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The children sat nestling into each other's arms Poentje down under the other two and only when it had kept still for long did they all, trembling and terrified, dare to put out their heads. "I wish we were home now!" sighed Lowietje. Once more the sky was all on fire and rumbling and breaking and crackling till the earth quaked and shook.
There were other boys ... and they knew where birds lived! "Listen, Trientje," said Lowietje. "You stay here with Poentje: I'll come back at once and bring your pinafore full of birds' eggs ... and young ones." He fetched out his climbing-cord and, in a flash, all the boys were gone, behind the trees.
Trientje steadily picked her whole basket full and Poentje sat playing on the way-side grass with a bunch of cornflowers. In the wood, everything was still: the trees stood firmly in the blaze of the sun and the young leaves hung gleaming, without stirring. A bird sat very deep down whistling and its song rang out as in a great church. Turtle-doves cooed far away.
Each dragged Poentje by one hand, Poentje who still went about in his little shirt and, with his wide-straddling little bare legs, trotted on between brother and sister. They went along narrow, winding foot-paths, between the cornfields, high as a man, through the flax-meadows and the yellow blinking mustard-flower.
The sun bit into Lowietje's bare head and sent the sweat trickling down his cheeks. They went always on, with their eyes fixed upon that thick crowd of blue trees full of blithe green and of dark depths behind the farthermost trunks. Poentje became tired and let himself be dragged along by his hands. When he began to cry, they sat down in the ditch beside the corn to rest.
Poentje splashed with his naked little feet in the puddles and asked for mother. "We're almost home, child," said Trientje, to soothe him. They went through the wet grass and fragrant cornfields along the slippery footpaths to a big road. Look, there, behind the turning, came mother: she had a sack-cloth over her head and two umbrellas under her arm; she looked angry and ugly.
The wind came up, the branches rocked and writhed and the leaves fluttered and tugged and heavy drops beat into the sand. "Quick, quick!" said Trientje. "It's going to lighten!" Lowietje said nothing and Poentje cried. Each took the child by one hand and they ran as fast as they could to get from under the trees. "Ooh! Ooh!"
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