h, with steady step, and at
last exclaimed: "We're home!"

The little cottage by the lake stood in the midst of a small garden; an
old woman was at the gate, and called out: "So you ride home in the
bargain."

"Yes, mother," answered the wife, who, with profuse thanks, took leave
of the doctor, while Hansei gratefully patted the horse that had safely
brought her home.

"I'm going right off for Annamirl," said he; "keep some dinner for me."

"No, let's eat together; I'm hungry, too," exclaimed the wife, while
she laid her hymn-book aside, and removed her hat and jacket. She was
good-looking, had a full, round, cheerful face, and large plaits of
light hair encircled her brow. She forced herself to remain at the
table and join in the meal with her husband and mother, but as soon as
the last morsel had passed his lips, Hansei started on his errand.

It was high time for Annamirl to come. Before the chickens had gone to
roost, the Sunday child, a screaming, fair-haired girl baby, had come.

Hansei was quite beside himself with joy, and did not know what to do.
He had not had a comfortable dinner, and it seemed a great while since
he had eaten anything. It was ever so long ago, for he had become a
father since then; and it seemed as if years, instead of hours, had
passed in the mean while. He cut off a large slice from the loaf, but
when he got out of doors, where the birds were chirping so merrily and
the starlings were so tame, he cried out: "Here! You shall have some
too; I want you to know that I'm a father, and of a Sunday child at
that!" He threw the soft bread-crumbs to them, and the crust into the
sea, saying: "Here, ye fish who feed us; to-day I'll feed you!" He
was overflowing with goodwill to the whole world, but there was no
one left on whom he could exercise it. He knew not where he should
betake himself to. Suddenly he spied the ladder leaning against the
cherry-tree; he mounted it, plucked the cherries, and kept on eating
until he quite forgot himself, and felt as if it were not he who was
eating, but as if he were giving them to some one else. He no longer
knew where or who he was, and at last began to fear that he was
bewitched and would never be able to get down again. The telegraph wire
ran by the house and almost touched the cherry-tree. Hansei looked at
it as if to say: "Go, tell the whole world that I'm a father." He was
delighted to see swallows and starlings sitting on the wire, and nodded
to t