half awakened Lenichen, who murmured, sleepily,
"Little mother, mother, bread!"

Whereupon, Gottlieb blushed at his own ungenerous intention, and
resolutely pushed back the crust under the pillow. And then he thought
it must certainly have been the devil who had tempted him to eat, and he
tried to pray.

He prayed the "Our Father" quite through, kneeling up softly in bed, and
lingering fondly, but not very hopefully, on the "Give us our daily
bread."

And then again he fell into rather melancholy reflections how very often
he had prayed that same prayer and been hungry, and into distracting
speculations how the daily bread could come, until at last he ventured
to add this bit of his own to his prayers:

"Dear, holy Lord Jesus, you were once a little child, and know what it
feels like. If Lenichen and I are not good enough for you to send us
bread by the blessed angels, do send us some by the poor ravens. We
would not mind at all, if they came from you, and were your ravens, and
brought us real bread. And if it is wrong to ask, please not to be
displeased, because I am such a little child, and I don't know better,
and I want to go to sleep!"

Then Gottlieb lay down again, and turned his face to the wall, where he
knew the picture of the Infant Jesus was, and forgot his troubles and
fell asleep.

The next morning he was awaked, as so often, by Lenichen's little bleat;
and he rose triumphantly, and took his crust to her bedside.

Lenichen greeted him with a wistful little smile, and put up her face
for a kiss; but her reception of the crust was somewhat disappointing.

She wailed a little because it was "hard and dry," and when Gottlieb
moistened it with a few drops of water, she took it too much, he felt,
as a mere common meal, a thing of course, and her natural right.

He had expected that, in some way, the hungry hours it had cost him
would have been kneaded into it, and made it a kind of heavenly manna
for her.

To him it had meant hunger, and heroism, and sleepless hours of
endurance. It seemed strange that to Lenichen it should seem nothing
more than a hard, dry, common crust.

But to the mother it was much more.

She understood all; and, because she understood so much, she said
little.

She only smiled, and said he looked more than ever like his father; and
as he sat musing rather sadly while she was dressing, and Lenichen had
fallen asleep again, she pointed to the little peaceful sleeping face,