, turning
pale.

"But you know that there are no such things as ghosts and fairies!"

"Yes, ma'am, very true, ma'am, it's rather confusing what you say," said
poor Gustel, feeling her head in a whirl.

* * * * *

It was a wonderful moonlight night. As father was still away, mother sat
by herself in the big bedroom, whilst the children slept in the little
room adjoining. There was a very high wind; the window-panes rattled;
the wooden shutters blew to and fro; the branches of the trees made
weird patterns on the ground. The moonlight was so white that the fields
and paths looked almost as if they were covered with snow. The
Stellerskuppe stood out black against the sky. As mother gazed, it
seemed to her as if strange creatures were abroad that night, driven to
and fro by that tireless hunter, the wind. Wild forms passed by and
gazed at her with deathless eyes; for a while she remained there
motionless, as under a spell. Then suddenly she remembered her joke
about the old huntsman of evil repute, who had formerly lived in this
farmhouse. Did his ghost haunt it still? Mother shivered; the nights
were cold up in the mountains, though it was such a hot summer. She
opened the door of the children's room and peeped in. To tell the truth,
she felt a little creepy, and longed for human companionship. There were
her darlings, sleeping soundly; but as she entered the room Trudel
turned round and flung herself on the other side of the bed, saying: "Go
away, go away, do not come near me!"

"Whom do you mean, darling?" said mother anxiously.

Then Trudel groaned and spoke again in her sleep. She uttered the
following deep and mystic words: "Gustel, bring in the shark, please;
mother can't eat the thimble."

Now, wasn't that a funny thing for a little girl to say in her sleep.
Mother was so amused that she wrote the words down on the spot, so as
not to forget them, and she troubled her head no more with thoughts of
the wild huntsman; indeed the spectres of the night vanished as they
always do vanish at a joke!

Some days passed, before the children visited the oak-tree again. When
they did so, they found that an enormous branch had been broken off, and
lay across the green pathway.

"O dear me," said Lottchen, "our _poor_ little man. I hope it hasn't
hurt him!"

"It must have happened on that windy night," said Trudel.

"It was my own fault, it was entirely my own fault," said a queer littl