Kurt was very anxious to get his mother's permission to run about that same evening by moonlight with his friends, and his mother granted it willingly.

"I hope you are not going on one of the unfortunate apple-expeditions I hear so much about," she added.

Kurt quite indignantly a.s.sured her that he would never do such a thing.

Lippo was pushing him to one side now. The little boy had made attempts to reach his mother for several minutes, and he was delighted at his brother's quick departure.

"Mr. Rector sends you his regards and he wants to know if you wanted to give him an answer. Here is a letter," said Lippo.

"Where did you bring the letter from?" asked the mother.

"I didn't bring the letter. Lise from the rectory brought it," was Lippo's information. "But Lise saw me in front of the door and said that I should take the letter up with me and give it to you, and tell her whether you wanted to give the Rector an answer or not."

"Oh, that is just the way a message ought to be given," the mother said with a smile. "Did you hear it, Mazli? I wish you could learn from Lippo how to do it. Whenever you have one to give, I have such trouble to find out what really happened and what you have only imagined."

Mazli, whose knitting-ball was at that moment in the most hopelessly knotted condition, was ever so glad when her mother suggested a new activity. Quickly flinging her knitting away, she jumped up from her stool. Then she began to repeat Lippo's speech, word for word: "I did not bring the letter. Lise from the rectory--"

"No, no, Mazli, I do not mean it that way," the mother interrupted her.

"I mean that the reports you bring me so often sound quite impossible. I want you to be as careful and exact in them as Lippo."

In the meantime the mother had opened the letter and looked suddenly quite frightened.

"Tell the girl that I shall go to Mr. Rector myself and that she need not wait for an answer," was her message entrusted to Lippo.

The thing she had dreaded so much was settled now. The Rector let her know in his letter that he had realized the time had come for his pupils to be put into different hands. He wrote that he had decided to discontinue the studies with them next fall, but that he would be only too glad to be of a.s.sistance to Mrs. Maxa in consulting about Bruno's further education. He closed with an a.s.surance that he would be the happier to do so because Bruno had always been very dear to him.

Mrs. Maxa, sitting silently with folded hands, was lost in thought.

This was something that happened very seldom.

But Mea stood before her and trying to get her sympathy with pa.s.sionate gestures. "Just think, mother," she cried out, "Elvira is so angry now that she will never have anything more to do with me, no never. But she was most offended because I told her that it was wrong of her; not to admit that she had chattered in school. She said quite sarcastically that if I chose to correct her on account of that raggedy Loneli, I should keep Loneli for a friend and not her."

"Let her be for once," said the mother. "Till now you have always gone after her; so do what she wishes this time. It is wrong to call Loneli raggedy; few people are as honest and agreeable as Apollonie and her grandchild."

Mea was ready with many more complaints, for whenever anything bothered her, she felt the need to tell her mother. She realized, though, that she had to put off further communications for a quiet evening hour.

Bruno had approached, and turning to his mother, asked in great suspense: "Mother, what did Mr. Rector write to you? Have the plum-thieves been discovered?"

"I do not think that they have brought his decision about, but I am sure they hastened it. Read the letter," said his mother, handing it to him.

"That is not so bad," Bruno said after reading it. "As soon as you send me to town I shall be rid of them at last, and I won't have to bother about them any more. You know, mother, that all they care about is to do mean and nasty things."

"But they will go to town, too, and then you will be thrown together.

There won't be anybody then who cares for you and will listen to you,"

the mother lamented.

"Do not worry, mother, the town is big and we won't be so close together.

I'll keep far enough away from them, you may be sure. Don't let it trouble you," Bruno rea.s.sured her.

Kurt was so much occupied at lunch with his own plans and ideas that he never even noticed when his favorite dessert appeared on the table.

Lippo, seriously looking at him, said quite reproachfully, "Now you don't even see that we have apple-dumpling." Such an indifference seemed wrong to the little boy.

But Kurt even swallowed the apple-dumpling absent-mindedly. After lunch he begged his mother's permission to be allowed to leave immediately, because he still had so much to talk over with his friends. "I'll tell you all about it afterwards, mother. Be sure that I am doing something right that ought to be done," he rea.s.sured her. "If only I can go now."

Having obtained permission, he shot away, and arriving at the school-house, flew into the midst of a crowd of boys. But before their plan could be carried out the children were obliged to sit two whole hours on the school-benches. It truly seemed to-day as if they would never end.

Lux, the s.e.xton's boy, who preferred pulling the bell-rope and being violently drawn up by it to sitting in school, tapped his neighbor's sleeve.

"How late is it, Max?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Max," Lux whispered again, "the second expedition will be more fun than the first. I look forward to it more, don't you?"

"You can look forward to the shame-bench if you don't keep quiet," Max retorted, squinting with his eyes in the direction of the teacher.

The latter had actually directed his eyes to the side where the whisperers sat. Lux, bending over his book, kept quiet at last. Finally the longed-for hour came and in a few minutes the whole swarm was outside. With a great deal of noise, but in a quick and pretty orderly fashion they now formed a procession, which began to move in the direction of Apollonie's little house. Here a halt was made. Kurt, climbing to the top of a heap of logs, which lay in the pathway, stood upright, while the others grouped themselves about him. Apollonie opened the window a little, but hid behind it, for she was wondering what was going on. Loneli stood close behind her. She had just come back breathlessly, for she had heard that a procession was coming towards her grandmother's house.

"Mrs. Apollonie," Kurt cried out with loud voice, "two whole cla.s.ses from school have come to you to tell you that it was not Loneli's fault when she had to sit on the shame-bench. It only happened because her character is so good. Out of pure politeness she answered a question somebody asked her. When the teacher wanted to know who was chattering, she honestly accused herself. She did not tell him that she answered a question in fear of accusing somebody else. We wanted to tell you all about it so that you won't think you have to be ashamed of Loneli. We think and know that she is the friendliest and most obliging child in school."

"Long live Loneli!" Lux suddenly cheered so that the whole band involuntarily joined him. "Long live Loneli!;" it sounded again and the echo from the castle-mountain repeated, "Loneli."

Apollonie opened the window completely, and putting out her head, cried: "It is lovely of you, children that you don't want Loneli disgraced. I thank you for justifying her. Wait a minute. I should like to do you a favor, too."

With that Apollonie disappeared from the window. Soon after she came out by the door with a large basket of fragrant apples on her arm. Putting it in front of the children, she said encouragingly, "Help yourselves."

"Good gracious," cried out Lux, with one of the juicy apples between his teeth, "I know these. They only grow in the castle-garden, on the two trees on the right, in the corner by the fence. Do you know that, Kurt,"

he said confidentially, "I only wonder how she could get hold of such a basket full, you know, without being--you know--" With this he made the unmistakable motion of Mr. Trius with his tool of correction.

"What on earth do you mean?" Kurt cried out full of indignation. "Mrs.

Apollonie did not need to steal them. Mr. Trius certainly could give her a few baskets of apples for all the shirts she sews and mends for him."

"Oh, I see, that is different," said Lux, now properly informed.

In the shortest time the huge basket was emptied of its delicious apples and the whole band had dispersed after many exclamations of thanks. They all ran home and Kurt outran them all. It was important now to do his home-work as speedily as possible, as the second expedition was to take place a little later. When he reached the front door he noticed that Mrs. Knippel was coming up behind him.

Running ahead quickly, he flung open the living-room door and called in, "Take Mazli out of the way or else something horrible will happen again."

After saying this he ran away. Bruno and Mea, who were busy in the room with their work, did not find it necessary to follow Kurt's command. If he found it so necessary, why didn't he do it himself, they thought, remaining seated. Mazli had risen rapidly and looked towards the door with large expectant eyes, wondering what was going to happen. Mrs.

Knippel now entered.

"Why does something horrible always happen when Mrs. Knippel comes?"

Mazli asked in a loud voice.

Mea, quickly getting up, went out of the door, pulling Mazli after her; to explain her hasty retreat, she said that she wanted to fetch her mother. She simply had to take that horrible little Mazli out of the way; who could know what she might say next. She always brought forward her most awful ideas when it was least suitable. The mother, who was on the way already, entered just when Mea was running out with Mazli. Bruno also slipped quickly after them. He had only waited for his mother's appearance in order to fly.

"Your children are certainly very peculiar," the district attorney's wife began. "I have to think so every time I see them. What do all your admonitions help, I should like to know? Nature will have its way! Not one of my children has ever been so impertinent, to say the least, as your little daughter is already."

"I am very sorry you should have to tell me that," Mrs. Maxa replied.

"Isn't it possible that the child should have unconsciously said an impertinence? I hope you have never had a similar experience with my older children."

"No, I could not say that," Mrs. Knippel answered. "But I should say that all of them have inherited the love of preaching, especially your daughter Mea. Children can be unlike by disposition without its being necessary that one of them should constantly make sermons to the other."