Mäzli | Page 8

to come from a wish to get rid of all the things you don't like to wear yourself. All your woolen things, which you always say scratch your skin. So you do not mind if other children have them, M?zli?"
"They might like them better than to be cold," was M?zli's opinion.
"Oh, mother, Mrs. Knippel is coming up the road toward our house; I am sure she is coming to see us," said Lippo, who had gone to the window.
"And I have not even taken my things off on account of your disorder here," said the mother a little frightened. "M?zli, go and greet Mrs. Knippel and take her into the front room. Tell her that I have just come from church and that I shall come directly."
M?zli ran joyfully away; the errand seemed to please her. She received the guest with excellent manners and led her into the front room to the sofa, for M?zli knew exactly the way her mother always did. Then she gave her mother's message.
"Very well, very well, And what do you want to do on this beautiful Sunday?" the lady asked,
"Take a walk," M?zli answered rapidly. "Are they still locked up?" she then casually asked.
"Who? Who? Whom do you mean?" and the lady looked somewhat disapprovingly at the little girl.
"Edwin and Eugen," M?zli answered fearlessly.
"I should like to know where you get such ideas," the lady said with growing irritation. "I should like to know why the boys should be locked up."
"Because they are so mean to Loneli all the time," M?zli declared.
The mother entered now. To her friendly greeting she only received a very cold reply.
"I only wonder, Mrs. Rector," the guest began immediately in an irritated manner, "what meanness that little poison-toad of a Loneli has spread and invented about my boys. But I wonder still more that some people should believe such things."
Mrs. Maxa was very much astonished that her visitor should have already heard what had taken place the night before, as she knew that her sons would not speak of it of their own free will.
"As long as you know about it already, I shall tell you what happened," she said. "You have apparently been misinformed. It had nothing to do whatever with a meanness on Loneli's part. M?zli, please join the other children and stay there till I come," the mother interrupted herself, turning to the little girl, whose eyes had been expectantly glued on the visitor's face in the hope of hearing if the two boys were still locked up.
M?zli walked away slowly, still hoping that she would hear the news before she reached the door. But M?zli was doomed to be disappointed, as no word was spoken. Then Mrs. Maxa related the incident of the evening before as it occurred.
"That is nothing at all," said the district attorney's wife in answer. "Those are only childish jokes. All children hold out their feet sometimes to trip each other. Such things should not be reckoned as faults big enough to scold children for."
"I do not agree with you," said Mrs. Maxa. "Such kinds of jokes are very much akin to roughness, and from small cruelties larger ones soon result. Loneli has really suffered harm from this action, and I think that joking ceases under such circumstances."
"As I said, it is not worth the trouble of losing so many words about. I feel decidedly that too much fuss is made about the grandmother and the child. Apollonie does not seem to get it out of her head that her name was Castle-Apollonie and she carries her head so high that the child will soon learn it from her. But I have come to talk with you about something much more important."
The visitor now gave her listener some information that seemed to be far from pleasing to Mrs. Maxa, because the face of the latter became more and more worried all the time. Mrs. Knippel and her husband had come to the conclusion that the time had come when their sons should be sent to the neighboring town in order to enter the lowest classes of the high school. The Rector's teaching had been sufficient till now, but they felt that the boys had outgrown him and belonged to a more advanced school. So they had decided to find a good boarding place for the three boys together, as Bruno would naturally join them in order that they could remain together. Since the three would, in later years, have great authority in the little community, it would be splendid if they were educated alike and could agree thoroughly in everything. "My husband means to go to town in the near future and look for a suitable house where they can board," the speaker concluded. "I am sure that you will be