ears, and though they had no one to provide for
but themselves, they scarcely managed to keep body and soul together.
All sorts of untoward things happened. Now a tree which he was cutting
down fell upon Nils and laid him up for a month; now he got water on his
knee from a blow he received while rolling logs into the chute; now the
pig died which was to have provided them with salt pork for the winter,
and the hens took to the bush, and laid their eggs where nobody except
the rats and the weasels could find them. But since little Hans had come
and put an end to all these disasters, his father had a superstitious
feeling that he could not bear to have him away from him. Therefore
every morning when he started out for the forest or the river he carried
Hans on his shoulder. And the little boy sat there, smiling proudly and
waving his hand to his mother, who stood in the door looking longingly
after him.

"Hello, little chap!" cried the lumbermen, when they saw him.
"Good-morning to you and good luck!"

They always cheered up, however bad the weather was, when they saw
little Hans, for nobody could look at his sunny little face without
feeling something like a ray of sunlight stealing into his heart.
Hans had a smile and a wave of his hand for everybody. He knew all the
lumbermen by name, and they knew him.

They sang as they swung the axe or the boat-hook, and the work went
merrily when little Hans sat on the top of the log pile and shouted to
them. But if by chance he was absent for a day or two they missed him.
No songs were heard, but harsh words, and not infrequently quarrels.
Now, nobody believed, of course, that little Hans was such a wizard that
he could make people feel and behave any better than it was in their
nature to do; but sure it was--at least the lumbermen insisted that it
was so--there was joy and good-tempered mirth wherever that child went,
and life seemed a little sadder and poorer to those who knew him when he
was away.

No one will wonder that Nils sometimes boasted of his little son.

He told not once, but a hundred times, as they sat about the camp-fire
eating their dinner, that little Hans was a child of luck, and that
no misfortune could happen while he was near. Lumbermen are naturally
superstitious, and though perhaps at first they may have had their
doubts, they gradually came to accept the statement without question.
They came to regard it as a kind of right to have little Hans sit on t