The Stolen Farthings

One day a father was sitting at dinner with his wife and children. A good friend was visiting them. As they sat there, the clock struck twelve. The stranger saw the door open, and a very pale child in snow-white clothes came in. The child did not look around, and it did not speak. It walked straight into the next room. Soon it came back and left again, just as quietly. The same thing happened the next day and the day after.

Finally, the stranger asked the father, "Whose beautiful child is that who goes into the next room every day at noon?" The father said, "I have never seen any child." He did not know who it could be. The next day, when the child came again, the stranger pointed it out to the father. But the father did not see it. The mother and children also saw nothing.

Then the stranger got up, went to the door of the room, opened it a little, and peeked inside. He saw the child sitting on the floor, digging and searching in the cracks between the floorboards. But when the child saw the stranger, it disappeared.

The stranger told everyone what he had seen and described the child exactly. The mother recognized it and said, "Ah, it is my dear child who died a month ago." They lifted the floorboards and found two farthings. The child had once received them from its mother to give to a poor man. But the child thought, "I can buy myself a biscuit with that," and had kept the farthings, hiding them in the cracks. So the child had no rest in its grave and came every day at noon to look for those farthings.

The parents gave the money to a poor man. After that, the child was never seen again.