Ah! memory has recalled to him _that_ day when he and his brother--two strong, active boys--had stopped at this very place to look at a little girl who was crying bitterly. She was very poorly clad, and the curiosity of the boys passing into sympathy, they inquired why she was in tears? It was a long time before she would impart the cause of her grief to them; but when they placed themselves by her on the grass, patted her little cheek, and spoke words of kindness to her, she confided to them that she had recently come to their village. On the other side of the hill stood the small house in which her mother had lived: but she was now dead, and strangers had brought her over to the village. The overseer of the poor had placed her in service with a peasant woman; but she felt so lonely--so forsaken! She would fain return to her cottage, which stood by itself on the heath; but she dared not leave her mistress. Johan took her hand, looked earnestly upon her, and asked what there was so uncommon about her mother's cottage?
'Ah! there is no house like it here in your village,' replied the little girl, with animation. 'You see, it stood so entirely alone, nobody ever came near it, and out before the door the purple heather grew so thickly! When I lay there in the morning, it was so warm and still, and one never heard a sound but the humming of the wild bees and the whirring of the great flies' wings. In the autumn, my mother and I used to cut off the long heather, bind it into bundles, and sell them yonder in the village. There was a well near our door, and when one looked down into it, oh! it was so dark, and deep, and cold! And when one was drawing up the bucket, it creaked and creaked, as if it were a labour to come up; and if it were let go again, one might wait and watch a long time before it got down to where the water was. In winter, my mother sat in the house spinning; then the snow almost blocked up our little windows; we dared not peep out of the door, for fear of the cold north wind getting in; and if one ventured into the outhouse to get peats for the little stove, one's teeth chattered with the cold. On the long, pitch-dark nights, when we went to bed early, to save candles, we used to lie awake, and creep close to each other, listening to every sound. Oh! how glad we were that we were too poor to fear robbers or bad men. Do you think it possible that there can be such a dear cottage as ours anywhere?'