and then took
their departure for the Odenwald.

CHAPTER XI

IN THE DESERTED CABIN

They walked along chatting until they were several miles from Umstadt,
when Pixy stopped and looked intently toward a thicket of tall grass,
giving one of his low growls, a sign of warning. The boys halted, for at
that moment three rough heads were raised from the grass and three pairs
of eyes were gazing intently at the travelers from three faces, which
were not only dark but not entirely clean. The three were about
seventeen years of age, and were apprentices of mechanics out upon a
week's vacation. One was learning to be a butcher, another a blacksmith,
and the third a basket maker. They had been walking all the morning and
had lain down in the cool, tall grass to rest and sleep. They were
rough-looking boys, and the triplets were rather sorry that Pixy's growl
had caused them to rise and look about them.

"So you are three school boys out on your slide!" exclaimed the
blacksmith, eyeing them curiously.

"Slide!" echoed Paul. "How can we slide when it is summer and no ice?"

"Oh, you greenhorns," laughed the boy. "You do not know that 'slide'
means a holiday."

"We have been on our holiday, and are on our way home to go to school."

"School! I should run away from that instead of running to it," remarked
the blacksmith, "no one there learns how to use the hammer and anvil to
make a horse-shoe."

"But he learns other useful things," said Paul.

"What are you going to be when you grow up?"

"A teacher, like my father."

"Bah, a teacher! I suppose it is a great pleasure to cudgel some boy
every day. Oh, what I have endured from teachers is more than I can
tell."

"A good teacher knows how to manage a bad boy without using the cudgel.
It is a weak teacher who knows no other way."

"Oh, just hear our wise one! Let me tell you that your father, great as
you appear to think him, could not manage me."

"No, not now, but if you were a boy under his care you would see that
he would manage you."

"What are you going to be?" he asked of Fritz.

"A clothing merchant, like my father."

"And cheat buyers by selling poor cloth."

"My father is no swindler," cried Fritz.

Franz had stood back; he did not like the looks of the group, but the
roughest looking of the three now put the same question to him.

"A forest-keeper, like my father."

"Then it would be well for you to learn to be a butcher, as I am doing,
so