He carved some letters upon it; cutting away the bark of the beech and leaving the letters white.  Some he cut deep into the wood in sharp furrows like the letters on a seal.  Then he tried cutting away the bark and leaving the letters stand out in relief as it is called, from the tree, like the letters on the impression of a seal.  This was the prettiest way of all, and he began to carve the letters of his own name.  The word Hans he could manage very well, for he knew well the letters which formed it, and he got on very well with the rest of his other name as far as Gens,—­but here, alas! he was stopped, for he did not know how to make an F. He had learned how his name was spelt, but it had never occurred to him before to write it; but it did not matter—­he was going the very next day to the convent, and he would learn how an F was made, and then too he could also make himself sure of the C, which he had always a difficulty in distinguishing from G, as he had never learnt the alphabet in proper order.  The next day accordingly, on visiting the convent, after delivering his flask of ink, he asked his uncle to show him once more the different letters which he did not yet know perfectly; and his uncle not only did this, but on a strip of old parchment he kindly wrote down all the letters from A to Z, so that at any time Hans could use it as a copy when he wanted to put letters together so as to make words.

Hans was greatly delighted.  It seemed to him now as if he had got possession of a key which locked up a great deal of valuable knowledge, for his alphabet would not only help him to write but to read also.  He could not rest that evening, even before he had taken the bowl of milk and piece of black bread that his mother had left for his supper, till he had climbed the hill to the great beech tree, and carved upon it the other letters of his name.  When finished, his name reached half round the tree, and each letter was nicely formed and neatly cut.  All the lines were straight, and the little points were all sharp and clear.  Written in those (to us) old-fashioned letters it looked perhaps something like this:—­

[Illustration:  hans gensfleisch]

Hans wished his mother could but see it!

“Do mother, I pray thee, come up the hill as far as the great beech tree,” said he one evening as he thought of his nice piece of writing; “I want to show thee how strangely the elves have marked the bark.”  This he said in jest, hoping to entice his mother to see the wonder.

“Nay, child,” said she, “my old bones are too stiff for climbing now-a-days, and nought that the elves can do can make me wonder, seeing, as I do, all the strange new things that are coming every day into the world.”  And it was In vain that Hans tried to persuade her.

Some days after this, however, Hans on paying a visit to the tree and finding that the white wood of the beech, from which he had peeled away the bark, was becoming brown, so that the letters no longer looked out plain and distinct, the thought came into his head of cutting each of these raised letters away from the tree and taking them home.  He did so—­slicing them carefully off, so that they were not split or broken, and he was thus able to carry home to his mother, as she would not come to see them, this first specimen of his own writing.