But now I'll crunch it so that she'll only have the empty bag left! I'll take! I'll steal!" he added and ground his teeth.

"Don't--don't go!" he sobbed, catching hold of her dress, "for when it's dark again, he'll come and take me!" What was Maren to do?
She stood hesitating and considering; she dare not let the boy out.
She might try and beg him off from Mrs.Holman.
"Only get me another beating for that, too!" was the answer.
There was nothing else for it; she could not let the poor little frightened thing stay there in the coal-hole.

So, with eyes closed to the consequences of her own determination, she exclaimed: "Then you must come up into the kitchen with me, and sleep on the bench there to-night." This time, Nikolai did not weigh the probabilities of what Mrs.Holman would say or do; he only took hold of her skirt with both hands.

And with the boy close in her wake, Maren sailed up the kitchen stairs again.
While she was looking out some of her old shawls and skirts to put under him, taking some of the clothes from her own bed, and making it as comfortable and warm as she could for him on the bench, Nikolai seemed to have forgotten all his troubles.
There was so much that was new up here.

There were such a number of shining tin things hanging all over the wall, and then the cat was an old friend.