All night we had not found anything to eat, and when we arrived at a wood near morning, we decided to stay, for we could see we were coming into a settlement, and the German farmers rise early in harvest-time.  So, hungry, muddy, wet, and tired, we lay down in the wood, and spent a long, uncomfortable day!

My watch stopped that day, and never went again.  Edwards’s watch was a better one, and although it stopped when it got wet, it went again as soon as it had dried out.

That day we had not a mouthful of anything.  But we comforted ourselves with the thought that in this settled country there would be cows, and unless these farmers sat up all night watching them, we promised ourselves a treat the next night.

At nightfall we stole out and began again to get over the distance that separated us from freedom.  The country was drier and more settled, but the cows, we saw, were all in farmyards, and we were afraid to risk going near them.  About midnight we almost stumbled over a herd of them, and one fine old whiteface arose at our request and let us milk her.  Ted stood at her head, and spoke kind words to her and rubbed her nose, while I filled our tin again and again.  She was a Holstein, I think, though we could not see if she was black or red—­it was so dark, we could only see the white markings.  We were sorry to leave her.  She was another of the bright spots in my memory of Germany.

We crossed a railroad, a double-tracked one with rock ballast, which my map showed to be a line which runs to Bremen, and a little later we came to the Weser.  This river brought up pleasant recollections of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who drowned the rats in the Weser by the magic of his pipe.  But there was no romance in it as we came upon it in a gray and misty dawn.  It was only another barrier to our freedom.

There were bunches of willows on the water’s edge, and some fine beeches, whose leaves were slightly tinged with yellow, farther back.  We selected a close bunch of willows for our hiding-place, and after spending a short time looking for a boat, we gave up the quest, and took cover.

We were feeling well, and were in a cheerful mood,—­no doubt the result of our pleasant meeting with the Holstein,—­and when we saw some straw in a field not far from the willows, we went over and got two armfuls of it, and made beds for ourselves.  Fresh, clean straw, when dry, makes a good bed, and no Ostermoor mattress was ever more comfortable.  We burrowed into it like moles, and although it rained we had a good day.

Waking up in the afternoon, we decided on a general clean-up, and, dipping water from the Weser in a rusty tin pail without a handle, we washed our faces, cleaned our teeth, shaved, and combed our hair.