s cooing over the lonely girl's head. It had fluttered
down from the high pine treetop and was now sitting on one of the thick
bottom branches watching her. It cooed and cooed. Then Rosa at last
felt certain that the bird wanted to warn her. It was a messenger from
the Holy Virgin; these mushrooms were all poisonous. And the girl
lifted up her dress, so that not even the hem of it should touch them,
and stepped over them with anxious haste.

So Rosa came home the first time without any mushrooms. "Mother, I
didn't know which were poisonous and which were not. I was afraid, so I
left them all." Then Mrs. Tiralla had been more angry with her daughter
than she had ever been before, and had pulled her plaits and called her
a stupid goose. All the mushrooms growing in the Przykop were fit to
eat; there was not a single poisonous one among them.

"But Mr. Boehnke says, and Marianna says--oh, mammie, I'm so afraid of
poisonous mushrooms. How awful it would be if anybody ate one."

"You're very stupid," said her mother, but in a gentler tone. "Next
time I'll go with you and show you those you are to gather. Don't cry."
And she stroked the hair which she had pulled a short time before.

[Pg 143]

Then Rosa felt pleased that her mother was no longer angry with her,
and would teach her to find the right mushrooms.

The golden sun was smiling down on the moss, and everything was bright
and cheerful even in the Przykop when Mrs. Tiralla went with Rosa to
gather mushrooms.

"Look here, Roeschen, this one. And here, this one." She pointed to
different places in the moss with her foot and told the child to
gather.

"But aren't those poisonous, mammie? Marianna says----"

"Fiddle-de-dee. What does Marianna know about it? She's more stupid
than I took her to be; she a country girl and doesn't even know
mushrooms? Pick them, pick them. They're good. They're your father's
favourite dish when they're fried in butter and then stewed in cream."

So Rosa knelt down quickly and was soon busy gathering the red
mushrooms that had an orange tinge and little white knobs on their caps
as though they had been embroidered; such bright looking mushrooms they
were, the prettiest of them all. And then she gathered some of the
brown ones as well, which she had avoided so carefully the first time,
and her basket was soon full.

"Now we've got enough," said Mrs. Tiralla. "Now you can't make a
mistake, and you'll know where to find them. Next ti