the manufacturer of the
material, were often done just as people wanted any one particular
article of dress to be of a particular color. For instance, a woman who
had fashioned for her husband a rudely knitted vest of wool of her own
spinning; would bring the rather dingy garment to Frau Gensfleisch to
have it made red or blue, so that, worn under his brown leather jerkin,
it might look smart and gay;--or the young hunter, on going to the
chase, would come to her to have the tassels of his bow or horn made
scarlet or yellow;--or the knight equipping himself for war would send
to her the soiled plume of his helmet, to be made of a brilliant
crimson--to say nothing of the knight's lady, who, as she sat at home in
her dismal castle, with little else to amuse her but the embroidery
frame, would be forever sending down her maidens and serving-men into
the valley with skeins of wool and silk, to be dipped into Frau
Gensfleisch's dye-pots, and brought back to her of every color of the
rainbow. In this way Hans' mother continued to make a comfortable
living, and Hans himself was a very important help to her, in the
carrying on of her little art.

It was Hans' business to collect the numerous herbs and plants that his
mother required for the different colors. He not only knew well which
plants would produce certain colors, but knew where they could be found,
and at what seasons they were fit for use. Of some he carefully
collected the blossoms when fully expanded in the mid-day sun--of others
the leaves and stalks--while in many the coloring matter was to be
extracted from the roots, which Hans would carefully dig up, knowing
well by the forms of the leaves above ground, the kind of root that grew
beneath the soil.

This kind of knowledge which Hans had been picking up ever since he was
a very young child, made him at twelve years old a most useful little
personage, and although he had never learned to read or write, or even
been in a school, yet he could not by any means, be called ignorant, for
he not only observed and remembered all that came in his way, but he
turned his knowledge to the best account, by making it of use to himself
and others.

We say that Hans could neither read nor write, but it must not therefore
be thought that such acquirements were not valued in those days; on the
contrary, it was considered at that time one of the very best and most
desirable things in the whole world to be able to read, and one o