not show themselves again during these
holidays.

One of Lottchen's favourite walks was the echo walk, but she usually
came home quite hoarse after having been this way. The path wound below
the fairy heath on the incline of the hill; further down still were the
fir-woods through which the light shone.

"Angel-pet!" "Cherry-ripe!" "Cheeky fellow!" "You're another!" So Lotty
shouted the whole time, and the echoes came back so surprisingly
distinct that Lotty was sure it must be really the fairies answering
her. When you turned the corner of the hill, the echoes ceased. It was
too queer.

The next day Trudel distinguished herself again. Two great cart-loads of
swedes arrived that were to be stored up as fodder for the cattle in the
winter. Now the joy was to throw these through a hole in the wall into
the cellar. Hermann stood in the cart and Trudel threw the swedes to him
as the bricklayers throw the bricks to one another. Fritz and Lottchen
helped too; they had to take their turn and be very quick, as the hole
was small. Hour after hour this went on, till the children were as black
as chimney sweeps, and yet Trudel's energy did not fail. At last the
carts were empty, and only then did the little workers leave off, dead
tired.

Hermann could make curious heads out of the swedes, with eyes and nose
and mouth. If you put an old candle-end inside, they looked ghastly,
like some Chinese god. Lotty declared that they rolled about in the yard
at night and grinned at her, and that she did not like "heads without
people."

"But they _are_ so funny, Lottchen," said mother, and then she laughed
at them and was not frightened any more.

In the fields grew nice little buttony mushrooms. No one knew better
than the Herr Baron where they were to be found and how to prepare them.
Apparently he had lived on mushrooms in the wilds of South America. He
was very kind in helping the children to fill their baskets to take home
with them; for, alas, even the pleasantest of holidays must come to an
end; and there was only one day left. He discovered a treasure in the
field, a little mother-of-pearl knife, very old and rusty, and presented
it to Trudel. He told her to soak it in petroleum to clean it. That
knife was more trouble than all the rest of the luggage on the way
back, for Trudel made such a fuss about it, and dissolved in tears
several times when she thought that she had lost it.

To leave the beautiful cool woods, the fairi