distinctly, as if you really were
here; it was again that Sunday morning; all you children stood before
the table and sung your Psalms, as you do every morning. You stood
devoutly with folded hands; and father and mother were just as pious;
and then the door was opened, and little sister Mary, who is not two
years old yet, and who always dances when she hears music or singing, of
whatever kind it may be, was put into the room--though she ought not to
have been there--and then she began to dance, but could not keep time,
because the tones were so long; and then she stood, first on the one
leg, and bent her head forwards, and then on the other leg, and bent
her head forwards--but all would not do. You stood very seriously all
together, although it was difficult enough; but I laughed to myself, and
then I fell off the table, and got a bump, which I have still--for it
was not right of me to laugh. But the whole now passes before me again
in thought, and everything that I have lived to see; and these are the
old thoughts, with what they may bring with them.

"Tell me if you still sing on Sundays? Tell me something about little
Mary! And how my comrade, the other pewter soldier, lives! Yes, he is
happy enough, that's sure! I cannot bear it any longer!"

"You are given away as a present!" said the little boy. "You must
remain. Can you not understand that?"

The old man now came with a drawer, in which there was much to be seen,
both "tin boxes" and "balsam boxes," old cards, so large and so gilded,
such as one never sees them now. And several drawers were opened, and
the piano was opened; it had landscapes on the inside of the lid, and it
was so hoarse when the old man played on it! and then he hummed a song.

"Yes, she could sing that!" said he, and nodded to the portrait, which
he had bought at the broker's, and the old man's eyes shone so bright!

"I will go to the wars! I will go to the wars!" shouted the pewter
soldier as loud as he could, and threw himself off the drawers right
down on the floor. What became of him? The old man sought, and the
little boy sought; he was away, and he stayed away.

"I shall find him!" said the old man; but he never found him. The floor
was too open--the pewter soldier had fallen through a crevice, and there
he lay as in an open tomb.

That day passed, and the little boy went home, and that week passed,
and several weeks too. The windows were quite frozen, the little boy was
obliged