To the children the stove was very dear indeed.  In summer they laid a mat of fresh moss all around it, and dressed it up with green boughs and beautiful wild flowers.  In winter, scampering home from school over the ice and snow, they were always happy, knowing that they would soon be cracking nuts or roasting chestnuts in the heat and light of the dear old stove.  All the children loved it, but Karl even more than the rest, and he used to say to himself, “When I grow up I will make just such things too, and then I will set Hirschvogel up in a beautiful room that I will build myself.  That’s what I will do when I’m a man.”

After Karl had eaten his supper, this cold night, he lay down on the floor by the stove, the children all around him, on the big wolf-skin rug.  With some sticks of charcoal he was drawing pictures for them of what he had seen all day.  When the children had looked enough at one picture, he would sweep it out with his elbow and make another—­faces, and dogs’ heads, and men on sleds, and old women in their furs, and pine-trees, and all sorts of animals.  When they had been playing in this way for some time, Hilda, the eldest sister, said:—­

“It is time for you all to go to bed, children.  Father is very late to-night; you must not sit up for him.”

“Oh, just five minutes more, dear Hilda,” they begged.  “Hirschvogel is so warm; the beds are never so warm as he is.”

In the midst of their chatter and laughter the door opened, and in blew the cold wind and snow from outside.  Their father had come home.  He seemed very tired, and came slowly to his chair.  At last he said, “Take the children to bed, daughter.”

Karl stayed, curled up before the stove.  When Hilda came back, the father said sadly: 

“Hilda, I have sold Hirschvogel!  I have sold it to a traveling peddler, for I need money very much; the winter is so cold and the children are so hungry.  The man will take it away to-morrow.”

Hilda gave a cry.  “Oh, father! the children, in the middle of winter!” and she turned as white as the snow outside.

Karl lay half blind with sleep, staring at his father.”  It can’t be true, it can’t be true!” he cried.  “You are making fun, father.”  It seemed to him that the skies must fall if Hirschvogel were taken away.

“Yes,” said the father, “you will find it true enough.  The peddler has paid half the money to-night, and will pay me the other half to-morrow when he packs up the stove and takes it away.”

“Oh, father! dear father!” cried poor little Karl, “you cannot mean what you say.  Send our stove away?  We shall all die in the dark and cold.  Listen!  I will go and try to get work to-morrow.  I will ask them to let me cut ice or make the paths through the snow.  There must be something I can do, and I will beg the people we owe money to, to wait.  They are all neighbors; they will be patient.  But sell Hirschvogel!  Oh, never, never, never!  Give the money back to the man.”