Soon all Toni's thoughts came back again quite
clearly, and after a while he said:
"But I must earn something, Mother."
"Don't trouble about that now," said Elsbeth quietly; "the dear Lord will
show a way when it is time."
Then they began to talk about the goat, how pretty and fat she had grown,
and Toni gradually became quite lively.
After an hour the doctor brought them both into the living-room back to
the ladies. Toni was entirely changed, his eyes had now an earnest but
quite different expression. The lady from Geneva was indescribably
delighted. She sat down beside him at once, and he had to tell her where
he had been to school and what he had liked to study.
But the doctor beckoned to Elsbeth to come to him.
"Listen, my good woman," he began, "the words which you repeated made a
deep, penetrating impression on the boy's heart. Did he know the hymn
already?"
"Oh, my Lord," exclaimed Elsbeth, "many hundred times I have repeated it
beside his little bed, when he was very small, often with many tears, and
he would weep too, when he didn't know why."
"He wept because you wept, he suffered because you suffered," said the
doctor. "Now I understand how he was aroused by these words.
Pages:
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54