From the bridge, the children passed through the valleys in the hills
and came closer and closer to the woods. Finally they reached the edge
of the woods and walked on through them.
When they had climbed up into the higher woodlands of the "neck," the
long furrows of the road were no longer soft, as had been the case in
the valley, but were firm, not from dryness, but, as the children soon
perceived, because they were frozen over. In some places, the frost had
rendered them so hard that they could bear the weight of their bodies.
From now on, they did not persist any longer in the slippery path beside
the road, but in the ruts, as children will, trying whether this or that
furrow would carry them. When, after an hour's time, they had arrived at
the height of the "neck," the ground was so hard that their steps
resounded on it and the clods were hard like stones.
Arrived at the location of the memorial post, Sanna was the first to
notice that it stood no longer there. They went up to the spot and saw
that the round, red-painted post which carried the picture was lying in
the dry grass which stood there like thin straw and concealed the fallen
post from view. They could not understand, to be sure, why it had
toppled over--whether it had been knocked down or fallen of itself; but
they did see that the wood was much decayed at the place where it
emerged from the ground and that the post might therefore easily have
fallen of itself.
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