28 lines
1.8 KiB
Text
28 lines
1.8 KiB
Text
The Stolen Farthings
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A father was one day sitting at dinner with his wife and his children,
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and a good friend who had come on a visit was with them. And as they
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thus sat, and it was striking twelve o'clock, the stranger saw the door
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open, and a very pale child dressed in snow-white clothes came in. It
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did not look around, and it did not speak; but went straight into the
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next room. Soon afterwards it came back, and went out at the door again
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in the same quiet manner. On the second and on the third day, it came
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also exactly in the same way. At last the stranger asked the father to
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whom the beautiful child that went into the next room every day at noon
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belonged? "I have never seen it," said he, neither did he know to whom
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it could belong. The next day when it again came, the stranger pointed
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it out to the father, who however did not see it, and the mother and
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the children also all saw nothing. On this the stranger got up, went to
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the room door, opened it a little, and peeped in. Then he saw the child
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sitting on the ground, and digging and seeking about industriously
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amongst the crevices between the boards of the floor, but when it saw
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the stranger, it disappeared. He now told what he had seen and
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described the child exactly, and the mother recognized it, and said,
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"Ah, it is my dear child who died a month ago." They took up the boards
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and found two farthings which the child had once received from its
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mother that it might give them to a poor man; it, however, had thought,
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"Thou canst buy thyself a biscuit for that," and had kept the
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farthings, and hidden them in the openings between the boards; and
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therefore it had had no rest in its grave, and had come every day at
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noon to seek for these farthings. The parents gave the money at once to
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a poor man, and after that the child was never seen again.
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