nz didn't remind me, so we neither of
us got it. That's the way Anna makes us remember."

"Never you mind, honey, here's apples for love," replied the colored woman,
holding up two rosy beauties.

The children looked at one another and shook their heads.

"Thank you," said Emilie, "but we can't. Papa said the last time you gave
them to us that if we ate your apples without paying for them we mustn't
come to visit you any more."

"Now think o' that!" exclaimed the apple woman when the children had gone
on. She was much touched and pleased to know that Franz and Emilie would
rather come and sit and talk to her and listen to her stories than to eat
her apples.

She was right; they were nice children; but they had their naughty times,
and good old Anna was often greatly troubled by them. She felt her
responsibility of the whole family very deeply, and tried to talk no more
German. These children must grow up to be good Americans, and she must not
hold them back. It was very hard for the poor woman to remember always to
speak English, and funny broken English it was; so that little Peter,
hearing it all the time, had a baby talk of his own that was very comical
and different from other children. He talked about the "luckle horse" he
played with, and the "boomps" he got when he fell down, and he was very
brave and serious, as became a fat baby boy who had to take care of himself
a great deal.

Anna was so busy cooking and mending for a family of five she was very glad
of the hours when Mr. Wenzel worked at home at his desk and baby Peter
could stay in the same room with him and play with his toys.

Mr. Wenzel was a kind father and longed as far as possible to fill the
place of mother also to his children, who loved him dearly. To little Peter
he was all-powerful. A kiss from papa soothed the hardest "boomp" that his
many tumbles gave him; but even Peter realized that when papa was at his
desk he was very busy indeed, and though any of the children might sit in
the room with him, they must not speak unless it was absolutely necessary.

Emilie was now eight years old, and she might have helped her father and
Anna more than she did; but she never thought of this. She loved to read,
especially fairy stories, and she often curled up on the sofa in her
father's room and read while Peter either played about the room with his
toys, or went to papa's desk and stood with his round eyes fixed on Mr.
Wenzel's face until the busy