ahre alt,
Dir gehoert all' Land wo Tannen stehn--"

But strain his memory as he would, he could not recall another line. He
often debated within himself whether he should not ask this or that old
man what the rest of the rhyme was, but was held back by a certain
dread of betraying his thoughts--and then, too, the tradition of the
Glass-Man could not be very widely known, and the rhyme must be known
to but very few, for there were not many rich people in the forest;
and, strangest of all, why had not his father and the other poor people
tried their luck? He finally led his mother into speaking about the
Little Glass-Man; but she only told him what he knew before, and knew
only the first line of the rhyme, although she did add afterwards that
the spirit only showed himself to people who were born on a Sunday
between eleven and two o'clock. In that respect, she told him, he would
fill the requirements, if he could only remember the verse; as he was
born on a Sunday noon.

When Charcoal Pete heard this, he was almost beside himself with joy at
the thought of undertaking this adventure. It appeared to him
sufficient that he knew a part of the verse, and that he was born on a
Sunday; so he thought that the Glass-Man would appear to him.
Therefore, after he had sold his charcoal one day, he did not kindle
any more fires, but put on his father's best jacket, his new red
stockings and his Sunday hat, grasped his black-thorn cane, and bade
good-bye to his mother, saying: "I must go to town on business; we
shall soon have to draw lots again to see who shall serve in the army,
and I will once more call the justice's attention to the fact that I am
the only son of a widow."

His mother commended his resolution, and he started off for
Tannenbuehl. The Tannenbuehl lies on the highest point of the Black
Forest; and within a radius of a two-hours' walk, not a village nor
even a hut was to be found, for the superstitious people held the
Tannenbuehl to be an unsafe place. And tall and splendid as were the
trees in this region, they were now but seldom disturbed by the
woodman's ax; for often when the wood-choppers had ventured in there to
work, the axes had flown from the helves and cut them in the foot, or
the trees had fallen unexpectedly before they could get out of the way,
and had killed and injured many. Then, too, these magnificent trees
could only be sold for firewood, as the raftsmen would never take a
single log