speedily reassured them, explaining that the bursting only meant that they were good potatoes and that they were done.  Then she threw away the water that remained in the pot, and poured the potatoes out into a big round dish.  She carried the plates into the other room, and made the table ready against the father’s arrival.

The old grandfather, who had watched the proceedings from his corner, called Elsli to him.

“You are good, and very handy too,” he said; “can you come again to-morrow?”

Elsli promised to come.

“Look, I am lame,” he went on, “and ever since my daughter has been sick, I have not been able to get out into the sun, because there is no one for me to lean on; the children are too little.  Will you help me to-morrow to get out-of-doors?”

She promised that too.  But now it was time for her to go; she must not be away when the supper-bell rang.  The mother thanked her again and again, and the children begged her to stay longer.  As she went out of the house she saw a man just taking from his shoulder a shovel, which he placed against the house.  Elsli recognized him at once as the weary laborer whom she had seen before, and who had reminded her of her father.  And as he stood there now, with his two boys affectionately clinging to his sides, and looked sadly yet kindly at her, he seemed still more to resemble her father, and she could not keep the tears from her eyes.  She could scarcely refrain from sobbing, so clearly did she see the anxiety and trouble that were in his heart, the same that weighed down her own father at home.  She held her hand to him, he pressed it kindly, and she was gone.

When the father entered the cottage, the children all began talking at once, so that he could not understand a word they said.  He went to the bedside, and asked his wife for an explanation.  She told him just what had happened, and of her wonder that a child so well dressed and with such an air of refinement should have been able to do that kind of work for poor people like themselves, and she didn’t know where she could have come from; but the father said simply, “Our Heavenly Father has taken pity on our misery, and has sent a kind angel to help us.”  And he thought of the tears of pity that he had seen in Elsli’s eyes.

Elsli ran as fast as she could along the path to the linden tree and up into the garden.  The supper-bell rang just as she reached the house, and the different members of the household gathered together from their different occupations.  No one asked any questions of Elsli.  She meant, as soon as she could find a good opportunity, to ask Aunt Clarissa’s leave to continue her visits to the fisherman’s family.  She did not doubt that she should be allowed to help them; they were so much in need of help.