So the years went by, and the baby lived and grew.  It was always in pain, but it seldom cried; and Christina could not be impatient when she saw how uncomplaining the little child was.

When he was old enough she told him what she never told any one before,—­the story of the angel; and his eyes were more beautiful than ever when she wept because she could not suffer it all alone, but must see him suffer too.  And while Hans scarcely noticed the boy, Christina spent all her time thinking of him and teaching him, and together they prayed to the white angel to bless them.

But as the years went on many men came to the forest and felled the trees, not with axes but with huge saws; and so Hans was turned away, for no one wanted a wood-chopper now.  And so they were in great trouble; and Hans grew rough and ill-tempered, and did not try to use the saw, nor would he ask the men to let him work.  He would only stand idly by, and often Christina thought the blessings she prayed for were turned to curses; but she never told the child her sorrow, and still they prayed on to the white angel to bless them.  When Christina saw Hans would really do no work, she said no more, but sewed and spun for the men about who had no wives, and in this way she earned enough to buy food and wood.  It was very little she could earn, and she often grew impatient at the sight of Hans smoking idly in the doorway; but when she said a hasty word the boy’s eyes seemed to grow big with a deep trouble, and she would check herself and work on in silence.  But the more she worked, the idler grew Hans and the more ill-tempered; and he would laugh when he heard them pray to the angel to bless them.  Instead of blessings new sorrow seemed to be born every day; for Hans was injured by a falling tree, and was brought home with both his legs crushed, and laid helpless and moaning on the rough bed.

These were weary days for Christina; but she did not rebel, even when Hans swore at her and the child, and made the place hideous with his oaths.

“You brought us all these troubles, you wretched boy!” he would say.  “Don’t talk to me of patience.  Why don’t you pray to your angel for curses, and then we may have some good luck again?  As it is, you might as well pray to the Devil himself.”

But the child only drew Christina’s head closer to his poor little misshapen breast, and whispered to her, “It is not so, is it, little mother?”

And she always answered:  “No, dear heart.  They are indeed blessings if we will only recognize them.  It we prayed only for happiness, we might think the white angel heard us not; but we pray for blessings, and so he sends us what we pray for, and what he sends is best.”

Then again the boy’s eyes shone with a great light, and there seemed a radiance about his head; but Christina was kissing his shapeless little hands and did not see.

One day Christina was returning with a fresh bundle of work in her arms, when, just as she came in sight of the hut, she saw a pillar of smoke rise black and awful to the sky from the rude roof of the place.