Our family liked to tell of all sorts of waggeries to which I was enticed by these otherwise grave and solitary men.  Let one of these pranks suffice for all.  A crockery-fair had just been held, from which not only our kitchen had been supplied for a while with articles for a long time to come, but a great deal of small gear of the same ware had been purchased as playthings for us children.  One fine afternoon, when every thing was quiet in the house, I whiled away the time with my pots and dishes in the frame, and, finding that nothing more was to be got out of them, hurled one of them into the street.  The Von Ochsensteins, who saw me so delighted at the fine smash it made, that I clapped my hands for joy, cried out, “Another.”  I was not long in flinging out a pot; and, as they made no end to their calls for more, by degrees the whole collection, platters, pipkins, mugs and all, were dashed upon the pavement.  My neighbors continued to express their approbation, and I was highly delighted to give them pleasure.  But my stock was exhausted; and still they shouted, “More.”  I ran, therefore, straight to the kitchen, and brought the earthenware, which produced a still livelier spectacle in breaking; and thus I kept running backwards and forwards, fetching one plate after another, as I could reach it from where they stood in rows on the shelf.  But, as that did not satisfy my audience, I devoted all the ware that I could drag out to similar destruction.  It was not till afterwards that any one appeared to hinder and forbid.  The mischief was done; and, in place of so much broken crockery, there was at least a ludicrous story, in which the roguish authors took special delight to the end of their days.

My father’s mother, for it was her house in which we dwelt, lived in a large back-room directly on the ground-floor; and we were accustomed to carry on our sports even up to her chair, and, when she was ill, up to her bedside.  I remember her, as it were, a spirit,—­a handsome, thin woman, always neatly dressed in white.  Mild, gentle, and kind, she has ever remained in my memory.

The street in which our house was situated passed by the name of the Stag-Ditch; but, as neither stags nor ditches were to be seen, we wished to have the term explained.  They told us that our house stood on a spot that was once outside the city, and that, where the street now was, there had formerly been a ditch, in which a number of stags were kept.  These stags were preserved and fed here because the senate, every year, according to an ancient custom, feasted publicly on a stag, which was therefore always at hand in the ditch for such a festival, in case princes or knights interfered with the city’s right of chase outside, or the walls were encompassed or besieged by an enemy.  This pleased us much, and we wished that such a lair for tame animals could have been seen in our times.