CHAPTER I

In the Parsonage of Upper Wood

The sun was shining so brightly through the foremost windows of the old schoolhouse in Upper Wood, that the children of the first and second classes appeared as if covered with gold.  They looked at one another, all with beaming faces, partly because the sun made them appear so, and partly for joy; for when the sunshine came through the last window, then the moment approached that the closing word would be spoken, and the children could rush out into the evening sunshine.  The teacher was still busy with the illuminated heads of the second class, and indeed with some zeal, for several sentences had still to be completed, before the school could be closed.  The teacher was standing before a boy who looked well-fed and quite comfortable, and who was looking up into the teacher’s face with eyes as round as two little balls.

“Well, Ritz, hurry, you surely must have thought of something by now.  Now then!  What can be made useful in a household?  Do not forget to mention the three indispensable qualities of the object.”

Ritz, the youngest son of the minister, was usually busy thinking of that which had just happened to him.  So just now it had come to his mind, how this very morning Auntie had arrived.  She was an older sister of his mother and had no home of her own; but made a home with her relatives.  She was a frequent visitor at the parsonage for months at a time and would help the mother in governing the household.  Ritz remembered especially, that Auntie was particularly inclined to have the children go to bed in good time—­and they had to go—­and he also remembered that they could not get the extra ten minutes from Mother, for Auntie was always against begging Mother.  In fact, Auntie talked so much about going to bed, that Ritz felt the feared command of retiring during the whole day.  So his thoughts were occupied with these experiences, and he said after some thinking:  “One can make use of an aunt in a household.  She must—­she must—­she must—­”

“Well, what must she?  That will be something different from a quality,” the teacher interrupted the laborious speech of the boy.

“She must not always be reminding that it is time to go to bed,” it now came out.

“Ritz,” the teacher said now in a severe tone, “is the school the place to joke?”

But Ritz looked at the teacher with such unmistakable fright and astonishment, that the latter saw that it was an honest opinion which Ritz had made use of in his sentence.  He therefore changed his mind and said more gently:  “Your sentence is unfitting and incorrect, for your three qualities are not there.  Do you understand that, Ritz?  You will have to make three sentences at home, all alike; but do not forget the different qualities.  Have you understood me?”

“Yes, teacher,” answered Ritz in deepest dejection, for he already saw himself sitting alone in the evening thinking and thinking and gnawing on his slate pencil, while Sally and Edi could pursue their merry entertainments.