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The wrestlers would often call to him:

“Come and play!” and when he ran away from them they would call after him: “You are a coward.” But this made little difference to him; he didn’t hear it long, for he ran with all his might in order to be at home again with his mother.

Now a new interest for him arose in the school: he had seen beautiful animals drawn on white sheets, which the children of the upper classes copied. He quickly tried to draw them, too, with his pencil and at home continued drawing the animals again and again as long as he had a bit of paper. Then he cut out the animals and tried to make them stand on the table, but this he could not do. Then suddenly the thought came to him that if they were of wood they could stand. He began quickly with his knife to cut around on a little piece of wood until there was a body and four legs; but the wood was not large enough for the neck and the head; so he had to take another piece and calculate from the beginning how high it must be and where the head must be placed. So Toni cut away with much perseverance until he succeeded in making something like a goat and could show it with great satisfaction to his mother. She was much delighted at his skill and said:

“You are surely going to be a wood-carver, and a very good one.”

From that time on Toni looked at every little piece of wood which came in his way, to see if it would be good for carving, and if so he would quickly put it away, so that he often brought home all his pockets full of these pieces, which he then collected like treasures into a pile and spent every free moment carving them.

Thus the years passed by. Although Elsbeth always had many cares, she experienced only joy in her Toni. He still clung to her with the same love, helped her in every way as well as he could and spent his life beside her, entirely at his quiet occupation, in which he gradually acquired a quite gratifying skill. Toni was never so content as when he was sitting in the little stone hut with his carving and his mother came in and out happily employed, always saying a kindly word to him and finally sat down beside him at her spinning-wheel.

CHAPTER SECOND

A HARD SENTENCE

Toni was twelve years old in the winter, and now his school days were over, and the time had come to look about for some kind of work which would bring him in some money and by which he could learn something necessary for future years.

Spring had come and work had begun in the fields. His mother thought it would be best to ask the proprietor of the Matten farm, if he had some light work for Toni; but every time she spoke about it he would say beseechingly:

“Oh, Mother, don’t do that; let me be a wood-carver!”

She would have had no objection to this, but knew no way to bring it about, and she had known the farmer up on the Matten farm ever since her husband had worked there, and ever since his death, from time to time he had sent her a little wood or meal.

She hoped that he would employ Toni at first for light tasks in the field, so that he would gradually learn to do the heavier work.

So on Saturday night after the day’s work was ended and she sat down with Toni to their scanty supper, she said once more:

“Toni, now we must take a decided step; I think it is best for me to go up to the Matten farm to-morrow.”

“Oh, Mother, don’t do that!” said Toni quite beseechingly. “Don’t go to the farmer! If you will only let me be a wood-carver, I will work so hard, that I will earn enough, and you will not have to do so much, and then I can stay at home with you. Besides you would be all alone, and I can’t bear it, if I have to be always away from you. Let me stay with you; don’t send me away, Mother.”