The following morning Sami was by loud tones, but it was no longer the birds singing; it was the farmer’s wife ordering the boys harshly to get up right away. She had already called them three times, and if this time they didn’t obey, their father would come. Then they all sprang out of bed and in a few minutes were down-stairs, where their father was already sitting at the table and would not have waited much longer.  
The day did not pass very differently from the one before, and thus passed a long series of days. There was already a change in the work.
 
Sami, little by little, learned to do everything very well, for he took pains and followed his grandmother’s advice carefully. He always had something to do for the other boys still, so that he never finished his work a moment before supper-time. But he was no longer late. A change had also come about in this. Stöffi had learned that there was one thing Sami could not or would not do which he himself could do very well: he could not tell a lie.
 
He had been late again a couple of times, but had never told the reason. Finally, however, the farmer had spoken harshly:
 
“Now speak out, and tell why you can’t get through your work faster; you are quick enough when anyone is watching you.”
 
Then Sami had accordingly told all the truth, and the father had threatened to beat the boys if they didn’t do their work themselves. Afterwards Stöffi had thrashed Sami to punish him, and had warned him that he would do it every time Sami complained of him.
 
Sami had replied that he had never complained and didn’t want to do so, but when his father questioned him he could only tell him the truth. Stöffi tried to explain to him that it didn’t matter whether he told the truth or not, but here he found Sami more than he had expected, and no matter what fearful threats he at him, he always said the same thing in the end:
 
“But I shall do it.”
 
This firmness was the result of Sami’s sure conviction that the dear Lord heard and knew everything and that lying was something wicked, which did not please Him.
 
So Stöffi had to find some other way to get off from his work early and make Sami finish what he left. He found that all three could never dare abandon their work and leave it for Sami, but one of them might do so each evening, and he threatened to punish his brothers if they would not agree to this. Then there would always be three or four evenings in succession when Stöffi wanted to go away early; then the brothers had to stay and work, and this led to many a quarrel, with heavy blows which regularly fell upon Sami.
 
So he never had any happy days. But every evening he could be alone with his thoughts of his grandmother, of all the beautiful bygone days and all the good words she had spoken to him. Nobody troubled him, or called to him, or pulled him then, as usually happened all day long.
 
Thus the Summer and Autumn passed away, and a cold Winter had come. There was no more work to be done in the fields and meadows, but there were all sorts of things to be done to help the farmer in the barn and his wife in the house and the kitchen. This Sami had to do.
 
Meanwhile their own three boys could go to school, which had now begun again, for they had to get some education. Sami could get that by and by. In the Summer he had acquired a good deal of quickness and now did his work so that the farmer said a couple of times:
 
“I would not have believed it, for in the Summer he was always the last.”
 
Sami now thought that everything would go easier than in the Summer, but something came which was much harder to bear than the extra burden of work, which was too much for the others.
 
Every day the boys fought in the field outside, and Sami, as the smallest, always came off with the most blows. But that was the end of it, and when the boys came home at night no one thought any more about it. In the evening the three boys were assigned to the little room with the feeble light of a low oil lamp, to do their arithmetic for school, while Sami had to cut apples and pears for drying. From the first the three were angry because Sami had no arithmetic to do, and then one would accuse the other of taking the light away from him, and all three would scream that Sami didn’t need any at all for his work. Then one would pull the lamp one way, and another the other way, until it was upset and the oil would run over the table into Sami’s apples. Then there would be a really murderous in the darkness; all hands would grope in the oil and one would always outcry the others. Then the mother would come in very cross and want to know who was always starting such . Then one would blame the other, and finally the blame would fall on Sami, because he made the least noise. Usually the farmer too came in then, and his angry wife would always reply that she had indeed said the boy would be an apple of in the house, and a Winter like this they had never experienced. Often Sami had to endure many hard words and undeserved punishment. On such evenings he remained for a long time sitting on his bed.
 
Then he would rack his brains as to how it could happen so, since his grandmother had told him that if he was God-fearing everything would happen for the best. That he should be so scolded and badly treated was not the best for him. He really wanted to be God-fearing and not forget that the dear Lord saw and heard everything. But Sami was still very young and could not know, what he later knew, that it is good for everyone if he learns early in life to bear hardship. Then when the evil days, which none escape, come again later on, he can cope with them bravely, because he knows them already and his strength has become hardened; and when the good days come he can enjoy them as no one else can who has never tasted the bad ones.
 
At this time Sami knew nothing about this and almost never went to sleep without tears; indeed, he often wondered whether the birds were still calling up in the ash-trees: “Only trust in the dear Lord!” and if it were still true that everything would come out right. The only comfort for him was that his grandmother had told him so , and he held fast to that.
 
It was a long, hard Winter. The snow lay so deep and immovable on the meadows and trees, that Sami often asked with anxiety in his heart, if it would ever disappear, so that the meadows would be green again, and the flowers become alive. It was already April, and the cold white covering of snow still lay all around. Then a warm wind from the South blew all one night into the valley, and when on the next day a very warm rain fell, the obstinate snow melted into great . Then came the sun and dried up all the brooks, and everywhere the new young grass sprang up over the meadows.
 
The four boys came across the big street of the village and turned into ............