"Daddy, I've brought your lunches!" Little Martin had to hold the basket almost to his chin to keep it from dragging.
Erich Brendt looked up from his typesetting, and called, "Ernst! Friedrich! Look what Martin's brought!" His older sons came over from their tasks and greeted their step-brother. Ernst picked Martin up under the armpits and swung him over his head, setting him on his shoulders. Clearing a space on the counter, the three sat down to their meal of beer, bread, and cheese. Climbing down, Martin busied himself sweeping the floor and straightening up. He then picked up a discarded sheet of paper and tried to read the printing.
Brendt looked fondly at his stepson. What a bright boy, he thought, Already he is learning to read. Putting the napkins in the basket, he called, "Here, Martin, bring this back to Mama."
Martin carried the basket back home two blocks behind the main street. "Mama, here's the basket!" he handed it to his mother.
Margarethe Brendt took the basket. "Thank you, Martin," she said, "Put the napkins in the laundry basket." She looked at her son as he carried the napkins away. She could see the features of her late husband Hans Luther in her first son. She remembered how devastated she had been when he had been killed by robbers on that trip to Mansfeld, when Martin was a newborn. She had moved back with her parents for a time, and later married a young widower, the printer Erich Brendt. Now Martin was almost four, and Erich was the only father he had ever known. Enough woolgathering, she thought, I have work to do.