There was once a mother who had a little boy of seven years old. He was so handsome and lovable that no one could look at him without liking him, and she herself worshipped him above everything in the world.
Now it so happened that he suddenly became ill, and God took him to himself. The mother could not be comforted and wept both day and night. Soon after the child was buried, he began to appear at night in the places where he had sat and played during his life. If the mother wept, he wept also, and when morning came, he disappeared.
However, the mother would not stop crying. One night, the child came in the little white shroud in which he had been laid in his coffin, with a wreath of flowers round his head. He stood on the bed at her feet and said, "Oh, mother, do stop crying, or I shall never fall asleep in my coffin. My shroud will not dry because of all your tears which fall upon it." The mother was afraid when she heard that and wept no more.
The next night the child came again, holding a little light in his hand. He said, "Look, mother, my shroud is nearly dry, and I can rest in my grave." Then the mother gave her sorrow into God's keeping and bore it quietly and patiently. The child came no more but slept in his little bed beneath the earth.