“Did he say that?  Did he?” and she put her apron to her eyes.

“You can ask Theodor—­he will tell you the same.”

“It is a dear, good lad, my Nick,” she said.  “I am sorry I let him get whipped; I will never do it again.  To think—­all the time I was sitting here last night, fretting and angry at him, he was loving me and praising me!  Dear, dear, if we could only know!  Then we shouldn’t ever go wrong; but we are only poor, dumb beasts groping around and making mistakes.  I shan’t ever think of last night without a pang.”

She was like all the rest; it seemed as if nobody could open a mouth, in these wretched days, without saying something that made us shiver.  They were “groping around,” and did not know what true, sorrowfully true things they were saying by accident.

Seppi asked if Nikolaus might go out with us.

“I am sorry,” she answered, “but he can’t.  To punish him further, his father doesn’t allow him to go out of the house to-day.”

We had a great hope!  I saw it in Seppi’s eyes.  We thought, “If he cannot leave the house, he cannot be drowned.”  Seppi asked, to make sure: 

“Must he stay in all day, or only the morning?”

“All day.  It’s such a pity, too; it’s a beautiful day, and he is so unused to being shut up.  But he is busy planning his party, and maybe that is company for him.  I do hope he isn’t too lonesome.”

Seppi saw that in her eye which emboldened him to ask if we might go up and help him pass his time.

“And welcome!” she said, right heartily.  “Now I call that real friendship, when you might be abroad in the fields and the woods, having a happy time.  You are good boys, I’ll allow that, though you don’t always find satisfactory ways of improving it.  Take these cakes—­for yourselves—­and give him this one, from his mother.”

The first thing we noticed when we entered Nikolaus’s room was the time —­a quarter to 10.  Could that be correct?  Only such a few minutes to live!  I felt a contraction at my heart.  Nikolaus jumped up and gave us a glad welcome.  He was in good spirits over his plannings for his party and had not been lonesome.

“Sit down,” he said, “and look at what I’ve been doing.  And I’ve finished a kite that you will say is a beauty.  It’s drying, in the kitchen; I’ll fetch it.”

He had been spending his penny savings in fanciful trifles of various kinds, to go as prizes in the games, and they were marshaled with fine and showy effect upon the table.  He said: 

“Examine them at your leisure while I get mother to touch up the kite with her iron if it isn’t dry enough yet.”

Then he tripped out and went clattering down-stairs, whistling.

We did not look at the things; we couldn’t take any interest in anything but the clock.  We sat staring at it in silence, listening to the ticking, and every time the minute-hand jumped we nodded recognition—­one minute fewer to cover in the race for life or for death.  Finally Seppi drew a deep breath and said: