s them all away in the back part of the wagon,
on some straw, covering them with shawls as well as she can, and bids
them good-night, saying, "You can see the stars whenever you open your
eyes."

It is a new bed and a hard one. However, the children are tired enough
to sleep well; but they woke very early, as you or I certainly should
if we slept in the great concert-hall of the birds. Oh, how those
birds of the woods did begin to sing, long before sunrise! And
Christian was out from his part of the bed in a minute, and off four
miles to the store, to buy some bread for breakfast.

An hour after sunrise he was back again, and Louise had gathered
sticks, of which her father made a bright fire. And now the mother is
teaching her little daughter how to make tea, and Fritz and Gretchen
are poking long sticks into the ashes to find the potatoes which were
hidden there to roast.

To them it is a beautiful picnic, like those happy days in the grape
season; but Louise can see that her mother is a little grieved at
having them sleep in the wagon with no house to cover them. And when
breakfast is over she says to the father that the children must be
taken back to the village to stay until the house is built. He, too,
had thought so; and the mother and children go back to the little
town.

Christian alone stays with his father, working with his small axe as
his father does with the large one; but to both it is very hard work
to cut trees; because it is something they have never done before.
They do their best, and when he is not too tired, Christian whistles
to cheer himself.

After the first day a man is hired to help, and it is not a great
while before the little house is built--built of great, rough logs,
still covered with brown bark and moss. All the cracks are stuffed
with moss to keep out the rain and cold, and there is one window and a
door.

It is a poor little house to come to after leaving the grand old one
by the Rhine, but the children are delighted when their father comes
with the great wagon to take them to their new home.

And into this house one summer night they come--without beds, tables,
or chairs; really with nothing but the trunks and linen-chests. The
dear old linen-chests, see only how very useful they have become! What
shall be the supper-table for this first meal in the new house? What
but the largest of the linen-chests, round which they all gather, some
sitting on blocks of wood, and the littl