There was once a girl named Clara who was a carefree and happy child. All day long she would laugh and sing as she worked about the house. Her father worked as a woodcutter and he was very poor. Each dawn he would go forth to work in the forest and at night he would bring back bread, and wood for the stove. He was ever angry at the hardness of his life and did not talk when he came home. He would make a fire and Clara would sing quietly as she stirred in the supper pot on the fire the radishes and roots she had found that day.

One day he said to her:
Child, each day I go into the forest to cut wood for fire and earn bread so that we might eat. Each day I work hard and am tired. I do not wish to speak to you nor do I wish to hear you sing when I am home. It is not the purpose of life to sing. If you are an obedient child you will never sing again that I can hear.