gs in pails
on their heads, just as our work-women have always done, and the men
laying the courses of masonry--five hundred of these toy people swarming
briskly about and working diligently and wiping the sweat off their
faces as natural as life. In the absorbing interest of watching those
five hundred little people make the castle grow step by step and course
by course, and take shape and symmetry, that feeling and awe soon passed
away and we were quite comfortable and at home again. We asked if we
might make some people, and he said yes, and told Seppi to make some
cannon for the walls, and told Nikolaus to make some halberdiers, with
breastplates and greaves and helmets, and I was to make some cavalry,
with horses, and in allotting these tasks he called us by our names,
but did not say how he knew them. Then Seppi asked him what his own name
was, and he said, tranquilly, "Satan," and held out a chip and caught a
little woman on it who was falling from the scaffolding and put her back
where she belonged, and said, "She is an idiot to step backward like
that and not notice what she is about."

It caught us suddenly, that name did, and our work dropped out of our
hands and broke to pieces--a cannon, a halberdier, and a horse. Satan
laughed, and asked what was the matter. I said, "Nothing, only it seemed
a strange name for an angel." He asked why.

"Because it's--it's--well, it's his name, you know."

"Yes--he is my uncle."

He said it placidly, but it took our breath for a moment and made our
hearts beat. He did not seem to notice that, but mended our halberdiers
and things with a touch, handing them to us finished, and said, "Don't
you remember?--he was an angel himself, once."

"Yes--it's true," said Seppi; "I didn't think of that."

"Before the Fall he was blameless."

"Yes," said Nikolaus, "he was without sin."

"It is a good family--ours," said Satan; "there is not a better. He is
the only member of it that has ever sinned."

I should not be able to make any one understand how exciting it all was.
You know that kind of quiver that trembles around through you when you
are seeing something so strange and enchanting and wonderful that it
is just a fearful joy to be alive and look at it; and you know how
you gaze, and your lips turn dry and your breath comes short, but you
wouldn't be anywhere but there, not for the world. I was bursting to
ask one question--I had it on my tongue's end and could hardly hold