"What can we do? Where is your mother? Why does she run away at such a
moment?" Uncle Philip cried out helplessly. "Call for your mother! You
mustn't go on like that."
Lippo had run back to the piano and, leaning against it, was crying
bitterly. Kurt, after opening the door, called loudly for his mother in
a voice that was meant to bring her from a distance. This exertion
proved unnecessary, as she was standing immediately behind the door.
Bruno, in order to question her about something, had drawn her out with
him.
"Oh, mother, come in!" Kurt cried in milder accents. "Come and teach our
two-legged law-paragraph here to get some sense. School is going to
start in five minutes."
The mother entered.
"Maxa, where did you go?" the brother accosted her. "It is high time to
get this boy straightened out. Just look at the way he is clutching the
piano in his trouble. He ought to be off. Kurt is right."
The mother, sitting down on the piano-stool, took the little boy's hand
and pulled him towards her.
"Come, Lippo, there is nothing to cry about," she said calmly. "Listen
while I explain this. It is a splendid thing to finish anything one has
begun, but there are things that cannot be finished all at once. Then
one divides these things into separate parts and finishes part first with
the resolution to do another part the next day, and so on till it is
done. We shall say now our song has twelve stanzas and we'll sing two of
them every morning; in that way we can finish it on the sixth day and we
have not left it unfinished at all.
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