“I like the yellow hair best,” said Bertha.  “But it isn’t real, is it, papa?”

“I suppose you mean to ask, ‘Did it ever grow on people’s heads?’ my dear.  No.  It is the wool of a kind of goat.  But the black hair is real hair.  Most dolls, however, wear light wigs.  People usually prefer them.”

“Do little girls in Sonneberg help make the dolls, just as Bertha and I help you on the Santa Claus images?” asked Gretchen.

“Certainly.  They fill the bodies with sawdust, and do other easy things.  But they go to school, too, just as you and Bertha do.  Lessons must not be slighted.”

“If I had to help make dolls, just as I do these images,” said Gretchen to her sister as their father went out and left the children together, “I don’t believe I’d care for the handsomest one in the whole toy fair.  I’d be sick of the very sight of them.”

“Look at the time, Bertha.  See, we must stop our work and start for school,” exclaimed Gretchen.

It was only seven o’clock in the morning, but school would begin in half an hour.  These little German girls had to study longer and harder than their American cousins.  They spent at least an hour a day more in their schoolrooms.

As they trudged along the road, they passed a little stream which came trickling down the hillside.

“I wonder if there is any story about that brook,” said Bertha.  “There’s a story about almost everything in our dear old country, I’m sure.”

“You have heard father tell about the stream flowing down the side of the Kandel, haven’t you?” asked Gretchen.

“Yes, I think so.  But I don’t remember it very well.  What is the story, Gretchen?”

“You know the Kandel is one of the highest peaks in the Black Forest.  You’ve seen it, Bertha.”

“Yes, of course, but tell the story, Gretchen.”

“Well, then, once upon a time there was a poor little boy who had no father or mother.  He had to tend cattle on the side of the Kandel.  At that time there was a deep lake at the summit of the mountain.  But the lake had no outlet.

“The people who lived in the valley below often said, ’Dear me! how glad we should be if we could only have plenty of fresh water.  But no stream flows near us.  If we could only bring some of the water down from the lake!’

“They were afraid, however, to make a channel out of the lake.  The water might rush down with such force as to destroy their village.  They feared to disturb it.

“Now, it came to pass that the Evil One had it in his heart to destroy these people.  He thought he could do it very easily if the rocky wall on the side of the lake could be broken down.  There was only one way in which this could be done.  An innocent boy must be found and got to do it.

“It was a long time before such an one could be found.  But at last the Evil One came across an orphan boy who tended cattle on the mountainside.  The poor little fellow was on his way home.  He was feeling very sad, for he was thinking of his ragged clothes and his scant food.