nd Sally and Kaetheli beside her
full of expectation, for they had sought Ritz for a long time in vain.
But Auntie had experience in such things. Ritz actually came crawling
out of the henhouse and stood now in a lamentable condition before his
aunt.

"How you do look! You ought to have been in bed an hour ago, you haven't
a drop of blood in your cheeks," the aunt exclaimed. "What is the matter
with you, Ritz?"

"Where is Mamma?" asked Ritz in his fright.

"She is upstairs; come, she will put you to bed at once when I have got
you finally together. Come, Sally, and you, Kaetheli, go home now."

With these words she took Ritz by the hand, and drew him up the stone
steps into the house, and wanted to bring him up the stairs to the
bedroom. Then everything was over and no rescue from going to bed at
once. Now Ritz stopped his aunt and groaned: "I must--I must--I have to
write three sentences for punishment."

"There we have it." But Ritz looked so miserable that Auntie felt great
pity for him. "Come in here," she said, and shoved him into the
living-room, "and take out your things."

Now she sat down beside him and the whole affair proceeded finely. Not
that Auntie formed the sentences, no indeed, she was not going to cheat
the teacher; but she knew well what was needed to form a sentence and
she pushed and spurred Ritz and brought so many things before him, and
reminded him how they looked, that he had his three sentences and his
nine qualities together in no time. Now there came a feeling to Ritz
that he had not acted right, when he said that an aunt must not always
be reminding people, and when now Auntie asked: "Ritz, why had you to
write the sentences?" then the feeling grew stronger in him, for he felt
that he could not tell the cause of his punishment without making his
aunt angry. He stuttered, "I have--I have--the teacher has said, that I
made an unfitting sentence."

"Yes, I can imagine that," said Auntie. "Now quickly to bed."

Edi and Ritz slept in the same room and that was the place where the two
boys, every evening after the mother had said evening prayer with them,
and they were alone, exchanged their deepest thoughts and experiences
with one another and talked them over. Ritz had the greatest respect for
Edi, for although the latter was only a little older, yet he was already
in the fourth class, and he himself was only in the second, and in
history Edi knew more than the scholars in the fifth and