arrier! Tkeh-heh-heh!"

But whatever my father said to me, and as much as the teacher beat me,
it was all rubbish to me when I came home, and had the pleasure of
seeing my one and only dear friend--my little knife. The pleasure was,
alas! mixed with pain, and embittered by fear--by great fear.

* * *

It is the summer time. The sun is setting. The air grows somewhat
cooler. The grass emits a sweet odour. The frogs croak, and the thick
clouds fly by, without rain, across the moon. They wish to swallow her
up. The silvery white moon hides herself every minute, and shows herself
again. It seemed to me that she was flying and flying, but was still on
the same spot. My father sat down on the grass, in a long mantle. He had
one hand in the bosom of his coat, and with the other he smoothed down
the grass. He looked up at the star-spangled sky, and coughed and
coughed. His face was like death, silvery white. He was sitting on the
exact spot where the little knife was hidden. He knew nothing of what
was in the earth under him. Ah, if he only knew! What, for instance,
would he say, and what would happen to me?

"Aha!" thought I within myself, "you threw away my knife with the curved
blade, and now I have a nicer and a better one. You are sitting on it,
and you know nothing. Oh, father, father!"

"Why do you stare at me like a tom-cat?" asked my father. "Why do you
sit with folded arms like a self-satisfied old man? Can you not find
something to do? Have you said the night prayer? May the devil not take
you, scamp! May an evil end not come upon you! Tkeh-heh-heh!"

When he says may the devil _not_ take you, and may an evil end _not_
come upon you, then he is not angry. On the contrary, it is a sign that
he is in a good humour. And, surely, how could one help being in a good
humour on such a wonderfully beautiful night, when every one is drawn
out of doors into the street, under the soft, fresh, brilliant sky?
Every one is now out of doors--my father, my mother, and the younger
children who are looking for little stones and playing in the sand. Herr
Hertz Hertzenhertz was going about in the yard, without a hat, smoking a
cigar, and singing a German song. He looked at me, and laughed. Probably
he was laughing because my father was driving me away. But I laughed at
them all. Soon they would be going to bed, and I would go out into the
yard (I slept in the open, before the door, because of the great heat),
and I would rejoice in