The father was so sorry for his little boy that he could not speak.  He looked sadly at him; then took the lamp that stood on the table, and left the room.

Hilda knelt down and tried to comfort Karl, but he was too unhappy to listen.  “I shall stay here,” was all he said, and he lay there all the night long.  The lamp went out; the rats came and ran across the room; the room grew colder and colder.  Karl did not move, but lay with his face down on the floor by the lovely rainbow-colored stove.  When it grew light, his sister came down with a lamp in her hand to begin her morning work.  She crept up to him, and laid her cheek on his softly, and said:—­

“Dear Karl, you must be frozen.  Karl! do look up; do speak.”

“Ah!” said poor Karl, “it will never be warm again.”

Soon after some one knocked at the door.  A strange voice called through the keyhole,—­

“Let me in! quick! there is no time to lose.  More snow like this and the roads will all be blocked.  Let me in!  Do you hear?  I am come to take the great stove.”

Hilda unfastened the door.  The man came in at once, and began to wrap the stove in a great many wrappings, and carried it out into the snow, where an ox-cart stood in waiting.  In another moment it was gone; gone forever!

Karl leaned against the wall, his tears falling like rain down his pale cheeks.

An old neighbor came by just then, and, seeing the boy, said to him:  “Child, is it true your father is selling that big painted stove?”

Karl nodded his head, and began to sob again.  “I love it!  I love it!” he said.

“Well, if I were you I would do better than cry.  I would go after it when I grew bigger,” said the neighbor, trying to cheer him up a little.  “Don’t cry so loud; you will see your stove again some day,” and the old man went away, leaving a new idea in Karl’s head.

“Go after it,” the old man had said.  Karl thought, “Why not go with it?” He loved it better than anything else in the world, even better than Hilda.  He ran off quickly after the cart which was carrying the dear Hirschvogel to the station.  How he managed it he never knew very well himself, but it was certain that when the freight train moved away from the station Karl was hidden behind the stove.  It was very dark, but he wasn’t frightened.  He was close beside Hirschvogel, but he wanted to be closer still; he meant to get inside the stove.  He set to work like a little mouse to make a hole in the straw and hay.  He gnawed and nibbled, and pushed and pulled, making a hole where he guessed that the door might be.  At last he found it; he slipped through it, as he had so often done at home for fun, and curled himself up.  He drew the hay and straw together carefully, and fixed the ropes, so that no one could have dreamed that a little mouse had been at them.  Safe inside his dear Hirschvogel, he went as fast asleep as if he were in his own little bed at home.  The train rumbled on in its heavy, slow way, and Karl slept soundly for a long time.  When he awoke the darkness frightened him, but he felt the cold sides of Hirschvogel, and said softly, “Take care of me, dear Hirschvogel, oh, please take care of me!”