As it was,
he gnawed, and nibbled, and pulled, and pushed, just as a mouse would
have done, making his hole where he guessed that the opening of the
stove was--the opening through which he had so often thrust the big
oak logs to feed it. No one disturbed him; the heavy train went
lumbering on and on, and he saw nothing at all of the beautiful
mountains, and shining waters, and great forests through which he was
being carried. He was hard at work getting through the straw and hay
and twisted ropes; and get through them at last he did, and found the
door of the stove, which he knew so well, and which was quite large
enough for a child of his age to slip through, and it was this which
he had counted upon doing. Slip through he did, as he had often done
at home for fun, and curled himself up there to see if he could anyhow
remain during many hours. He found that he could; air came in through
the brass fretwork of the stove; and with admirable caution in such a
little fellow he leaned out, drew the hay and straw together,
rearranged the ropes, so that no one could ever have dreamed a little
mouse had been at them. Then he curled himself up again, this time
more like a dormouse than anything else; and, being safe inside his
dear Hirschvogel and intensely cold, he went fast asleep as if he were
in his own bed at home with Albrecht, and Christof on either side of
him. The train lumbered on, stopped often and long, as the habit of
goods-trains is, sweeping the snow away with its cow-switcher, and
rumbling through the deep heart of the mountains, with its lamps aglow
like the eyes of a dog in a night of frost.
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