Then the three in perfect harmony entered the schoolhouse.  But no strange face was to be seen in the whole schoolroom; everything went on in the usual way to the end of the morning.  Then everyone hurried away in different directions.  Sally was standing there, somewhat undecided; she would like to have heard something new of the strange boy and his mother, for she loved to hear news, and now not even Kaetheli, with whom she talked things over, had been in school.  But now she saw Edi soaring along like an arrow into the midst of a crowd of boys, and they all acted so strangely and they shouted so strangely that Sally thought that something particular must be in preparation there, and no doubt concerned the new-comers.  Then she could hear something from Edi.  She went slowly on and kept on turning round, but Edi did not come, and only after Sally had long since greeted the mother and was about to call her father out of his study for dinner, did the two brothers come running along, their faces red as fire, and breathless, for they had lingered to the last moment.  The father was just leaving his study when both rushed toward him and now it began:  “We have—­the Middle Lotters—­with the Lower Wooders—­”

“Hush, hush,” said the father.  “First get your breath, then relate, one after the other; but before anything, first the soup.”  With these words the father took Ritz’s hand, and Sally and Edi followed them into the dining-room.  Sally pulled Edi a little back and whispered: 

“Tell me quickly, what did they tell about the strange boy?”

“About him?” returned Edi in a somewhat scornful tone.  “I had forgotten all about him!  We have something else to do than to talk about a strange boy, of whom one does not even know whether he will come to Upper Wood to school.”

This answer was somewhat unexpected to Sally and had a saddening effect; but she always could find a way out of an unpleasant situation.  So she sat as still as a mouse during the whole time the soup was eaten, and her thoughts were hard at work.

Now the father turned to Edi and said:  “Now you can relate your adventure, while Ritz remains quiet, and afterwards his turn will come.”  Ritz looked quite obedient for he had two large noodles on his plate to work with.

But Edi, in a moment, put down knife and fork and quickly began:  “Just think, Papa, we have made three songs, one for each parish.  First, the Lower Wooders began.  The sixth class were angry because we laughed at them, that they only now have to make sentences, and we in the fourth class have begun to write them already.  They made a song about us which runs: 

    “’Of Upper Wood the boys
     They in their minds rejoice
     Because they think that they the cleverest are,
     But if ever they must fight
     They are in sorry plight
     And they turn round and run for ever so far.’

“How do you like that song, Papa?”