FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
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 LITTLE PEOPLE 
 EVERYWHERE 
 
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The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014518843 
 
GERMAN SCHOOLBOYS 
 
Little People Everywhere 
 
 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 A GEOGRAPHICAL READER 
 
 BY ETTA BLAISDELL McDONALD 
 
 Joint author of " Boy Blue and His Friends," 
 " The Child Life Readers," etc. 
 
 AND JULIA DALRYMPLE 
 
 Author of " Little Me Too," " The Make-Believe Boys," etc. 
 
 School Edition 
 
 IV \ .- .-: 
 \ v ' 
 
 BOSTON • H/U)^' 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 1911 
 
 r , 
 r 
 
•pz.7 
 
 Copyright, igio 
 
 By Little, Brown, and Company 
 
 /4// r^g-to reserved 
 
 
 '''iiuui^-': 
 
 3ptfntet8 
 . J. Parehill & Co., Boston, U. S. A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 If we could travel to all the corners of the earth, 
 and visit all the countries and the peoples, learn to 
 know their home life, their customs, their indus- 
 tries and history, then indeed we should have a 
 knowledge of the world in which we live. As this 
 is impossible we are obliged to turn to the pages 
 of our books for such a view of life. 
 
 Thus it is with a child. He, too, must gain this 
 knowledge of the world from books; but he finds little 
 to hold his attention in the bare facts set down 
 in his geography about foreign lands, while he 
 reads with interest a story which reveals the life 
 of the children in these lands, — the way they work 
 and play, the sights they see, the cities they visit, 
 the holidays they celebrate. 
 
 So, through this story of Fritz in Germany, the 
 children will gain a broader, deeper knowledge of 
 the Fatherland. As they go out into the streets 
 of Berlin with Fritz to buy Christmas gifts; as they 
 watch the emperor review the most perfectly drilled 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 troops in the world; see the Crown Prince fly over 
 Potsdam in an airship; tramp, singing, through the 
 forest paths, and sail up the Rhine past ruined 
 castles and storied towers, they will learn to know 
 and understand German life from the German 
 standpoint. They will see for themselves why 
 Germany is a great commercial country, why it 
 has so large an army, why its forests are so fine, 
 what crops it raises, what are its chief industries and 
 exports; and they will see, too, the studious boys 
 and industrious girls, the birthday celebrations, 
 the Christmas and Easter festivities, — all the 
 simple pleasures that make up the daily life of a 
 happy family in the German Fatherland. 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 FAGS 
 
 I. 
 
 The Welcome-bouquet .... i 
 
 II. 
 
 Hans Receives a Medal . 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 III. 
 
 The Gift of Talents . 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 IV. 
 
 Hamburg Ho! 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 V. 
 
 Frieda's Busy Morning 
 
 
 
 32 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Circle-sisters 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Under the Lindens " 
 
 
 
 4 6 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Emperor's Review 
 
 
 
 57 
 
 IX. 
 
 A Trip to Toyland 
 
 
 
 62 
 
 X. 
 
 Christmas Trees . 
 
 
 
 7i 
 
 XI. 
 
 A Night of Surprises 
 
 
 
 76 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Flight of an Airship 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Easter Eggs .... 
 
 
 
 87 
 
 XIV. 
 
 An Old, Old Letter . 
 
 
 
 93 
 
 XV. 
 
 In the Green Forest . 
 
 
 97 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " The Watch on the Rhine " 
 
 
 106 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Fritz Receives a Medal . 
 
 
 
 "3 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Page 
 
 German Schoolboys . . . Frontispiece in Color 
 
 "Their Mountain-home in Bavaria" .... 9 
 
 Hamburg : The Promenade around the Alster-Bassin 22 
 
 Feasant Women gathering Seeds from the Onion-tops 39 
 
 The Brandenburg Gate at Berlin .... 47 
 
 Market-day in Nuremberg 67 
 
 The Duck-pond at Schloss Wentzel .... 75 
 
 " The boys sat down to watch some peasants harvest- 
 ing rye" 99 
 
 One of the many Ruined Castles on the Rhine . .109 
 
FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE WELCOME-BOUQUET 
 
 " What are you doing, Fritz ? " called Frieda, as 
 she ran down the castle steps and across the lawn 
 to the rose-garden. " Will Hans give you some 
 roses for your birthday ? " 
 
 " I am making a welcome-bouquet for Aunt 
 Hess, who is coming this very morning from Berlin," 
 replied her brother; " and Hans is cutting the roses 
 for me himself. He says that I may have twelve, 
 one for each year of my life." 
 
 " The liebe Tante! " cried Frieda. " I, too, will 
 make her a welcome-bouquet," and she flew across 
 the garden to beg Hans for some flowers. 
 
 In a moment she danced back again with a new 
 thought. "Oh, Fritz!" she suggested; "perhaps 
 Mother will let us go to the station to meet Aunt 
 Hess. I will go and ask her this minute." 
 
 " You are too late," replied her brother. " I 
 have already asked her, and she said that I might 
 go; but I shall ride my pony beside the coach- 
 horses." 
 
2 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 " Then I will ride in the coach," said Frieda 
 decidedly, and she started on a run to the house 
 to find her mother, but came flying back in a mo- 
 ment for the roses. 
 
 " Thank you, Hans," she said, and dropped a 
 tiny curtsy to the old man as she took the beautiful 
 roses from his hands. 
 
 " Good-bye, birthday boy," she added, with 
 another curtsy to her brother; then, as she ran 
 across the lawn, holding the flowers in both hands, 
 she turned and called back to him, " You will see 
 me in the coach with my welcome-bouquet, if 
 Mother is willing." 
 
 " This is a fine day for your celebration, Hans," 
 Fritz said to the gardener, as he took his own bou- 
 quet of twelve roses, which the old man had se- 
 lected with the greatest care. 
 
 " And a fine day for your birthday," was the 
 answer. " I was but a lad of your own age when I 
 came here from my home among the mountains, 
 fifty years ago, to work for your father's father." 
 
 " Fifty years is a long time, is it not ? " said 
 Fritz thoughtfully; " but now you will have a great 
 celebration, and Father has the silver medal ready 
 for you. It is in a blue velvet box and I saw it, 
 myself, this morning. I, too, would like to have a great 
 celebration and a silver medal; but I do not know 
 how I can ever earn one." 
 
THE WELCOME-BOUQUET 3 
 
 " It is not so difficult," replied the gardener. " I 
 have done nothing but live here and do my work, 
 and now the medal comes to me." 
 
 " It was faithful work, and well done. My father 
 said so last night when he brought home the medal," 
 said Fritz. 
 
 " In fifty years you will do many things to earn a 
 reward," Hans told him; " and the celebration is 
 for you and everyone to enjoy." 
 
 "Oh, but I am glad it is my birthday, too!" 
 cried Fritz. " You should see my gifts up in the 
 castle hall. There is a table full of them." 
 
 The castle in which Fritz von Wentzel was born, 
 and in which he had lived all his twelve years, had been 
 built hundreds of years before by a German baron. 
 It stood on a low hill, surrounded by acres and 
 acres of fields and forests which had belonged to 
 the von Wentzel family for many generations. 
 
 Inside the wall which enclosed the great estate 
 there were beautiful flower gardens and lawns, 
 vegetable gardens, and a strawberry bed of which 
 Hans Wendling was very proud. Outside the wall 
 were broad green fields and dark forests of fir and 
 beech and oak. 
 
 Fritz, the youngest son of the family, played in 
 the gardens, romped on the lawns and rode his pony 
 through the green forest aisles day after day, " as 
 happy as the son of a king," he often said. And 
 
4 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 as for anything which money could buy, — that 
 had been his all his life. 
 
 It would seem that there was nothing left for so 
 fortunate a boy to desire; yet his heart had long 
 been set on seeing a great celebration for one of his 
 father's servants in the huge banquet-hall. 
 
 This hall was on the upper floor of the castle 
 and was used only on very great occasions; but 
 at the time of a celebration a wonderful banquet 
 was spread on the long tables, and all the family 
 with their friends, and all the servants with their 
 friends, were bidden to the feast. 
 
 Now, on the eighteenth of June, at the time of 
 his own birthday, Hans Wendling, the head-gar- 
 dener, was to have a celebration and receive a 
 silver medal; and there was to be a holiday for 
 everyone, with feasting and dancing. 
 
 " Listen now, while I tell you," Hans said, as 
 Fritz turned to go to the castle with his roses; 
 "these forest trees look just as they did when I, 
 myself, was but a lad like you. They look no 
 different for all the years." 
 
 " How can you remember so well? " asked Fritz. 
 
 " It seems to me no more than a day," answered 
 the gardener. " I can never forget how strange 
 this low level country looked to my young eyes after 
 the white-capped mountains of my home-land in 
 the south of Germany." 
 
THE WELCOME-BOUQUET 5 
 
 Then he waved his hand toward the bright flowers 
 in the gardens. " Everything is so well cared for, 
 here in the Fatherland, that nothing ever changes," 
 he said. " Even those flowers might be the very 
 ones that bloomed my first welcome to me." 
 
 " And now they will be a gay welcome for Aunt 
 Hess when she comes from Berlin," said Fritz. 
 Then he pointed a finger toward the distant vege- 
 table gardens and the broad bed of green strawberry 
 leaves. " There is something different," he said. 
 
 The gardener turned and hurried away, saying 
 as he went, " The strawberry bed is of my own 
 making, and lucky we are to have enough ripe 
 berries for the feast to-night." 
 
 Fritz carried his bouquet of roses to the house and 
 then ran down to the stables, whistling as he went. 
 
 Everywhere there was hurry and excitement. 
 In the banquet-hall, men were setting out the long 
 tables and decorating them with ferns and roses. 
 The smooth floor had been waxed and polished 
 until it shone like glass. Tall jars and vases, filled 
 with gorgeous roses and fragrant lilies, were placed 
 in every possible nook and corner. 
 
 Green branches from the forest trees and potted 
 palms from the conservatory almost hid the walls 
 from sight; and here, there, and everywhere among 
 the green branches were tiny German flags with 
 their broad stripes of black, white and red. 
 
6 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 In the kitchen below, the cooks in their white 
 caps and the bakers in their white aprons were 
 tasting and basting and hurrying and scurrying. 
 There were the most delicious odors of roasting 
 meats and baking cakes; and everyone said to 
 everyone else, " Ach, how good will be the feast! " 
 
 The same stir and bustle which filled the castle 
 reached to the barns, the stables and the dairy. 
 
 The peasant women, who worked all day in the 
 fields, had spent their evenings for a week in making 
 ropes and wreaths of evergreen. Now they were 
 hanging them everywhere in the barns and stables, 
 — over the doors and windows, over the stalls, and 
 around the name-plates of the horses, cows and 
 oxen. 
 
 The shepherds had washed the sheep and fas- 
 tened blue rosettes to their white wool: even the 
 pig-pens had been decorated with the green gar- 
 lands. 
 
 Fritz walked through the long stable until he came 
 to the stall where his own pony stood waiting for 
 him. Over the stall was the name-plate with 
 " Zeppelin IV " in gilt letters wreathed around 
 with evergreen and tiny red flowers. 
 
 " Come, Zeppelin! " cried the boy joyously, as he 
 led the pony from the stall, " it is my birthday, 
 and we are going to the station to meet Aunt Hess 
 when the train brings her from Berlin." 
 
THE WELCOME-BOUQUET J 
 
 Then he saddled the pony and cantered down the 
 long driveway to the castle gate. The coach was 
 there before him, and the big brass buttons on 
 the green livery of the coachman and footman 
 shone like gold in the sun. 
 
 It was the livery that had been worn for hundreds 
 of years by the von Wentzel servants, and as Fritz 
 reined in his pony to wait for the opening of the 
 gate, he looked back at the castle towers, and 
 across the broad fields, just as many another von 
 Wentzel lad, in the years gone by, had done before 
 him; for Germany is an old country, and the things 
 that the fathers have done are done over and over 
 again by the children, for generation after genera- 
 tion. 
 
 "Happy birthday!" saluted the. gate-keeper, 
 touching his cap as Fritz rode through the gate. 
 * " Happy holiday! " replied Fritz, with a wave of 
 his hand. 
 
 "Happy holiday!" echoed a merry voice inside 
 the coach; and looking in, Fritz saw his little sister, 
 dressed in a dainty white dress, with blue-ribbon 
 bows on her long yellow braids, sitting stiff and 
 straight in the great coach, her little feet sticking 
 out before her, and the welcome-bouquet of red 
 roses held tightly in her chubby arms. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 HANS RECEIVES A MEDAL 
 
 " So these are your birthday gifts, Fritz," said 
 Frau Hess, putting her hand on the boy's shoulder, 
 as she stopped a moment to look at the presents 
 that were arranged on a table in one corner of the 
 long hall. 
 
 There had been time, after the drive from the 
 station and the greetings of all the family, for Frau 
 Hess to change her travelling-dress for a beautiful 
 ball-gown, and she looked quite like an empress, 
 with diamonds in her hair and atjier throat and 
 Fiieda's welcome-bouquet in her hand. 
 
 " Yes," replied Fritz, touching one and then an- 
 other of the gifts; " are they not lovely? There are 
 so many that I cannot count them. And see all the 
 postcards and letters, too." 
 
 Just then he discovered a little model of an air- 
 ship which his aunt had brought from Berlin for 
 him, and which had been unpacked and placed 
 among his gifts. 
 
 " Oh, an airship! " he cried with delight. " How 
 did you guess that I wanted one so much ? " 
 
 But his aunt would not wait to let him thank her. 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y* 
 
 'Their Mountain-home in Bavaria" 
 Paget) 
 
HANS RECEIVES A MEDAL 9 
 
 " We must hurry," she said, moving toward the 
 broad staircase; " it is almost time for the banquet. 
 See those twb pretty peasant girls. They must 
 have come from the south of Germany." 
 
 The two girls, who were ascending the stairs just 
 before them, wore the white guimpe, the black 
 velvet bodice and the gayly-colored skirt and apron 
 of the Bavarian peasant women, and they were 
 whispering to each other and looking at the strange 
 sights with wondering eyes. 
 
 " Yes," explained Fritz, " they are Hans Wend- 
 ling's nieces, and they have come from their moun- 
 tain-home in Bavaria to bring gifts for their uncle 
 and help celebrate his fiftieth anniversary of service 
 in our family." 
 
 " It must be a wonderful occasion for them," 
 said Frau Hess. " Probably they have never been 
 away from their native village before." 
 
 " But neither have I been away from my native 
 village," said Fritz with a laugh, " and this is a 
 wonderful occasion for me." 
 
 " It is a wonderful occasion for us all," said Frau 
 Hess, as she looked across the crowded floor of the 
 huge banquet-hall, where more than two hundred 
 men and women were finding places at the long 
 tables. 
 
 At the head of the longest table stood Baron von 
 Wentzel, and beside him was Hans Wendling, his 
 
IO FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 broad German face broader still with smiling 
 pride. 
 
 Fritz himself, as sharing the honor because of 
 his twelfth birthday, stood next, with the dear aunt 
 from Berlin beside him. 
 
 Beside Frau Hess stood Frau von Wentzel, who 
 looked so much like her sister that it was hard to 
 tell them apart. 
 
 Farther down the table was Hermann, the student 
 brother from old Heidelberg; Paul, the officer 
 brother from Ehrenbreitstein; and little Frieda, 
 her yellow braids and big blue bows fairly dancing 
 with delight. 
 
 Then there was jolly Uncle Karl, Baron von 
 Wentzel's younger brother, who managed the great 
 beet-sugar farm which yielded them so much money. 
 For Germany, as everybody should know, was the 
 first country to find out that very good sugar can 
 be made from beets, and so manufactures enor- 
 mous quantities of it every year. 
 
 Many of the men and women who worked in 
 the beet-fields, and some of those who worked in 
 the sugar-refinery, had been invited to the festival, 
 and had come dressed in their very best and gayest 
 costumes. 
 
 Mingled with those from outside were the servants 
 of the castle, all wearing their holiday clothes and 
 the family colors of green and gold. 
 
HANS RECEIVES A MEDAL II 
 
 There were also two friends from America who 
 had come with Hermann and Paul, and who were 
 eager to take part in this strange, foreign celebration. 
 
 It was the gayest scene imaginable, and Fritz and 
 Frieda were wild with excitement, calling to each 
 other to look here and there, as they spied first one 
 and then another of their friends among the guests. 
 
 Suddenly the orchestra, which was hidden behind 
 some palms, began playing Germany's inspiring 
 war-song. Paul's great voice rolled out the words 
 of " The Watch on the Rhine," and at once every 
 rafter in the old banquet-hall was echoing to the 
 sound of the hearty German' voices. 
 
 " It is no wonder that Germany is famous for 
 her musicians," said Hermann's American friend, 
 when everyone was seated and the singing had 
 changed to the merry sound of talk and laughter. 
 " I never heard such voices." 
 
 " It is because we sing on all occasions, and be- 
 cause we love our songs," replied Hermann. 
 
 " It is not surprising that the Germans love the 
 Fatherland. How could they help it with that song 
 for inspiration ? " continued the American. 
 
 " You should hear us sing it at the Fort," spoke 
 Paul, who was every inch an officer, and proud of his 
 place in the great German army. 
 
 At all the tables rose the clatter of plates and 
 knives, the clink of glasses, the chatter of merry 
 
12 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 voices and the hearty laughter of the men, as some 
 one stopped eating long enough to make a joke or 
 tell a story. 
 
 When it seemed as if everyone had eaten enough 
 for a whole week of feasts, and while the tables 
 were still piled high with bread and cheese and 
 cakes, and food enough of all kinds to last for 
 another whole week, Baron von Wentzel rose from 
 his seat, and a silence fell upon the company as he 
 turned to speak to Hans Wendling. 
 
 " Here is a man who has given us true and faithful 
 service for fifty long years," he said. Then he 
 opened the box and held up the silver medal for 
 everyone to see. " May his example shine before 
 you as long as this medal lasts," he added, " and 
 so may all good work be rewarded." 
 
 As he finished speaking, a loud cheer rose from 
 every throat, and " Hoch! Hoch! Hoch! Baron von 
 Wentzel and Hans Wendling! " was the cry. 
 
 Then they sang again a glorious old German song, 
 and Fritz was so excited that he beat upon the table 
 with his mug until everyone else began beating on 
 the table, too. 
 
 Somebody, perhaps Uncle Karl, lifted his voice 
 above the din and shouted, " Hoch der kleiner 
 Fritz!" and there followed a wild cheer for the 
 birthday boy. 
 
 Afterwards everyone was quiet while Hans rose 
 
HANS RECEIVES A MEDAL 1 3 
 
 and thanked his master for his many years of kind- 
 ness to him, and for this great celebration in his 
 honor; and when he had been cheered again, there 
 was a call for a speech from little Fritz. 
 
 Poor Fritz had never made a speech in his life, and 
 for a moment he looked at his father as if asking 
 for help; but the Baron shook his head and mo- 
 tioned for the boy to stand up and speak. 
 
 Fritz looked at the crowded room full of happy 
 faces, and then at the gray-haired gardener who 
 held the silver medal in his hand so proudly. 
 
 " It is to thank you for my birthday greeting that 
 I speak, and to tell you how much I, myself, would 
 like to earn a medal for faithful work," he said; 
 and sat down in his chair, while another shout and 
 more beating upon the tables filled the room. 
 
 Then the two birthday cakes were brought in, 
 to be cut and distributed among the guests; but 
 first they were carried around to all the tables to 
 be inspected and admired. A German birthday cake 
 is always a beautiful sight, but these two were most 
 beautiful. They were so large that each one could 
 be cut into a hundred pieces, and they were covered 
 with frosting and decorated with pink, red, violet, 
 and pale green candies. In the center of each 
 a tall candle burned brightly, while the flames of 
 tiny candles, twelve for Fritz and fifty for Hans 
 Wendling, flickered round the edge of the cakes. 
 
14 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 " Don't let the candles burn out," cried one of 
 the peasant women. " It will bring bad luck. 
 Blow them out quickly! " 
 
 So Fritz puffed up his cheeks and blew out the 
 tiny flames, while all the company counted aloud 
 in a great shout for each of his twelve years. 
 
 Then it was Hans's turn, and he blew and puffed 
 until the crowd of laughing faces blurred with the 
 flickering lights before his dizzy sight. 
 
 " The candles have burned so long that the 
 flames are tough!" cried one. 
 
 " Our friend Hans has met his match at last ! " 
 cried another, and there was much joking and good- 
 natured laughter, until all the flames were extin- 
 guished except the " lebens licht " in the centre, 
 which must burn as long as it will for good luck 
 and a long life. 
 
 Then there was more feasting, with cakes and 
 cookies and bowls of luscious red strawberries. 
 
 "Oh, for such an appetite! I admire you!" 
 Fritz heard one of the nieces from Bavaria say to 
 her sister; while the other replied, " You have done 
 well yourself. I shall tell the good mother at home 
 that we both ate as well as any at the feast." 
 
 But there came a time when no one could eat 
 another cake; when the last berry had disappeared 
 and the last mug was emptied. " Now for the 
 dancing! Push back the tables!" shouted Baron 
 
HANS RECEIVES A MEDAL 1 5 
 
 von Wentzel, and he rose from his seat and began 
 shaking hands with first one guest and then an- 
 other, saying to each, " Mahlzeit! Blessed meal- 
 time!" 
 
 " Blessed meal-time ! " was the reply, and all 
 over the room there was immediately a clamor 
 of "Mahlzeit! Blessed meal-time!" and such a 
 shaking of hands that even the little Bavarian girls 
 joined with the others and soon found themselves 
 shaking hands with one of the American students. 
 
 "Mahlzeit!" they said shyly, and bent their 
 knees quickly in a little curtsy which is called a 
 " knixchen." 
 
 "Mahlzeit!" he replied, as he had heard the 
 others saying, and then he added in his very best 
 German, which was not very good, " I am coming to 
 Bavaria some day to see your snow-capped moun- 
 tains and beautiful blue lakes." 
 
 " And I," added Fritz, who had managed to 
 understand what he said. " I want to see the whole of 
 Germany some day." 
 
 " Come and dance! " shouted Uncle Karl, salut- 
 ing Aunt Hess. 
 
 " Come and dance! " echoed all around the room; 
 and just as the orchestra began playing a merry 
 tune, Fritz bowed to Frieda and led the dance 
 around the polished floor of the great hall. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GIFT OF TALENTS 
 
 " Where is the book of Grimm's Fairy Tales? " 
 asked Frieda one morning about a week after the 
 celebration, as she opened the door of the school- 
 room where Fritz was reciting a lesson in history 
 to his tutor. 
 
 Fritz did not stop to look toward the door, where 
 only Frieda's head was to be seen, but answered 
 as a part of his lesson, "If your Majesty desires 
 blood, so take mine; for as long as I can speak, — 
 it is on the playroom table." 
 
 Frieda laughed and ran off to find her. governess, 
 while Fritz, who knew that if his sister wanted 
 the book of Grimm's Tales she was planning some 
 kind of fun, began reciting so rapidly that the tutor 
 had hard work to understand what he said. 
 
 In a little while his work was over for the day 
 and he ran to the playroom. " We are going to 
 have scenes from my favorite stories for Mother's 
 birthday," cried Frieda as her brother opened the 
 door. " We can have Red Riding Hood, and 
 Cinderella, and the Frog Prince, and — " 
 
 " Wait a minute," interrupted Fraulein Riker; 
 
THE GIFT OF TALENTS 1 7 
 
 " take them one at a time and we will plan them as 
 we go." 
 
 " It is hard to choose favorites," sighed Frieda, 
 hugging the book of fairy tales, " when I love them 
 every one. How did Herr Grimm ever think of 
 so many beautiful stories ? " 
 
 " He didn't think of them," replied the governess. 
 " They are all stories which have been told to the 
 children in Germany for hundreds of years; and 
 no one knows who told them first. William Grimm 
 and his brother heard the stories in their childhood, 
 and when they grew to be men they collected them 
 into a book; and now they are read by children all 
 over the world." 
 
 " I'll tell you some of my favorites," volunteered 
 Fritz. " Let's have Red Riding Hood anyway, 
 and I will be the wolf." 
 
 All the afternoon the playroom door was care- 
 fully closed and locked while the two children were 
 busy arranging the stage, hunting up their costumes, 
 hanging the curtains, placing the chairs for their 
 little audience, arranging their program, and getting 
 everything in readiness for the evening's entertain- 
 ment. 
 
 Promptly at seven o'clock the door was opened and 
 the father and mother, Aunt Hess, Uncle Karl and 
 the two brothers with their friends were ushered 
 into the room and seated before the little stage. 
 
1 8 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 In a moment Frieda appeared before the curtains. 
 Making a curtsy to her mother she said, " Liebe 
 Mutter, this is your birthday and your children 
 bring you their gift of talents. Paul has written 
 a poem, Hermann will play for you on the piano, 
 Fritz will play on his violin, and I will show you some 
 pictures from my favorite stories." 
 
 " It is a pleasant custom we have in Germany," 
 Paul explained to his friend, " of giving our parents 
 a gift of our talents. Each of us has some talent, even 
 if it is only a little one, and we do our best with it for 
 a birthday gift." 
 
 Just then the curtains were drawn aside to show 
 little Red Riding Hood standing at her grandmother's 
 bedside, looking anxiously at the night-capped head 
 which was almost covered with a thick, soft puff. 
 
 " What big ears you have, Grandmother," she 
 said timidly. 
 
 " The better to hear you with, my child," came the 
 reply, in a voice which Fritz tried to make very 
 gruff. 
 
 " What big eyes you have, Grandmother," Frieda 
 said, going a little nearer the bed and standing on 
 tip-toe to look closer. 
 
 " The better to see you with, my child," replied 
 the gruff voice from the bed. 
 
 " What big teeth you have, Grandmother," Frieda 
 whispered in a frightened voice. 
 
THE GIFT OF TALENTS 19 
 
 "The better to eat you with," cried the wolf 
 and would have sprung from the bed; but the 
 curtains were quickly drawn and the first picture 
 was over. 
 
 Hermann played one of his mother's favorite 
 selections on the piano while Herr Mark changed 
 the scene behind the curtains, and the next picture 
 showed Cinderella, all in rags and tatters, trying on 
 a dainty slipper while the prince knelt at her feet. 
 
 One scene followed another in quick succession, 
 and each received hearty applause. One showed 
 the king's daughter tossing her golden ball into the 
 air and catching it again, until presently it fell 
 into a little pool of water near which sat a funny 
 old frog. In the next picture the frog had become 
 the handsome prince who married the princess. 
 
 After the last little play was over, and Paul 
 had recited his poem, Frau Hess asked to hear 
 Fritz play on his violin. So, while Fraulein Riker 
 sat at the piano and played his accompaniment, 
 Fritz stood by her side and played one after another 
 of the songs which he knew his mother loved. 
 
 " I made a little song, myself, the other day," he 
 said shyly after a while. " I was down beside the 
 brook watching some fishes, and there was a bird 
 singing, up in a tree. I tried to make my violin 
 tell about the brook and the fishes and the birds." 
 
 " Play it for us," said his father. " Shut your 
 
20 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 eyes, Mother. Shut your eyes, everybody. Now 
 Fritz, we will see your fishes in the water." 
 
 Fritz shut his eyes, too, and tried to think of the 
 warm summer day, and the brook, and the bird, as 
 he played; and although it was a very brief song, 
 even with twice repeating, his mother declared 
 that she could hear the bird sing as plainly as if 
 he were in that very room, and Frau Hess said the 
 brook chattered beautifully over the stones. 
 
 " Fritz should study music in Berlin," she said, 
 turning to his father. " Let him come and live 
 with me this winter and I will see that he has the 
 best masters for the violin, while Herr Mark can 
 see that he forgets not his history and Latin." 
 
 " My Fritz leave me! " cried Frau von Wentzel. 
 " He has never been away from home in his life." 
 
 " It would do him good to go away for a year," 
 declared his father, " and he ought to do well with 
 his violin." 
 
 " You are right," he added, turning to Frau Hess, 
 " Fritz should go to Berlin to study music. He 
 shall go with you in September." 
 
 And so it was decided, and Fritz went to bed 
 the happiest boy in the world; but Frieda cried 
 herself to sleep because she knew how sadly she 
 should miss her " lieber Bruder." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 HAMBURG HO! 
 
 Fritz began his travels from home by taking a 
 little trip to Hamburg with his Aunt Hess. 
 
 " There are many reasons why I should take him 
 with me," she said, when she asked permission for 
 him to go. " I must go myself to meet a friend who 
 is coming from America to travel in Germany, and 
 I should like to have him with me. Besides, it 
 will soon be time for him to go to Berlin, and a 
 trip to Hamburg makes a good beginning." 
 
 " But he is so young," his mother objected. 
 
 His father, however, decided that he might go; 
 and suggested that they should take Herr Mark 
 to look after their tickets and go sight-seeing with 
 them. 
 
 You would have thought that the journey was 
 to take them to the ends of the earth if you could 
 have seen Frau von Wentzel sorrowfully packing 
 her son's garments into his hand-bag; stopping 
 every now and then to tell what a good boy he had 
 been all his life. 
 
 " It will do him good to see the boys and girls 
 of Hamburg," said his aunt, and she went on to 
 
22 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 tell how they would find the city children amusing 
 themselves. " You should see them toward night 
 when they go trooping down to the bathing-houses 
 for a bath," she added. 
 
 The sights they actually did see when they reached 
 the city were so much livelier and busier than any- 
 thing he had ever seen before, that Fritz forgot to look 
 for the processions of children which he had ex- 
 pected to see marching toward the river. 
 
 Hamburg is situated on the Elbe River about 
 ninety miles from its mouth, where it empties into 
 the North Sea. Another river, the Alster, which 
 flows down from the north, has been dammed to 
 form two lakes, around which the finest portion 
 of the city is built. 
 
 It was to a hotel on the inner lake, or Alster- 
 Bassin as it is called, that Frau Hess took her party. 
 Fritz, looking down from his window, saw dozens 
 of little steamers, launches, sail-boats, row-boats 
 and canoes on the water, with here and there a 
 group of stately swans; and he was wild with ex- 
 citement. 
 
 " Come," he begged, " let us go out in one of 
 those boats. Who cares for eating when there is 
 so much to see!" 
 
 After riding across the inner lake, they rode 
 around the outer one, stopping at several landing- 
 places to take on or leave passengers, and Fritz 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 Hamburg: The Promenade around the Alster-Bassin 
 Page 22 
 
HAMBURG HO! 23 
 
 ran from one side of the boat to the other, fearful 
 lest he should lose a single strange sight. 
 
 But when they returned to the inner lake it was 
 almost dark, and he sat quietly beside his aunt, 
 speechless with delight at the sight of the large 
 hotels, magnificent houses, gardens and pavilions, 
 all so brilliantly lighted with myriads of electric 
 lights that it seemed like a scene from wonderland. 
 
 They left the boat at the landing and found seats 
 at a table in the Alster pavilion, where they could 
 listen to the music of an orchestra while they watched 
 the throngs of people who were passing in the street, 
 and Frau Hess smiled at Fritz's pleasure in every- 
 thing he saw. 
 
 " If you don't like the looks of Hamburg by night 
 we will try it by day," she said at last, when she had 
 with difficulty drawn the boy into the hotel for the 
 night. 
 
 Fritz was up early in the morning, however, and 
 when his aunt came down into the dining-room 
 for her rolls and coffee, he was there before her 
 with flowers and some luscious grapes and melons. 
 
 " They came from the market near the town- 
 house," he explained. " I went there with Herr 
 Mark, and it was hard to choose what to bring 
 home to you, there was so much of everything. 
 There were men selling fruit and cheese, and women 
 selling butter and eggs; and such flowers you never 
 
24 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 saw in all your life! And there were maids with big 
 market baskets buying vegetables like those we 
 have in our own gardens at home. 
 
 " Then there were women who wore yokes on 
 their shoulders from which hung two big wooden 
 buckets filled with milk. And many of them wore 
 wooden shoes on their feet, and their clothes were 
 different from those our people at home wear, but 
 the colors were bright and pretty," said the boy, 
 his words tumbling over one another. 
 
 " You must go to the animal market," suggested 
 his aunt. " Perhaps there will be some lions or 
 elephants for sale. Hamburg is the largest market 
 in the world for live animals, and men come here 
 from all the other countries to buy or sell tigers, 
 bears, elephants, monkeys, parrots, — every animal 
 you ever heard of that would do for a circus or a 
 zoo." 
 
 " There is a zoo here," Fritz interrupted. " Herr 
 Mark told me about it this morning, and I should 
 like to see them feed the animals this afternoon, if 
 you please. And then there are beautiful flower 
 gardens, with lilies growing in water, and — " 
 
 " Wait, wait! " cried his aunt, " we can't spend 
 all the morning talking about the sights. Call Herr 
 Mark. We will go and see some of them." 
 
 But just then a familiar voice spoke her name, 
 and she turned to find her friends from New York 
 
HAMBURG HO! 2$ 
 
 standing at her side. There were two of them, a 
 mother and her daughter; and after the greetings 
 and introductions were over, and Mrs. Blake had 
 explained that their steamer had stopped at Cux- 
 haven, at the mouth of the Elbe River, and they 
 had come to Hamburg on the early train, and had 
 already eaten their breakfast, — the plans for sight- 
 seeing were changed to include them. 
 
 " We must see everything there is to see," said 
 the mother merrily. " Nobody knows whether 
 we shall ever manage to get over to Europe again, 
 and we must make the most of this visit." 
 
 So Herr Mark hired a carriage and they rode over 
 the city. As they followed the promenade around 
 the Alster-Bassin Fritz pointed out the sights to 
 Alice, telling her about his boat-ride around the lake, 
 and the lights, and the music, and the crowds of 
 people. 
 
 " I am afraid I can't understand you," she inter- 
 rupted. " I studied German two years at home but 
 we spoke much more slowly." 
 
 " Then I will speak English," replied Fritz, who 
 had been taught both French and English. " It 
 will be good practice for me, if you will help me with 
 some of the words." 
 
 " And I will speak German," proposed Alice, 
 " if you will be very patient and tell me when I 
 am wrong." 
 
26 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 Mrs. Blake laughed. " It will take him all the 
 time to correct your mistakes," she said, " and you 
 will have no time for seeing the sights." 
 
 " I am looking at everything," her daughter re- 
 plied. " Did you ever see such clean streets in your 
 life ? And do look at that peasant woman drawing 
 a cart through the street as if she were a horse! " 
 
 As their carriage rolled along over the broad 
 streets there was some new and interesting sight 
 every moment. They passed beautiful parks and 
 gardens, large churches, fine residences, and streets 
 of shops with crowds of people hurrying to and fro, 
 until at last they came to the bank of the River Elbe, 
 and the driver stopped his horses where they could 
 get a good view of the broad harbor. 
 
 " Hamburg is the fourth largest commercial city in 
 the world," he told them, pointing as he did so at 
 the forest of floating masts and the fluttering foreign 
 flags. 
 
 " What are the other cities? " asked Fritz. 
 
 " New York is one, I know," declared Alice. 
 
 " Yes, and London and Liverpool are the other 
 two," replied Herr Mark. " See, there is a Dutch 
 vessel, and there is one from Italy," he added, point- 
 ing to a dock farther up the river. 
 
 " Vessels come to Hamburg from every corner 
 of the globe," said the driver. " If you should take 
 a ride through the harbor in one of the little steamers 
 
HAMBURG HO! 2J 
 
 you might see ships from Africa, South America, 
 India, China, and many a port you never heard of. 
 
 " There is a British vessel," he added, and pointed 
 to a dock where an enormous crane was being used 
 to unload tons of coal from an English collier. 
 
 " Let's take a steamer ride now," suggested Fritz. 
 " We might see them unloading elephants and lions 
 from the African steamers." 
 
 " How does it happen that Hamburg is such a 
 large commercial city ? " asked Mrs. Blake, after 
 they had bought their tickets and found seats on 
 the deck of a harbor-steamer. 
 
 " The River Elbe is deep enough for the largest 
 vessels," replied Herr Mark; " and it is so broad 
 here at Hamburg that it makes an excellent harbor. 
 The city is also a railroad center; and it is connected 
 with many parts of Germany by means of numerous 
 canals and rivers. The docks here are the finest in 
 the world, and will accommodate four hundred and 
 fifty vessels at one time." 
 
 " Look, Mother! " exclaimed Alice, " there is an 
 American flag. Look quick! On that ship over 
 there!" 
 
 " Why do so many vessels come here ? " asked 
 Fritz. 
 
 "They come with cargoes of coffee, tea, raw cotton 
 for our factories, spices, dyes, and almost everything 
 you can think of," replied Herr Mark, " and they 
 
28 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 take away the products of our fields and factories 
 and mines." 
 
 Among the big ocean steamers they saw many a 
 plain, homely river barge from the inland waters 
 of Germany, and the tutor explained that they had 
 come down the rivers and canals loaded with wood, 
 toys, beet-sugar, or crockery, and would go back 
 again with coffee, coal, cotton, or some other foreign 
 product. 
 
 " Germany has very little seacoast," he added, 
 " but she has nearly nine thousand miles of rivers 
 and canals, besides all her railroads; so there is 
 plenty of opportunity to make her the great com- 
 mercial country our Emperor wishes her to be." 
 
 " Fritz wants to go and see the animal market," 
 suggested Alice, as they left the steamer. 
 
 "But we must have our luncheon!" cried her 
 mother. " We can't go sight-seeing all day long 
 with nothing to eat," and she beckoned to a driver 
 who was waiting near-by with a cab. 
 
 " Tell him to go the longest way round," whis- 
 pered Alice, as Herr Mark directed the man to take 
 them back to their hotel. 
 
 The longest way round led through the " Fleete 
 district " where the streets are narrow canals, and 
 where the poor of the city live in dark houses and 
 damp cellars. 
 
 The driver stopped on a narrow bridge so that 
 
HAMBURG HO! 29 
 
 they might watch some women and children who 
 were walking about on the muddy bed of the empty 
 canal. " The tide is out," he explained, " and 
 they are hunting for articles that may have been 
 dropped overboard from the boats." 
 
 Just then three cannon shots boomed through the 
 air, and the searchers began moving out of the 
 canal. "Mercy!" cried Mrs. Blake. "What is 
 that ? Has war been declared since morning ? " 
 
 " What are the cannon shots for ? " Herr Mark 
 asked the driver. 
 
 " They are to warn the people that the tide has 
 turned and the water will soon come rushing in to 
 fill the canals," he replied. Then, leaving the 
 " Fleete," he hurried his horses along until they came 
 to an enormous statue on the heights above the 
 Elbe. 
 
 " Who is that? " asked Alice. 
 
 " That is a statue of Bismarck," replied Fritz, 
 looking up at the fine strong face. 
 
 " And who was he ? " she asked again. 
 
 "Why, Alice Blake!" exclaimed her mother, 
 "how can you ask such a question? Of course 
 you know who Bismarck was." 
 
 " He helped to bring about the union of the states 
 to form the German Empire," Herr Mark told her, 
 " and his will was so strong that he was called the 
 ' Iron Chancellor.' " Then, while they all looked 
 
30 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 up at the statue, he spoke of Charlemagne, that 
 other great hero whom Germany loves to honor. 
 " The names of both men will be remembered as 
 long as the German nation lasts," he said. 
 
 "Why?" asked Fritz. 
 
 " Because hundreds of years ago Charlemagne 
 made Germany great in size by adding vast terri- 
 tories to his empire," replied the tutor, " and now 
 Bismarck has made it great in strength and power. 
 When Charlemagne was emperor our country 
 extended from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean; 
 but one part was jealous of another, and there was 
 constant warfare between them. Bismarck saw 
 that it was best to have all the parts united and at 
 peace, and he worked hard to bring it about. Ger- 
 many is not so large now as it was in the Middle 
 Ages, but owing to the wisdom and strength of 
 Bismarck it is one of the greatest powers in all the 
 world." 
 
 " That statue is after Roland," the driver told 
 them as he drove on toward their hotel. 
 
 "After Roland?" repeated Fritz. "What does 
 he mean?" 
 
 " He means that it is similar to a very old statue 
 of Roland which stands in Bremen," replied Frau 
 Hess. " Roland was the most famous of the knights 
 of Charlemagne, and he was brave and good, as 
 many a knight in those days was not, so he was 
 
HAMBURG HO! 31 
 
 honored with a statue to his memory. It helps to 
 keep his name alive. Now and then some young 
 German lad may try to be brave and good like him." 
 
 "I should like to go to Bremen and see the 
 statue of Roland if it is as fine as this one," said Alice. 
 
 " It is not so fine," Frau Hess answered; " but it 
 is interesting because it shows the work which was 
 done by the early sculptors." 
 
 "So?" said Fritz; then laughed as he added, 
 " Well, anyway, we could drive through the streets 
 and look for the place where the Town Musicians 
 gave their concert." 
 
 " What musicians do you mean ? " asked Mrs. 
 Blake. 
 
 " I mean the donkey, the dog, the cat, and the 
 cock who went to Bremen to play in the band," 
 replied Fritz. " Do you not remember Herr Grimm's 
 tale?" 
 
 " I remember it well," spoke Alice Blake. " I 
 have read it many times, and I should like to go to 
 Bremen with you." 
 
 But the next day saw Fritz and his aunt riding 
 toward home, while Mrs. Blake and her daughter 
 were left behind in Hamburg to go on with their 
 sight-seeing. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FRIEDA'S BUSY MORNING 
 
 " Hopp ! hopp ! hopp ! 
 Pferdchen lauf Galopp ! " 
 
 Fritz sang, as he clattered down the wide staircase 
 in his riding-boots. 
 
 Frieda, a book in her hand, and a care-worn 
 look on her pretty face, met him in the hall. " I 
 have so many things to do to-day, lieber Fritz," 
 she said coaxingly, " that I wish you would please 
 help me in one of them." 
 
 " Tell them all to me, and if I may choose which 
 one to do, it may be that I will help you," her 
 brother answered with a laugh. 
 
 " My circle-sisters meet here with me this after- 
 noon," she began; but Fritz shook his head at once. 
 
 " Nein, nein! I will not become a circle-sister," 
 he said decidedly. 
 
 " Well, I do not wish you to become one," replied 
 Frieda, " but I must make the chocolate-cream 
 cakes with my own hands if we are to have any to 
 eat with our coffee." 
 
 Again Fritz shook his head. " To make choco- 
 
frieda's busy morning 1^3 
 
 late-cream cakes with my own hands is something 
 I cannot do for you," he declared. 
 
 " That is something I would not ask of you," 
 was Frieda's answer; " but will you not teach my 
 little class in reading for me while I make the cakes ? " 
 
 Although Frieda was only ten years old she could 
 sew and knit, and she was also learning to cook. 
 Besides all this, her mother had insisted that she 
 should make up a class of some of the servants' 
 children, who knew nothing but mischief, and teach 
 them to read. 
 
 " A baron's daughter must begin early to be use- 
 ful," said her mother, when Frieda complained that 
 it would be tiresome to teacb the children to read. 
 
 Fritz laughed aloud when he heard what it was 
 that his sister wished him to do. " Who is in the 
 class ? And what do you teach them ? " he asked. 
 
 " There is Lena Schmidt, the cook's daughter, 
 and two little boys from the gate-keeper's lodge, 
 and then there are Hans Wendling's two grand- 
 children, Max and Maurice," she replied. 
 
 " I know Max and Maurice well," said Fritz. 
 " I could easier make a loaf of cake than teach them 
 to read." 
 
 " It is very simple," Frieda told him, showing him 
 her book; " you have only to teach them the letters 
 and then read them a story." 
 
 Fritz laughed again. " It surely sounds simple," 
 
34 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 he said, " but I am going to ride Zeppelin down to 
 the village. Let the lesson go for to-day. It is not 
 important." 
 
 " Yes, Fritz, it is very important," replied Frieda 
 earnestly. " It is only because I have been regular, 
 and given the lessons every day for a month, that 
 Max and Maurice have at last become interested." 
 
 " I am not interested in Max and Maurice," said 
 Fritz, shaking his head. 
 
 " You are interested in nothing but your pony 
 and your music," his sister replied. Then she pointed 
 to a maid who was carrying an armful of brooms 
 and brushes up the stairs. " Everyone is busy 
 but you," she added. 
 
 Fritz laughed and sang to a saucy tune: — 
 
 " With the windows opened wide, 
 
 And the maids on every side, 
 Sweeping, dusting, polishing the floors ; 
 
 Then 't is good to run away, 
 
 In the fields and woods to play, 
 For the flowers are never working out-of-doors." 
 
 Frieda had to laugh in spite of herself; but she 
 pleaded once more in her pretty German fashion, 
 "Bitte, bitte, lieber Bruder." 
 
 " Very well," he said at last, " I will see what I 
 can do." 
 
 " That is good," exclaimed Frieda, and she gave 
 
FRIEDA S BUSY MORNING 35 
 
 him the little reading-book and hurried away to 
 the kitchen to make her cakes, while Fritz went 
 to find his pupils. 
 
 The kitchen of Schloss Wentzel, like most German 
 kitchens, was a great sunny room, with a clean, 
 painted floor. Over the big windows hung dainty 
 muslin curtains, so fresh and white that never a 
 speck of dust seemed to touch them. 
 
 On one side of the room was a blue and white 
 porcelain stove, and over the stove were rows of 
 shelves on which were arranged all sizes and shapes 
 of copper pans and brass kettles which had been 
 polished until they shone like gold. 
 
 Up and down, on each side of the stove, were 
 bright brass hooks on which were hung big pitchers 
 and little pitchers, bigs mugs and little mugs ; and 
 between two sunny windows was a cupboard, with 
 glass doors and white shelves covered with blue 
 paper, on which were ranged the cooking dishes, — 
 plates, bowls and jars, all spotlessly clean. 
 
 In a distant corner of the room stood a frame like 
 a clothes-horse on which broad sheets of nudel were 
 spread to dry. This nudel is similar to the Italian 
 macaroni; but it is made with eggs and flour and 
 is rolled out in a thin sheet and then cut into tiny 
 pieces, instead of being made in long tubes. 
 
 Anna Schmidt, the cook, in her white apron and 
 cap, with her sleeves rolled up to show her round, 
 
36 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 red arms, was making this nudel for some soup 
 for dinner, and was so busy that Frieda had to make 
 her own cakes for the circle-sisters. 
 
 While she busied herself with her eggs and choco- 
 late, at the low table in front of the window, she heard 
 Fritz calling to Max and Maurice and she laughed 
 softly to herself. Well did she know the trouble 
 he would have in finding those two naughty boys! 
 
 A maid passed through the room with some bed- 
 linen which had just been ironed. She was carry- 
 ing it to the great linen closet of the castle which was 
 filled with pile after pile of just such beautiful white 
 linen, all tied with dainty ribbons and with Frau 
 von Wentzel's initials embroidered on every piece. 
 
 Just as the cake went into the oven a little maid 
 came into the kitchen and bent her knee in a knix- 
 chen, saying rapidly, " My name is Maria Ria. 
 I came this morning and I hope I serve you well." 
 
 Frieda laughed merrily. " You have already 
 told me so four times to-day. Who sent you to 
 find me ? " she asked. 
 
 " The Frau von Wentzel, your mother, asks 
 that when the cakes are made you will go to the 
 sewing-room where she is waiting for you," answered 
 Maria Ria. 
 
 The cook promised to see to the baking of the 
 cakes, and Frieda spent an hour in preparing some 
 sewing for the circle-sisters. They were making 
 
Frieda's busy morning 37 
 
 little garments which would be given to the poor 
 children in the village as Christmas gifts, and had 
 already finished several pieces which were neatly 
 folded and packed away for the winter holiday. 
 
 When little German girls are old enough to sew, 
 a few friends form a circle which meets once a 
 week, first at one house and then another, where they 
 sew for an hour or two, and then have cakes and 
 coffee. They call themselves " kranzchen schwes- 
 tern," circle-sisters, and they never forget these 
 friendships formed in their childhood. 
 
 In Frieda's circle there were three ten-year-old 
 girls who lived in the village, and who were always 
 glad when the day came for them to meet at the castle, 
 for Frau von Wentzel was sure to have some sur- 
 prise planned for them. 
 
 "It is easy to think of something pleasant to do 
 at the Schloss," said Hilda Lenk, whose father was 
 the village pastor, one day when the three little girls 
 were walking home together; " but in our house 
 one can never think any but the same thoughts 
 6ver and over again." 
 
 " That is so," agreed Eva Kesler, the school- 
 master's daughter. " My mother would think the 
 sky was going to fall if I should ask her to make 
 anything but black bread and kringles on Satur- 
 days." 
 
 "I wish we had such great beds of onions and 
 
38 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 cabbages," sighed Ursie Zimmer, who liked sauer- 
 kraut better than anything else. Ursula was always 
 happiest when she was eating, and it was for her 
 sake that Frieda had learned to make chocolate- 
 cream cakes for this afternoon's refreshment. 
 
 " I'd like to have such a flock of ducks," spoke 
 Hilda. " Mother is always wishing for eggs for 
 her cooking." 
 
 " Think of the rose-garden," added Eva, " and 
 the lilies, and all the flower beds. That is what 
 I would choose to have." 
 
 Well did Frieda know what each of her friends 
 liked best; and after the cakes were ready, she put 
 fresh flowers in all the vases and made little bou- 
 quets for her guests, while she planned with her 
 mother the surprise for the afternoon. 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 Peasant Women gathering Seeds from the Onion-tops 
 Page 39 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CIRCLE-SISTERS 
 
 The circle-sisters arrived early in the afternoon, 
 and Frieda met them at the gate and walked with 
 them up the avenue to the castle. 
 
 As they passed the flower-gardens she stopped 
 to show them a late rose; but Ursula's eyes wan- 
 dered off to a field where peasant women, on their 
 knees, were gathering seeds from the onion-tops. 
 
 " Look! " she exclaimed; " that is your brother, 
 down by the onion field, is it not, Frieda? " 
 
 It was indeed Fritz who was walking toward 
 them; but he was no longer the gay, singing Fritz 
 of the morning. His soft riding-hat was gone, 
 his coat was spattered with mud, and his riding- 
 boots were wet through and through. 
 
 "Walking straight up to Frieda he handed her 
 the reading-book, saving as he did so, " I am sorry 
 that it is torn." Then he shook hands politely with 
 each of the circle-sisters. 
 
 "Did you give the reading-lesson?" asked 
 Frieda, looking at the torn and muddy book. 
 
 " Ja," replied Fritz briefly, and turned to go to 
 the house. 
 
40 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 "It is time for our sewing," suggested Frieda, 
 and led the way to the sewing-room where her 
 mother was waiting to set each little girl to work. 
 
 For an hour the needles flew fast and the tongues 
 faster as the four little maids stitched on the coarse 
 garments and chattered about their work and play, 
 their homes, their gardens, their friends, — any- 
 thing and everything that came into their heads. 
 
 " I wonder what Fritz did to my reading-book," 
 Frieda said at last. Just then her brother, dressed 
 in clean, dry clothes, came into the room, laughing 
 at the little maid whom he had met in the hall, and 
 who had stopped him to say, " My name is Maria 
 Ria. I came this morning and I hope I serve you 
 well." 
 
 " Now I will tell you the story of the reading- 
 lesson," he said. " Listen! This morning when I 
 went into the garden I looked for Max and Maurice' 
 because I thought they would be the hardest to 
 find. But they were quite easy to find at first." 
 
 " At first! " repeated Frieda. " How many times 
 did you find them?" 
 
 " Many times," said Fritz grimly, " because, 
 as fast as I left them in the garden-house while I 
 went to look for the other children, they ran away 
 and hid." 
 
 " Where did you find them at first ? " asked 
 Hilda, trying not to laugh. 
 
THE CIRCLE-SISTERS 41 
 
 " In their mother's kitchen," he replied. " She 
 had put them on the tall stove in the corner because 
 they had changed her molasses and vinegar jugs 
 and made her spoil her gingerbread." 
 
 " Ach! " shrieked all the circle-sisters together. 
 
 " I left them all sitting quietly enough in the 
 garden-house while I went to find Lena," continued 
 Fritz; " but when I returned they were nowhere 
 to be seen, and neither was my book with which 
 I was to teach them to read." 
 
 " What did you do then ? " asked Eva Kesler. 
 
 " I put Lena into the comer and went to find 
 them again. That was not so hard, as they had 
 gone to find the gate-keeper's boys and show them 
 the book, and they were all coming arm in arm to 
 meet me, singing at the top of their lungs." 
 
 "Just hear!" exclaimed Frieda. "There never 
 were such funny boys." 
 
 " Soon I had all five of them sitting before me 
 while I pointed out the words," Fritz continued; 
 " but it was easy to see that they had little interest 
 in the shape of the letters. Their eyes were every- 
 where except on the book. Then Lena began to 
 cry because she was thirsty, and when I let her go 
 to get some water she came not back again. It 
 was when I went to look for her that Max and 
 Maurice lost themselves once more." 
 
 The circle-sisters were laughing merrily, and 
 
42 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 Frieda could not help saying mischievously, " It 
 seems that Herr Fritz von Wentzel found it not so 
 easy to play the part of teacher." 
 
 " You will see," replied her brother. " I had 
 three pupils before me when I had found Lena 
 again, so I read them the very shortest story in the 
 book and then sent them off to play while I went 
 to find Max and Maurice." 
 
 " And where did you find them? " asked Ursula 
 Zimmer. " Was it in the onion-bed ? " 
 
 "Where did I not find them?" exclaimed Fritz. 
 " First they were right at my heels with a whistle to 
 raise the hair on my head. Then when I turned 
 to catch them they had slipped into the stable, and 
 led me upstairs and down, from one hiding-place 
 to another. I drove them from the stable to the 
 great hay-barn; and then they led me through the 
 duck-pond, where they tripped me up; but there 
 I caught them both." 
 
 " What did you do then ? " asked Frieda. 
 
 " I thought it was time for them to learn that 
 Fritz von Wentzel meant to teach them to read," 
 replied her brother, " and for one hour did they sit 
 before me in the garden-house and learn the words 
 which I pointed out to them." 
 
 " Will you teach them again to-morrow? " asked 
 Frieda, expecting, of course, that he would refuse. 
 
 " That I will," Fritz answered promptly. " I 
 
THE CIRCLE-SISTERS 43 
 
 will teach them every day until I go to Berlin. They 
 may not learn to read; but they will learn to come 
 when I call them." 
 
 " The Frau von Wentzel desires that you will 
 take your coffee on the terrace," announced the little 
 maid at the door. 
 
 "That is Maria Ria," Frieda told her friends 
 as they followed the maid through the long halls 
 to the terrace. " She came this morning, and 
 she hopes she serves us well," she added with 
 a laugh. And Maria Ria did, indeed, serve the 
 circle-sisters to their cakes and coffee so very well 
 that Frau von Wentzel praised her and sent her 
 away in a great flutter. 
 
 "Mahlzeit!" Frieda said to each of her guests 
 when the cakes were all eaten. " Mahlzeit!" they 
 replied, shaking hands with her. 
 
 " The cakes were delicious," added Ursie Zimmer. 
 
 " I made them myself," said Frieda proudly. 
 
 " There is nothing you cannot do, liebe Frieda," 
 said Hilda Lenk enviously. 
 
 " Mother says I have no time to be idle," Frieda 
 replied earnestly. " When she is not busy with her 
 housekeeping she is teaching me how to do some- 
 thing useful. Come and see my bees," she added. 
 " That is the place to learn to be busy." 
 
 So' they all ran down to see the bee- hives, and then 
 Frieda led the way to the duck-pond. " There is 
 
44 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 an egg for each one of you under those trees," she 
 said, pointing to some low willows that grew at the 
 edge of the water. 
 
 " This is like hunting for Easter eggs," said 
 Eva. " I found six last Easter morning." 
 
 " I have found one now," announced Hilda; 
 " but it is tied with a string." 
 
 " Pull the string," suggested Frieda; and when 
 Hilda pulled, down tumbled a basket from the 
 branches of the tree. 
 
 " Here's mine! " cried Eva Kesler, picking up an 
 egg and pulling down another basket; and then they 
 all three helped Ursula hunt for her egg. 
 
 " They are harvest-baskets," Frieda told them, 
 when all three baskets had been pulled out of the 
 trees. " Mother says we are to fill them." 
 
 So off across the fields tripped the circle-sisters, 
 and Frieda flew from one bed to another, pulling 
 onions, picking peppers and tomatoes, cutting off 
 cucumbers, until the baskets were almost full to 
 the brim. Then over each she spread a trailing 
 spray of hops from the hop-vines. 
 
 "Ach, such a beautiful surprise!" said Ursula, 
 with shining eyes. 
 
 " My basket is so full that I can hardly carry it," 
 said Eva Kesler, tugging it along with both hands. 
 
 " The carriage is waiting," announced Maria 
 Ria, who had come running across the field to 
 
THE CIRCLE-SISTERS 45 
 
 meet them; but just then Frieda caught sight of 
 Lena Schmidt driving a flock of white geese up 
 from the duck-pond, and she sent the little maid to 
 get some eggs for the baskets. 
 
 It seemed as if the children would never get 
 started for home, for when the eggs had found a place 
 between the peppers and tomatoes, Frieda saw Max 
 and Maurice eating some apples, and she sent 
 the two boys off on a run to the orchard to find 
 apples and pears for the harvest-baskets. 
 
 At last, however, the three circle-sisters, with their 
 big bouquets and their overflowing baskets, were 
 snugly tucked away in the carriage; the last good- 
 bye had been said; " Danke schon!" had been 
 repeated over and over again, and the horses were 
 trotting down the long avenue to the great gate. 
 
 " Oh, it was beautiful ! " sighed Eva Kesler. 
 
 " Such onions and such cabbages! " murmured 
 Ursula, hugging her harvest-basket. 
 
 " Frieda shall sit on the sofa in the company- 
 room when we meet at my house next week," said 
 Hilda Lenk, " and no one shall sit beside her." 
 
 Now the sofa in the company-room of a German 
 house is the high seat of honor; and when Frieda 
 was invited to sit on the stiff sofa all alone she said 
 " Danke schon " very politely to her hostess; but 
 she sat, instead, in the little sewing-chair, and 
 sewed as fast as the others. 
 
CHAPTER vn 
 
 " Tante Hess, I am shivering in my shoes," said 
 Fritz on the morning after his arrival in Berlin. 
 
 " I hope you are like Hans in the fairy story who 
 could shiver and shake but had no fear," replied his 
 aunt. " Come now, we will go at once to see if 
 Herr Klingler will take you for a pupil. Then your 
 shivering will be over for the day." 
 
 Fritz tried his violin bow to see if it were in good 
 condition, put his violin carefully into its leather 
 case, and the two left the apartment and went down 
 the stairs to the street. 
 
 The old porter who locked and unlocked the door 
 of the large apartment house touched his cap as 
 they passed, saying, " Guten Tag." 
 
 " It would be a good day if I didn't have to play 
 for Herr Klingler," said Fritz. " Is it too far 
 to walk to his house ? " 
 
 " No," replied his aunt, " we have only to cross 
 this end of the Thiergarten and walk two blocks 
 down Unter den Linden." 
 
 " Unter den Linden " is the name of the finest 
 street in Berlin, the capital city of Germany, and 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, jjI . Y, 
 
 The Brandenburg Gate at Berlin 
 
 Notice the bronze figure of Victory driving four spirited hoises. Page 47 
 
UNDER THE LINDENS 47 
 
 is one of the famous streets of Europe. It takes a 
 straight course for nearly a mile across the city, 
 beginning at the Brandenburg Gate and ending 
 at the statue of Frederick the Great. At one end 
 is the large park called the Thiergarten; at the 
 other is the island in the River Spree where stands 
 the present Emperor's palace. 
 
 It amused Frau Hess to see the interest which 
 Fritz seemed to show in everything they passed. He 
 stopped so often and asked so many questions that 
 at last she laughed outright. 
 
 " You know you do not really care about those 
 things now," she said. " You are only trying to 
 put off the hour with Herr Klingler. But our ap- 
 pointment is for eleven o'clock and we must hurry. 
 It would never do to keep him waiting a moment." 
 
 The music master greeted them briefly. He set 
 the boy to playing at once, and walked up and down 
 the room while Fritz played two short selections 
 which he had been practising for weeks, — ever 
 since it had been decided that he should come to 
 Berlin to study music. 
 
 When he finished, Herr Klingler nodded his head 
 and turned to Frau Hess. " Yes," he said, " he 
 may come on Friday at two o'clock for his first 
 lesson." Then he turned to speak to a young woman 
 who came timidly forward with her violin tucked 
 under her arm. 
 
48 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 " Now you shall do a little sight-seeing as a reward 
 for playing so well," said Frau Hess, and led the way 
 back to the beautiful avenue of the lindens. " This 
 time you may stop as often as you wish, and ask all 
 the questions you can think of," she added; but 
 Fritz walked along very quietly, looking eagerly at 
 the strange sights on the city streets. 
 
 The leaves were already beginning to fall from 
 the linden trees which give the broad avenue its 
 name; but the sun was shining brightly, the house 
 fronts were still gay with the bright blossoms and 
 trailing vines which filled the window-boxes, and 
 the festoons of flowers that hung from tree to tree 
 swayed gently in the breeze. 
 
 What throngs of people there were! What horses, 
 what carriages, what riders, what soldiers in uni- 
 form! It was the most exciting place for a mile that 
 Fritz could imagine. 
 
 " Look," he said at last, as a magnificent carriage 
 drawn by a pair of splendid black horses rolled past 
 them; " was that soldierly-looking man the Kaiser ? " 
 
 " No," replied his aunt, " you would soon know 
 if the Emperor were coming. Besides, I think he 
 is still at his summer home in Potsdam. If he is 
 in Berlin there will be a purple flag flying over his 
 palace at the farther end of this avenue. We 
 will go and see." 
 
 " These other people seem to be going there, too," 
 
49 
 
 said Fritz, as one group after another hurried past 
 them. 
 
 " It is time for the changing of the guard," said 
 his aunt, looking at her watch. " The soldiers march 
 across from the armory to the guard-house a little 
 after noon, and there is military music for an hour. 
 It is one of the attractions of Berlin." 
 
 " In Frieda's lesson-reader," Fritz told his aunt 
 as they hurried along, "there was a story about 
 Emperor William. He said that he had to stand 
 at the window every day to watch the mounting of his 
 guard, because the guide-book said that he might 
 be seen there." 
 
 " That was Emperor William I," replied Frau 
 Hess, " and there is the very window where he 
 stood," she added, pointing to a vine-covered bal- 
 cony overlooking the street. " I have seen him 
 there many times." 
 
 " There comes the guard! " cried Fritz, climbing 
 upon a stone post to get a better view of the soldiers. 
 But in a moment a policeman came up and touched 
 him on the shoulder. " It is forbidden to stand on 
 the posts," he said, and Fritz jumped down quicker 
 than he had climbed up. 
 
 " There is the monument to Frederick the Great," 
 said Frau Hess to hide the boy's confusion, and she 
 pointed to an enormous bronze figure of a man on 
 horseback, mounted on a huge granite block. " It 
 
50 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 has been called the finest bronze monument in the 
 world; but the National Denkmal is also very fine. 
 Come and I will show it to you." 
 
 " And leave this music ? " cried Fritz, who had 
 been watching the crowds and listening eagerly to the 
 military band, and was loath to leave the place. 
 
 Frau Hess waited good-naturedly for the boy to see 
 the whole ceremony of the guard-mount, but she 
 called his attention once more to the statue of the 
 great Frederick. " He was the greatest of all the 
 Prussian kings," she said. 
 
 " Why do you always say ' Prussia ' ? " ques- 
 tioned Fritz. 
 
 " Have you forgotten," replied his aunt, " that 
 for hundreds of years Germany was made up of 
 many different states which were constantly at 
 war with each other and with the surrounding 
 nations? Prussia was the largest of them all, and 
 the Prussian kings were mighty men. 
 
 " When all the twenty-six states were united into 
 an empire the King of Prussia was made the German 
 Emperor, and so it has been ever since." 
 
 " Can you remember when it happened ? " asked 
 Fritz. 
 
 " It was in 1871. I was only ten years old; but 
 I can remember hearing my father talk about it," 
 Frau Hess answered, as she led the way to the bridge 
 over the River Spree. 
 
Si 
 
 They stopped for a moment to watch a lumber 
 barge which was being towed slowly under the 
 bridge; but Fritz was still thinking of kings and 
 emperors. 
 
 " Why was Frederick called ' the Great ' ? " he 
 asked his aunt. 
 
 " Because he was great in his character, and also in 
 what he accomplished for his country," she replied. 
 " He was like a father to his people, and looked 
 after the welfare of every part of his kingdom. 
 He built good roads, established schools, and in- 
 sisted that the children should be educated. He was 
 a famous general and led his soldiers in so many 
 victories that his name will never be forgotten. 
 
 " Our history is a history of warfare, and you will 
 find that we have many great heroes and many 
 monuments which commemorate their deeds. Come 
 now, and I will show you the monument to our be- 
 loved Emperor William I," she added, starting 
 once more toward the gardens and palaces at the 
 other end of the bridge. 
 
 " Here are plenty of statues on this bridge," 
 said Fritz, hurrying after her. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, " Berlin is the Denkmal 
 city. It is filled with monuments and statues. 
 That is one way by which we teach our boys history 
 and patriotism. 
 
 " There is the palace of our present Emperor," 
 
52 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 she added, pointing to an enormous building sur- 
 rounded by beautiful gardens. " This part of the 
 city is an island in the River Spree, and it was here 
 that the first settlement was made over eight hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 " Little did those early settlers think when they 
 built their rude fishers' huts on this island that it 
 would some day be the home of the German Em- 
 peror." 
 
 " So Kaiser Wilhelm II lives on this island. Is he 
 in the palace now, do you think?" Fritz asked, 
 gazing eagerly at the windows. , 
 
 "No; there is the flag-pole, but no purple flag. 
 He is, no doubt, still in Potsdam," Frau Hess an- 
 swered. Then she motioned toward several stately 
 buildings which stand not far from the royal palace. 
 " There are the old and the new museums, and the 
 beautiful new cathedral with its massive dome; 
 and here is the Lustgarten, the loveliest park in the 
 whole city." 
 
 In the Lustgarten there were fountains and 
 statues and beds of beautiful blossoms. Groups 
 of children were playing under the trees or running 
 up and down the broad walks, and Frau Hess and 
 Fritz found a seat beside an enormous stone basin 
 where they could rest for a moment. 
 
 The huge basin, which was made out of a single 
 block of granite, seemed to attract a great deal of 
 
" UNDER THE LINDENS 53 
 
 attention, and many people stopped to look at it. 
 At last two boys came down the path and the younger 
 lad climbed up to dip his fingers into the water. 
 
 "I'd like to have this bowl filled with boiled 
 rice," he turned to say to his brother. 
 
 " So ! But why ? " gasped the brother, more 
 amazed at the size of the wish than at the size of 
 the bowl. 
 
 " Because then I should know the feeling of 
 enough to eat for once," replied the little lad with a 
 laugh. 
 
 "Just hear!" exclaimed Fritz. "Do you sup- 
 pose he is hungry ? " 
 
 " No, indeed," replied his aunt. " He is too well 
 dressed for that. Come, let us follow them," she 
 suggested, as the two lads walked away, still talking 
 of the stone basin and how they would choose to 
 have it filled. 
 
 As Fritz and his aunt passed out of the park and 
 walked around to the opposite side of the Emperor's 
 palace, they came suddenly upon an enormous 
 monument. The two boys were there before them 
 and the older one was saying, " This must be the 
 monument which Herr Mark spoke of yesterday 
 afternoon." 
 
 Fritz looked up at his aunt in amazement. " Did 
 you hear that ? " he whispered. " He said ' Herr 
 Mark.' Could it be my Herr Mark that he means ? " 
 
54 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 But his aunt shook her head, and stood still to 
 watch the boys who were talking about the monu- 
 ment. 
 
 " That is Kaiser Wilhelm," the older lad told his 
 brother, pointing to a bronze figure of a man, on a 
 horse which was being led by a figure of Peace. 
 " That statue over there represents North Ger- 
 many, and this one stands for South Germany; 
 it all means that Wilhelm I held them both together 
 in peace." 
 
 " He is right," Frau Hess said to Fritz. " For 
 hundreds of years there was warfare between the 
 states of Germany; but while Wilhelm I was king 
 of Prussia all the twenty-six states were united 
 and he was made Emperor of the Germans, both 
 of the North and the South. This monument 
 was erected to commemorate the Union." 
 
 "When we were in Hamburg, Herr Mark told 
 us that it was Bismarck who helped to bring about 
 the Union," said Fritz. " Do you not remember ? 
 It was when we saw Bismarck's statue." 
 
 "There is a statue to Bismarck here in Berlin, 
 too," replied his aunt. " It is near the Column of 
 Victory which stands over there in the Thier- 
 garten," and she pointed to a column almost two 
 hundred feet high, crowned with a shining figure 
 of Victory, with flashing wings reflecting the bright 
 sun, " That column commemorates our victories 
 
*' UNDER THE LINDENS " 55 
 
 over the Danes, the Austrians and the French, and 
 it has three rows of cannon in its shaft which our 
 soldiers captured in the wars. 
 
 " The Brandenburg Gate has another figure of 
 Victory, a goddess driving four spirited horses. 
 Napoleon captured Berlin in 1807, and carried 
 away this Victory to Paris; but seven years later 
 General Blucher brought it home again." 
 
 " Where are the boys ? " exclaimed Fritz. " I 
 was going to ask them about Herr Mark." 
 
 " We will ask Herr Mark about them, and make 
 arrangements for your lessons," said Frau Hess, 
 and she beckoned to a droschke driver. 
 
 " Perhaps the boys are Herr Mark's pupils," 
 she added, as they took their seats in the droschke. 
 " I hope they are. It will be a good thing for you 
 to know boys as well as history." 
 
 They found Herr Mark at home, and Fritz and 
 his aunt were welcomed and introduced to the 
 whole family — the Herr Doctor, who was a pro- 
 fessor in Berlin's famous University; his wife, 
 a typical German hausfrau; and the little sister 
 Gretchen, a fair-faced, blue-eyed girl, with rosy 
 cheeks and long braids of shining yellow hair. 
 
 Frau Hess was given the seat of honor on the 
 sofa, and cakes and coffee were served to the guests 
 by Frau Mark herself, while Gretchen shyly passed 
 a plate of kringles. 
 
56 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 " Fritz is most anxious to begin his lessons," 
 Frau Hess told the tutor with a laugh. 
 
 " He can come in the morning," replied Heir 
 Mark. " I have two boys who come in the after- 
 noon. They are Ernst and Otto, sons of Baron von 
 Eisen, and they are spending the winter with their 
 aunt here in Berlin." 
 
 " We saw two boys in the Lustgarten who spoke 
 of you," said Frau Hess. " Is one tall and thin, with 
 a serious face and spectacles? " 
 
 " And is one short and fat and very jolly ? " 
 added Fritz. 
 
 " They are the very boys," replied Herr Mark. 
 " I am going to take them to-morrow to see the 
 Emperor's Review. Their father has sent me a 
 carriage-ticket. There will be room for Fritz, too, 
 if he may go with us." 
 
 The Emperor's Review! The most wonderful 
 parade of soldiers in the whole world! Of course 
 Fritz could go. It was the chance of a life-time. 
 And all the voices rose together in eager plans for 
 the carriage, and the luncheon, and an early start. 
 
 " They can take sandwiches and cheese," sug- 
 gested Frau Mark. 
 
 " And kringles," added Gretchen. 
 
 " And a bowl of rice for Otto," said Fritz with 
 a laugh, — "a bowl as big as the stone basin in the 
 Lustgarten." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE EMPEROR'S REVIEW 
 
 " Donnerwetter! but it is good to be a German 
 soldier!" exclaimed Fritz. 
 
 " It is better to be a German officer, to wear a 
 white plume on your helmet and ride on a black 
 horse! " cried Otto. 
 
 " And to dash along at the head of the line, 
 with all the medals on your breast flashing in the 
 sun," added Ernst, as an officer covered with medals 
 whirled past them on a prancing horse. " There 
 you go, Otto, right over the wheels! I knew it would 
 happen. Get in here, now, and sit still." 
 
 Otto picked himself up from the ground and 
 sprang back to his place in the droschke beside 
 Fritz. Herr Mark looked to see that the three boys 
 were all safely seated in the carriage, and then turned 
 his attention once more to the regiments of soldiers 
 that were arriving, one after another, upon the field. 
 
 It was the day for the Emperor's Review, which 
 has been held on the Tempelhofer Feld twice every 
 year, in May and September, since 1721. The 
 Emperor invites his royal guests to review the sol- 
 diers with him, and the space which is allotted to 
 
58 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 spectators is packed with people who go to see this 
 famous sight. 
 
 The parade ground is about two miles square, 
 and it is so level that with field glasses every part 
 of it can easily be seen. When Herr Mark and his 
 boys arrived that morning, and the driver found 
 a place for the droschke at one end of the field, 
 ten thousand soldiers were already there, although 
 it was only eight o'clock. 
 
 Regiment after regiment continued to arrive 
 until fifty-one thousand men were assembled, and 
 the boys became so enthusiastic over the soldiers, 
 and the horses, and the bands of music, that it 
 was small wonder Otto fell over the wheels in his 
 excitement. 
 
 The infantry was lined up for two miles across 
 one side of the field. To the left stood the cavalry, 
 to the right the artillery, thus forming three sides 
 of a hollow square; and stationed here and there, 
 up and down the lines, were bands of music. 
 
 The officers stood in front of their companies, 
 making a splendid sight in their brilliant uniforms 
 and shining medals, and occasionally one would go 
 galloping across the parade ground, or come dashing 
 down the field to the entrance gate. 
 
 " Two perfectly straight miles of cartridge belts," 
 said Ernst with a long breath, as he looked down the 
 ranks of infantry. 
 
THE EMPEROR S REVIEW 59 
 
 " Yes, and the coats make a perfectly straight 
 line below the belts," added Fritz. " It is only the 
 spiked helmets that go up and down." 
 
 " What do you expect," cried Ernst; " that all 
 the men in the army will be the same height? 
 Even the Giant Grenadiers were not all the same. 
 There was one man who was over seven feet tall, 
 but some of them — " 
 
 "Look, look!" cried Otto. "See that officer 
 dashing across the field. Where is he going ? " 
 and he clambered upon the carriage seat for a 
 better view, but was pulled back again and held 
 firmly by his brother. 
 
 " Do you see all the different colors ? " asked 
 Ernst of nobody in particular. " There are the 
 scarlet Zouaves, and the blue Dragoons, and the — " 
 
 " See the men in the white uniforms and the gold 
 helmets," interrupted Otto. " That is what I shall 
 wear when I am a soldier, — a gold helmet with a 
 white plume, and I shall — " 
 
 But a blare of trumpets interrupted his dreams. 
 There was a crash of music from the bands, a shout, 
 " The Kaiserin comes! " and looking toward the 
 entrance gate, the boys saw Empress Augusta, who 
 is a field officer in the army, galloping toward the 
 field. 
 
 She was dressed in white satin, with white plumes 
 in her hat, and she was followed by twenty officers 
 
60 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 in full uniform. As she rode across the parade 
 ground every man among the spectators took off 
 his hat, while the women waved their handkerchiefs, 
 and the officers saluted as she passed. 
 
 Then the Kaiser and his guard, all mounted 
 on magnificent black horses, appeared on the field, 
 and a deafening hurrah burst from every throat 
 as His Majesty rode down between the lines of 
 soldiers to meet the Kaiserin. 
 
 In the center of the field stood a single tree, a 
 huge elm, and toward this tree the Emperor led the 
 brilliant cavalcade, while the bands crashed out 
 their music louder and louder, and the boys tossed 
 up their caps and shouted "Hoch der Kaiser!" 
 until they were hoarse. 
 
 Several carriages filled with royal personages, 
 all dressed in gayest colors, took their places in 
 the group around the tree, and then began the 
 review of the most perfectly drilled troops in the 
 world. 
 
 The infantry marched and countermarched; 
 plumes of all colors waved in the sunlight, keeping 
 time to the music; and rows of feet, twinkling in 
 regular rhythm, moved in front of the Kaiser. 
 
 "It is just as if my toy soldiers were fastened 
 to a board and drawn along by machinery," said 
 Otto admiringly. 
 
 Battle flags, scarred with the history of all the 
 
the emperor's review 6 1 
 
 wars, fluttered their tattered shreds in the winds; 
 the artillery rumbled and thundered; a troop of 
 horsemen, with lances ten feet long, dashed by like 
 a whirlwind. 
 
 Ernst sat spellbound as the grand cavalry parade, 
 line after line in perfect order, from the first troop 
 of light brown horses to the last troop of jet black 
 ones, made their salute to the Emperor. 
 
 And when four thousand artillerymen with their 
 heavy guns and ammunition-wagons rumbled across 
 the field, all three boys thumped each other on the 
 back and trod on one another's toes s crying, " Isn't 
 that the best thunder you ever heard ? " 
 
 " You may never see fifty-one thousand soldiers 
 together again," said Herr Mark, as company 
 after company marched off the field when the re- 
 view was over. 
 
 " Is it the whole of the German army ? " asked 
 Otto. 
 
 Herr Mark laughed aloud. " Even the Kaiser 
 has never seen the whole of his army," he answered. 
 " This is only one fiftieth part of it. If war should 
 arise, fifty times as many more could be summoned. 
 The Emperor could place nearly three million 
 trained soldiers in the field." 
 
 " Donnerwetter ! " said the boys softly, making 
 big eyes at one another, and it was many days 
 before they stopped talking about the glory of it all. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A TRIP TO TOYLAND 
 
 " Is it that mein lieber Fritz has the homesick- 
 ness? " asked Frau Hess, putting her arm about the 
 boy's shoulders and looking down into his face. 
 
 She held a little book in her hand in which she 
 had just signed her name to a " lob." A " lob " is 
 a German reward of merit in the shape of a few 
 written words of praise, and Herr Mark sent a book 
 home to Frau Hess every day in which he wrote 
 either praise or blame, as the boy deserved. 
 
 If Fritz had done anything naughty it was written 
 down in the book for Frau Hess to sign; and if he 
 missed going to his recitations his aunt had to write 
 the reason in this same dreadful little book. 
 
 Every morning Fritz started out at the regular school 
 hour, his books in a square back-sack, called a school- 
 pocket, which slipped over his arms and shoulders 
 and was strapped flat to his back. 
 
 Hundreds of boys, carrying school-pockets filled 
 with books, were hurrying through the streets on 
 their way to the city schools. But Fritz went, in- 
 stead, to the home of his tutor, where he spent the 
 
A TRIP TO TOYLAND 63 
 
 morning studying and reciting. Then in the after- 
 noon he practised three hours on his violin; and twice 
 every week he had a lesson with Herr Klingler. 
 
 This he had been doing for ten or eleven weeks. 
 It was harder work than he had ever known back 
 in Schloss Wentzel, and his face had lost its tan, 
 his cheeks were no longer rosy. 
 
 That morning the postman had brought him 
 a letter from Frieda in which she sent him " thou- 
 sands of greetings and kisses," and the message 
 from home had brought a sober look to his face. 
 But he answered Frau Hess with a little laugh at 
 the idea of his being homesick, and taking his 
 " lob " book from her hand, went off to his lessons. 
 
 " Ach, how our boys have to work in Germany! " 
 sighed his aunt as she watched him hurrying down 
 the street. " They must pass such hard examinations 
 if they do not wish to serve more than one year 
 in the army. And Fritz must have his music 
 besides." 
 
 Then a thought came to her, and she nodded her 
 head as she often did when she was thinking of 
 something pleasant. 
 
 " We will take a little holiday," she said aloud. 
 " Fritz has never seen the mountains of Germany. 
 The change will do him good. He shall forget 
 his lessons and think of the blessed Weihnacht 
 which will soon be here." 
 
64 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 Weihnacht means Holy Night, and is the German 
 name for Christmas Eve. It means also mystery, ex- 
 citement, joy, and the giving of presents from every- 
 one to everyone else. 
 
 The holiday feeling begins three weeks before 
 Christmas, when the green firs from the forest 
 come marching into the cities, and when St. Nicholas 
 makes his round from window to window looking 
 for the shoes of good children. 
 
 Frau Hess decided that Fritz should not wait 
 for the holidays, but should go at once to meet the 
 procession of trees and take a peep into the work- 
 shop of the good St. Nicholas. For, of course, 
 Nuremberg, the city of toys, must surely be the head- 
 quarters of the Christmas saint. 
 
 When Fritz returned from his lessons that noon 
 with a " tadel " instead of his usual " lob," she 
 comforted him with a cheery, " Listen, now! I 
 shall sign my name without reading the explanation, 
 for I do not care about your naughtiness to-day. 
 We are going to Nuremberg to-morrow." 
 
 " To Nuremberg," repeated Fritz, " where they 
 make the dolls and toys? Good! I can almost 
 smell the paint and glue this minute," and he sniffed 
 his nose in a comical way as he ran out of the room 
 to put away his books. 
 
 A note was sent to Herr Mark asking him to go 
 with them to the quaintest city of all Germany; 
 
A TRIP TO TOYLAND 65 
 
 and another note was sent to Mrs. Blake asking 
 her and her daughter to join the party, — and a 
 merry party it made. 
 
 " We shall not come back from Nuremberg with 
 you," said Mrs. Blake after they had found seats 
 in the train. " We may not get so far south again, 
 so we are going on to see something of Munich." 
 
 " Munich is a beautiful modern city," replied 
 Frau Hess; " but you would find the Black Forest 
 more interesting. There you would see picturesque 
 costumes and quaint customs, and you would find 
 whole families at work in their own homes, carving 
 wood into all sorts of useful articles, and making 
 cuckoo clocks by the thousand." 
 
 " I have been reading in my guide book about 
 Nuremberg," Alice told Fritz. " It is a very, very 
 old city, and is surrounded by a wall and a moat 
 which were built hundreds of years ago to protect 
 the city, when the robber knights used to ride through 
 the country destroying property and killing people. 
 The walls were very thick, and they used to have 
 as many towers as there are days in the year. Most 
 of the towers and some of the walls are gone now. 
 
 " There are four gates in the walls, with a great 
 round tower near each gate. In olden times the 
 gates were closed day and night, and the drawbridge 
 in front of them was drawn up; but they have not 
 been closed now for over fifty years. 
 
66 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 " The moat was thirty feet deep and one hundred 
 feet wide, and it could be filled with water from 
 the river. On top of the wall there was a covered 
 passage with little openings, so that the guard could 
 keep a look-out in every direction for the approach 
 of the enemy." 
 
 " Perhaps we shall see a procession of toys march- 
 ing around the old walls and tumbling off into the 
 dry moat," suggested Fritz with a laugh, and then 
 the two began to plan what they should buy in the 
 shops of the city. 
 
 But they soon forgot the toys, for they were 
 riding through the country and Fritz was looking 
 eagerly at the snow-clad fields and forests which 
 reminded him of home. They crossed the Elbe 
 and saw barges floating down to Hamburg, " loaded 
 with toys," they said; but Herr Mark said seriously 
 that toys are but a small part of the freight which 
 passes over Germany's ' fifty-one navigable rivers. 
 Whereupon Fritz and his friend began whispering 
 their nonsense to one another lest Herr Mark 
 should frown on it. 
 
 They saw in the distance the Hartz Mountains, 
 about which Frau Hess's canary bird had never 
 stopped singing, and Alice told how she had once 
 had a canary from those very mountains The tutor 
 explained that they were the beginning of the high- 
 lands of Germany; but the young people did not 
 
Copyright by Underwood <Ss Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 Market-day in Nuremberg 
 Page by 
 
A TRIP TO TOYLAND 67 
 
 hear him, — their minds were too full of dreams of 
 the treasures of Nuremberg and the happy days to 
 come. 
 
 " I shall buy a music box for Frieda," said Fritz. 
 
 " And I shall buy the biggest Noah's Ark I can 
 find for my own self," said Alice Blake decidedly. 
 " I have always wanted one with animals enough 
 to make a procession all around the room." 
 
 But when they were actually within the city walls, 
 the dreams vanished in the crooked old streets, or 
 floated away on the quiet waters of the lovely 
 River Pegnitz which cuts the city in two; and they 
 found so many new things claiming their attention 
 every moment that they almost forgot the toys. 
 
 They wandered up and down the streets, gazing 
 at the old houses, most of which had been standing 
 at least five hundred years; they visited the home 
 of Albrecht Durer, who was a famous artist and 
 engraver and who also designed the four round 
 towers at the city gates. 
 
 Then they went to see the birthplace of Martin 
 Behaim, who was a friend of Christopher Columbus, 
 and who believed with him that the world was 
 round. He made a globe in 1492 on which he traced 
 the voyage of Columbus, and that very globe was 
 to be seen in the house where he was born. 
 
 " Look, Mother, do look here! " cried Alice when 
 she saw it. " Look at this island out here in the 
 
68 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 Atlantic Ocean. This is what he thought of North 
 America. How surprised he would be if he could 
 see it now." 
 
 " They didn't know anything about North Amer- 
 ica in olden times," said Mrs. Blake, as they stood 
 later in the old castle which for five hundred years 
 was one of the homes of the Emperors who ruled 
 the Germans; " but they certainly did understand 
 painting and wood-carving." 
 
 " It seems like living in the Middle Ages to 
 wander through these rooms," said Frau Hess. 
 
 " I don't like to feel so middle-aged! " exclaimed 
 Alice. " Come, let us go out and buy toys and 
 gingerbread from the funny old women at the 
 booths!" 
 
 There is an old saying that 
 
 " Nuremberg's hand 
 Goes through every land," 
 
 and it must surely be true, for every year tons and 
 tons of dolls and toys of every kind are made in the 
 homes and shops of the city and its surrounding 
 towns and shipped to all parts of the world. 
 
 Alice found so many beautiful dolls, and Fritz 
 so many fascinating toys, that the music box and the 
 Noah's Ark gathered toy after toy around them until 
 Frau Hess declared that they would have to hire 
 one of the river barges to carry their gifts to Berlin. 
 
A TRIP TO TOYLAND 69 
 
 No one was forgotten, not even Hans Wendling, 
 for whom Fritz bought a wooden medal carved 
 with a queer mixture of gabled houses, crooked 
 streets and storks' nests. " Hans is making a 
 collection of medals," Fritz told his aunt.' " He 
 will like this one. It comes from his own Bavaria." 
 
 " He would like best a glimpse of his wonderful 
 snow-capped mountains," replied Frau Hess. " We 
 will send him a postcard of them this very day." 
 
 On the way to buy the postcard they stopped at 
 the house of a wood-carver, where they found two 
 men who had not been away from their home in 
 the mountains long enough to change their leather 
 knee-breeches and fancy stockings for the overalls of 
 the city workmen. 
 
 They were carving birds for cuckoo clocks and 
 were cutting them out with such skill that Fritz 
 stood for a long time watching them. The room 
 where they were working had but one window, 
 which was made up of half-a-dozen little doors, each 
 one of which would swing open singly; and each 
 door was made of nine bull's-eyes of amber-colored 
 glass. 
 
 A little shelf was piled high with carved knives, 
 spoons, trays and birds; on a low table under the 
 window stood a couple of stone mugs; while chips 
 and shavings were scattered everywhere. 
 
 In one corner stood a tall porcelain stove which 
 
JO FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 gave out a comfortable warmth, for the day was 
 cold. " That must be the Nuremberg stove," 
 exclaimed Fritz. " I read a story about it once." 
 
 Then he caught sight of a railway advertisement 
 which hung on the wall, surrounded by saws and 
 knives. It was a picture of high, snow-capped 
 mountains, deep valleys, and swift streams, with a 
 railway train rushing out of a tunnel in the side 
 of the mountain. 
 
 " It reminds us of home," said one of the men, 
 when he saw that Fritz was studying the picture in- 
 tently. 
 
 " It reminds me that we must be going home," 
 said Frau Hess. " There is much to do for Christ- 
 mas." 
 
 So the next morning they bade good-bye to Mrs. 
 Blake and her daughter, and followed the procession 
 of Christmas trees down to Berlin. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 christmas trees 
 
 "Lieber Fritz von Wentzel: — 
 
 " Will you so very great pleasure make me as 
 to share my Christmas joy with me at 8 Motz- 
 strasse, on Christmas Eve? " 
 
 The pretty letter of invitation was written in 
 English and signed with the name of Herr Mark's 
 little sister Gretchen. 
 
 " I should like very much to go," Fritz said, 
 showing the letter to his aunt. " Shall you be lonely 
 without me ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I shall not be lonely, and perhaps you 
 will be glad that you went," she replied with an odd 
 little laugh, and went on with her writing while 
 Fritz wondered why she laughed. 
 
 " Is it a surprise ? " he asked after a few moments. 
 
 " Yes," she replied; " a surprise and a secret. 
 Run, now, and write the answer to your invitation, 
 and then bring me your list of gifts. I have mine 
 almost finished, and I shall go out soon to buy the 
 Weihnachtsbaum." 
 
 The Weihnachtsbaum is the tree which every 
 
72 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 family in Germany, rich and poor alike, sets up 
 for Holy Night, the night before Christmas. It is 
 beautifully decorated, and is lighted with many 
 candles; but the Christmas gifts are placed on a 
 table, and the tree is enjoyed for its beauty. 
 
 Fritz was at his aunt's side in a few minutes saying 
 eagerly, " Bitte, Tante Hess, may I go with you 
 now to buy the tree ? " 
 
 She laughed merrily, saying as she rose, "And 
 then you will ask, ' Now may I not hang the gold 
 and silver balls, the festoons and the nuts, the col- 
 ored candles, the lanterns of glass, and everything 
 under the sun to make the tree sparkle and shine, 
 upon every tip and spray of the green branches ? ' " 
 
 "That is just what I shall ask; and may I?" 
 laughed Fritz, and together the two went out into 
 the city streets. 
 
 "How good it smells!" cried Fritz, sniffing the 
 air. " It makes me think of the forest at home." 
 
 " How beautiful it is! " exclaimed Frau Hess. 
 
 And every one of the hundreds of people on the 
 streets said the same thing. That was because the 
 streets were lined with Christmas trees, and all the 
 open squares were little fragrant forests. In every 
 market-place, and in every place that could be used 
 as a market, there were countless booths filled with 
 gifts. And everyone was out to see the sights 
 and buy the gifts, for Christmas in Berlin is the 
 
CHRISTMAS TREES 73 
 
 greenest, brightest, happiest, merriest, most fra- 
 grant time of the whole year. 
 
 The flower shops were a feast to the eyes; the 
 jewellers' windows were ablaze with jewels; the 
 toy shops were hung with festoons of dolls, toy 
 soldiers, drums and games, — everything that de- 
 lights a child; and at the booths one might buy 
 gifts by the dozen, — wooden animals, knit dolls, 
 candles, paper flowers, wax figures, gilded nuts 
 and pfeffer kuchen. 
 
 This pfeffer kuchen is a kind of hard spice-cake 
 which is for sale in all the shops and booths at 
 Christmas time. It is cut into' all sorts of shapes — 
 big squares and little ones, stars, circles, hearts, 
 animals, funny boys and girls — and is sometimes 
 frosted or decorated with nuts and candies. 
 
 Frau Hess led Fritz from street to street, from 
 market-place to market-place, and from square to 
 square, buying little gifts, green wreaths, and orna- 
 ments for the Weihnachtsbaum. 
 
 At last they came to a large square which was filled 
 with hundreds of booths and crowded with men, 
 women and children, all screaming and yelling, 
 and rushing about crying, "Only five pfennige! 
 Only ten pfennige! Please buy! Please buy!" 
 
 " It is the Holy Night Market," Frau Hess ex- 
 plained, when she saw the look of amazement 
 on the boy's face. " It is a very ancient custom 
 
74 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 that the poor people should be permitted to sell 
 their wares here for two weeks before Holy Night, 
 and they look forward for months to making a 
 little money in this way." 
 
 They stayed for a long time in the market while 
 Fritz bought whistles, rattles, picture books, tops, 
 and gilded nuts, until his pockets were full to over- 
 flowing. When they came out again on Unterden 
 Linden the short winter afternoon was over and 
 darkness had settled over the city. 
 
 But now, indeed, it was like fairyland, and the 
 darkness was forgotten in the blaze of electricity. 
 From the statue of Frederick the Great to the Bran- 
 denburg Gate every house flashed a greeting, the 
 shop windows were dazzling, the streets were as 
 light as day. 
 
 " Oh, if Frieda could only see it!" cried Fritz; 
 but just then his aunt stopped at the street corner 
 to buy the Weihnachtsbaum, and he did not see 
 the odd smile on her face. 
 
 " We will buy two little trees," she decided, after 
 looking them all over carefully. "We can put 
 one on the table in the hall, and one in the window 
 for everyone to see." 
 
 In the Thiergarten crowds of skaters were hurrying 
 to the lakes, where bands of music were pealing 
 out a Christmas welcome, and Fritz felt his blood 
 tingle from head to foot with a gay delight. 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 The Duck-pond at Schloss Wentzel 
 
 Poplar trees, trimmed for fuel and with new growth showing, are a common 
 
 feature of the German landscape. Page 75 
 
CHRISTMAS TREES 75 
 
 " Frieda and I learned to skate on the duck pond 
 at home," he told his aunt; " but we never had 
 music for our skating. I shall tell Frieda about it 
 when I see her." 
 
 " So you shall," said Frau Hess, with the same 
 funny smile, and hurried so fast toward home that 
 there was no time for questions. 
 
 Then came the joy of trimming the trees, which 
 took so long and kept Fritz so bubbling over with 
 laughter as Aunt Hess made joke after joke, that 
 it was almost midnight when the last long rope of 
 tinsel was twisted through the branches, and the 
 last handful of gleaming frost scattered over the 
 green sprays. 
 
 " And to-morrow night there will be the Weih- 
 nachtsbaum and the surprise at Gretchen Mark's 
 house," murmured Fritz, and he fell asleep wonder- 
 ing what the secret could be. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 A NIGHT OF SURPRISES 
 
 In Germany there are three days at Christ- 
 mas time when the shops are closed and people go 
 to church, and make calls on their friends, carrying 
 little gifts for remembrance. These days are called 
 the first, second and third holidays, and there is 
 merry-making everywhere for both old and young. 
 
 Down in Munich, which is a long way from Berlin, 
 a lighted candle is set in the window on Christmas 
 Eve so that the little Christ-Child may have light 
 on his trip around the world to bless good children. 
 
 And surely two children in Berlin had their 
 blessing, although they knew nothing of the lighted 
 candles, for when Fritz reached the home of Herr 
 Mark, there was his little sister Frieda. 
 
 The Weihnachtsbaum, so beautifully trimmed 
 that it looked like a twin to the one Fritz had trimmed 
 the night before, stood on a low table in the center of 
 the room, and standing beside it, her face all smiles 
 and dimples and excitement, stood Frieda, crying, 
 "Wilkommen, Fritz!" 
 
 And while Fritz was trying to swallow the great 
 lump of gladness which he suddenly found in his 
 
A NIGHT OF SURPRISES J? 
 
 throat, Herr Mark and Gretchen, the Herr Doctor 
 and his wife, were all shaking hands with him 
 and saying, " Wilkommen, Fritz!" till he could 
 find his voice and tell Frieda how very, very glad he 
 was to see her. 
 
 Then, after the greetings were over, all the family 
 stood quietly around the tree while they sang, 
 "Holy Night, Blessed Night!" and Herr Mark 
 read the story of the birth of the Babe in Bethlehem. 
 
 " The bright star on the top of our Christmas 
 Tree shines to guide us in the right way, just as 
 the Star of Bethlehem shone so many years ago to 
 guide the three Wise Men of the East to the little 
 Child lying in the humble manger," the good Doctor 
 told the children, and he offered a prayer that their 
 feet might be guided in the right paths by their 
 remembrance of the Christ-Child. 
 
 After they had sung another Christmas hymn, 
 and Fritz and Frieda had received their little gifts 
 and eaten some of Frau Mark's pfeffer kuchen, 
 it was time for Herr Mark to take them home. 
 
 "Ach, how beautiful!" cried Frieda as they 
 walked through Unter den Linden and she saw for 
 the first time a great city celebrating Christmas. 
 
 Bells were rejoicing, and sleighbells were jingling; 
 there was light and music everywhere, with crowds 
 of merry children and happy fathers and mothers 
 hurrying here and there. 
 
£8 FRITZ IN GERMANY - 
 
 Many a belated tree was walking along on two 
 legs, stopping to look into a shop window full of 
 toys, or dashing across the crowded thoroughfare 
 from one sidewalk to the other, and Frieda clung 
 to Fritz, giving little shrieks of delight at everything 
 she saw. 
 
 Then they were in the drawing-room at home, 
 where the dozens of candles on the two trees were 
 all glowing with light; and, wonder of wonders, 
 there beside Frau Hess stood the dear father and 
 mother who had come to Berlin for the holidays! 
 
 It was surely a night of surprises for Fritz, and 
 of happiness for everyone. 
 
 But the joy of Christmas Eve was nothing to the 
 pleasure of the next day, when, after the morning 
 coffee, Frau Hess led the way into the drawing- 
 room where a table of gifts had been prepared 
 for each member of the household, including the 
 servants. 
 
 "Look, even Bursche* has his table!" cried 
 Frieda with delight. 
 
 Bursche' was Frau Hess's little dog, and he was 
 already sniffing about on the low table which had 
 been spread for him. On it there was a dog's 
 raincoat and four tiny rubber boots, because it 
 rains so often in Berlin; then there was also a plate 
 of pfeffer kuchen, and some of the chocolate candy 
 which he dearly loved. 
 
A NIGHT OF SURPRISES 79 
 
 After Bursche* had tried on the coat and boots and 
 eaten some of his candy, everyone was ready to 
 examine and admire the gifts on the other tables. 
 There were aprons and sashes and head-dresses for 
 the servants, pieces of wood-carving, books and pic- 
 tures for Herr von Wentzel, china and glass and 
 bits of jewelry for Frau Hess and her sister. 
 
 For Frieda there was the music box from Nurem- 
 berg — an orchestra of tiny dogs, each playing a 
 different instrument — and for Fritz a wonderful 
 violin made by a famous old violin-maker. 
 
 And as Christmas day is the one holiday of 
 the three when the people make merry at home, 
 after dinner there was more fun, with songs and 
 stories and games for young and old. 
 
 Then Fritz played on his new violin and Frieda 
 brought out her doggies' orchestra. Frau Hess took 
 up a plate of pfeffer kuchen which played a tune 
 while she passed it to her guests; the chair that hid 
 a music box in its seat, — that also played a little 
 tune. There was never so much noise and con- 
 fusion! 
 
 " What is there left for fun ? " asked Frieda, when 
 she went to bed at last, and fell asleep with the smell 
 of fir trees and wax candles wafting her to dreams of 
 an enchanted world. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE FLIGHT OF AN AIRSHIP 
 
 It had seemed a long morning to Fritz. The frosty 
 air had set his blood to tingling, and his thoughts 
 kept wandering from his lessons to the lively world 
 outside. When Herr Mark spoke of Frederick the 
 Great, the boy's mind had travelled far away from 
 Berlin to Schloss Wentzel and his pony, Zeppelin IV. 
 
 " We make but little of a certain event in the 
 life of the young prince," the tutor was saying, 
 " because such things are better forgotten. Yet it 
 is true that when Frederick was a young man he was 
 tried for being a deserter. Nothing else in the 
 world is so bad as being a deserter, and the Ger- 
 man army — " 
 
 But Fritz was thinking of the soft pine needles 
 which his pony loved to tread, and gave no thought 
 to the German army. Again and again Herr Mark 
 prodded the boy by asking, "What was the next 
 step in Frederick's career?" until Fritz said at 
 last, "I have entirely forgotten what was the next 
 step," and received a tadel in his report-book for 
 being saucy. 
 
 That noon his feet carried him slowly as far as 
 
THE FLIGHT OF AN AIRSHIP 8 1 
 
 the Brandenburg Gate on his way toward home; 
 but stopped there because a royal carriage rolled 
 through the central arch of the gate, bearing the 
 Crown Princess with two of her little sons toward 
 the palace at the east end of Unter den Linden. 
 
 The soldiers at the guard house, and the guard who 
 stands always at the central arch to keep any but 
 members of the royal family from passing through, 
 saluted the Princess. Every man and boy in the 
 street took off his cap, and Fritz followed their 
 example. 
 
 " The Crown Princess has been to the Thiergarten 
 to place flowers on the statue of the beloved Queen 
 Louise," he heard a woman telling her husband. 
 " I went there myself this morning with a pot of 
 tulips, and the statue was almost hidden with 
 flowers and wreaths." 
 
 At that moment a mounted policeman rode 
 through the gate, motioning this way and that for all 
 carriages to clear the way for the Kaiser. From far 
 down the avenue sounded the silver notes of a bugle, 
 and in a moment there came into view a magnificent 
 automobile in which sat the Kaiser and the Crown 
 Prince. 
 
 " They are going to Potsdam," the man told his 
 wife. " There is to be a trial of a new airship 
 this afternoon." 
 
 " An airship at Potsdam! " exclaimed Fritz, and 
 
82 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 as he walked slowly toward home he began thinking 
 how he had longed all his life to see an airship. 
 Then, suddenly, he turned and hurried toward the 
 railroad station, without even waiting to think that 
 he ought to ask his aunt's permission. 
 
 Potsdam is seventeen miles from Berlin, and Frau 
 Hess had often promised that she would take him 
 there some day to see the royal palaces. " Nothing 
 can be lovelier than the trip through the Griinewald," 
 she had told him. " It is a royal hunting park that 
 lies between Potsdam and Berlin. Hundreds of 
 deer graze in the park, and on pleasant summer 
 Sundays the Berlin fathers love to take their families 
 there, to lunch in the restaurants or picnic under the 
 trees." 
 
 But here was Fritz, naughty Fritz, buying his 
 ticket to go to Potsdam alone in the middle of winter. 
 He knew, of course, that he was a deserter, and 
 that he should be going that very moment, violin 
 in hand, toward the house of Herr Klingler; but the 
 airship had taken possession of his mind, and he 
 thought of nothing else. 
 
 At the station in Potsdam he asked the way to 
 the field where the airship was to fly, paying no 
 attention to the guides who were urging everyone 
 to go at once with them to see all the beautiful 
 palaces which have made the city famous. 
 
 He hurried along through the streets, following 
 
THE FLIGHT OF AN AIRSHIP 83 
 
 a company of students who had come from Berlin 
 on the train with him, and who had talked so eagerly 
 about airships and balloons that he could not help 
 listening. As he approached the field he heard a 
 great shout, and the students began running so 
 fast that he had hard work to keep up with them. 
 
 Then, as he ran, he looked up toward the sky, and 
 his heart almost stood still for excitement, for there 
 over his head soared the airship, — so big that it 
 seemed as if it must surely come tumbling down to 
 earth; so near that he could hear the whirr of the 
 engine. But it sailed majestically along through 
 the air as easily as an eagle; it rose and fell, wheeled 
 and turned, following the guidance of the man at 
 the steering-wheel. Almost before Fritz had time 
 to wish that he were the man who was sitting so 
 comfortably beside the driver, the huge bird flew 
 slowly back to the center of the field and dropped 
 gently to the ground. 
 
 Then there was a shout! Such a shout! For it 
 was the Crown Prince himself who had been flying 
 through the air, and who now stepped out of his 
 seat and turned to shake the hand of the man who 
 had guided the machine so safely. 
 
 "Hoch! Hoch!" the people cried; but it would 
 have been hard to say whether they were shouting 
 for the success of the flight, the safe return of their 
 Prince, or his bravery in testing the machine for 
 
84 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 himself. "Hoch! Hoch!" Fritz shouted with 
 them, for the fun of the shouting. 
 
 But the winter afternoons in Germany are all 
 too short; it was already beginning to grow dark, 
 and Fritz hurried back to the station and took 
 the train to Berlin, so wrapt in dreams of the time 
 when he, too, might soar through the air, that he 
 forgot he was a runaway, and wondered at his 
 aunt's fright over his unusual absence. 
 
 " But did you not walk in the park of Sans Souci 
 and see the terraces and grottoes and memorials 
 of Frederick the Great; nor go to look at the Marble 
 Palace, the New Palace, the Old Schloss, and the 
 garrison church where Frederick was buried beside 
 his father ? " she asked, after he had told her the 
 whole story of the day, and she had reproved him for 
 everything. 
 
 " Ach, no ! " he answered. " I cared about 
 nothing to-day but the flight of the wonderful 
 airship." 
 
 "Foolish boy!" exclaimed Frau Hess. "You 
 should be thinking always of German history and 
 German heroes. To-morrow is the Kaiser's 
 birthday. Then you will see a sight that will make 
 you forget the airships. Is it not so ? " 
 
 " I do not know," replied Fritz. " I know only 
 that the Crown Prince never seemed so important 
 to me as when he was sailing in the aeroplane." 
 
THE FLIGHT OF AN AIRSHIP 85 
 
 But he changed his mind on the next day when 
 Frau Hess took him, with Otto and Ernst, to the 
 house of a friend on Unter den Linden, and they 
 watched the masses of people who thronged the 
 avenue, all waiting for a sight of the War-Lord 
 of Germany, as the Emperor is sometimes called. 
 
 No carriages except those of the foreign ambas- 
 sadors or royalty were allowed on the street. Beau- 
 tiful coaches drawn by magnificent horses rolled 
 past them, bearing court ladies and officers in 
 splendid uniforms. 
 
 Then followed the ambassadors from foreign 
 lands, — China, Persia, Austria, Japan, France. 
 There were nodding plumes of white and scarlet, 
 gold and silver trappings, blazing jewels, pages and 
 heralds, coachmen and footmen, in all the colors 
 of the rainbow. 
 
 At noon Kaiser Wilhelm, with a body-guard of 
 two hundred soldiers, marched to the guard house 
 opposite the Old Schloss where he went inside 
 to speak to his lieutenants, leaving his guard " at 
 rest " outside. When he came out again the guard 
 saluted, while the royal band played " Hail, Kaiser, 
 to Thee," and at last Fritz felt all the thrill and 
 pride of being a German subject. 
 
 " Hoch der Kaiser! " he shouted with everybody 
 else on the avenue, and the walls echoed the cry, 
 "Hoch der Kaiser!" 
 
86 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 " Herr Mark told me that there is already a 
 squadron of these airships for the army," Fritz 
 said to Frau Hess when the day of great rejoicing 
 was over. " The Kaiser says they would be of 
 great use in case of war." 
 
 " He believes as did the great Frederick, and his 
 father before him, that Germany's safety lies in its 
 military strength," she replied. " Under his di- 
 rection it has become a wonderful machine, — quite 
 as wonderful in its way as the airships." 
 
 Then she repeated the words of the old hero- 
 king, whose dream it was that the German nation 
 should flourish to the end of time. " My last 
 wishes are for the happiness of my kingdom. May 
 it always be governed with justice, wisdom and 
 energy; and may it be, through an army which 
 strives only for honor and noble fame, the best 
 defended state." 
 
 " Kaiser Wilhelm is striving to fulfil that wish 
 by making every one of his subjects a good soldier," 
 she added, " and you, too, lieber Fritz, must find 
 your place in the machine, for love of the Father- 
 land." 
 
 " I will become an officer in the battalion of the 
 airships," he replied, and kissed her hand good- 
 night. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 EASTER EGGS 
 
 " Herr Mark is going to take Ernst and Otto for 
 a walking trip in July," Fritz told his aunt, as the 
 two were having a cozy chat together on the night 
 before Easter. 
 
 " Was that what you were telling Frieda this 
 morning ? " 
 
 " Ach, no! I was telling her that I was hunting 
 for my place in the machine, as you told me I must 
 do, on the Emperor's birthday." 
 
 " That was a funny place to look for it, — behind 
 the great mirror," said Frau Hess, laughing at the 
 idea. 
 
 Fritz laughed with her. " I was really looking 
 to see if we could hide any Easter eggs there," he 
 said, " and Frieda came into the room and caught 
 me, so I had to make up some reason for looking 
 behind the mirror." 
 
 " It would never do to let Frieda suspect that we 
 hide the eggs," cried Frau Hess. " Come, we must 
 do it at once," and she rose and began opening the 
 boxes and packages that were piled high on a table 
 in the corner. 
 
OS FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 On Easter Sunday the little children in Germany 
 have a hunt for eggs all over the house, and some- 
 times out in the garden, and there is a story that 
 these eggs are hidden by the little Easter hare. 
 
 Frieda and Gretchen had come to spend Easter 
 week with Frau Hess, and as Frieda was going 
 upstairs to bed that night she had said earnestly 
 to Fritz, " If you will be very good, and will make 
 up your mind not to tease me any more, perhaps 
 the little white hare will steal into the house and 
 hide some lovely eggs for you." 
 
 " Of course Frieda believes the story of the hare," 
 said Fritz a bit scornfully, as he opened one of the 
 boxes and took out a nest of beautiful, colored eggs. 
 
 " Here is a garnet ring that I had to buy for 
 Gretchen," said Frau Hess with a loving smile, and 
 she opened a blue satin egg to show the ring which 
 lay on its white bed within. " It matches the neck- 
 lace I gave her for Christmas." 
 
 Fritz nodded a boy's frank approval of the pretty 
 trinket. " I was caught the same way by this 
 string of beads for Frieda," he said, as he took 
 a pink egg from its box and showed the treasure 
 it held. 
 
 So it was with one egg after another. They were 
 of all the colors of the rainbow; some were filled 
 with candy, some with simple toys, and some were 
 tied with knots of dainty ribbon. Then there were 
 
EASTER EGGS 89 
 
 hares of all sizes and ages; big hares and little ones, 
 baby hares and grandfathers. 
 
 Fritz and his aunt opened all the boxes, stopping 
 often to laugh at each other's purchases; and then 
 began the fun of hiding them all. Into places where 
 no one would think of looking because they were 
 so open, and into places where no one would think 
 of looking because they were so hidden, stole the two, 
 as softly and mysteriously as if they were two 
 thieves hiding their spoil. 
 
 " Here is a good place to hide this rabbit," said 
 Fritz, showing one big staring eye just peeping 
 out from under a shell on the mantel. 
 
 " Do look at this! " cried Aunt Hess, holding up 
 a queer old grandfather rabbit dragging his baby 
 grandchild in a little red, egg-shaped cart. 
 
 There was just room for the turnout behind the 
 mirror, and the two happy faces of Fritz and his 
 aunt were reflected in the glass, making a pretty 
 sight if any one had chanced to look upon it. 
 
 When the clock struck ten they stole softly up 
 to bed after the two little guests, and left behind 
 them eggs singly and eggs by the nest-full, hidden 
 behind doors, under cushions, in vases and baskets, 
 under chairs and sofas, behind curtains and pic- 
 tures. 
 
 "It was a great hiding!" whispered Frau Hess. 
 
 "I can hardly wait for the hunting," replied 
 
90 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 Fritz. " They will never find half of the eggs." 
 But he looked very innocent when Frieda and 
 Gretchen roused him in the morning with shouts of 
 joy, and he pretended that the eggs and hares were 
 as much a mystery to him as to them. 
 
 The city, which had been still and solemn for 
 three days, was waking up to joy. The bells, 
 which had been silent since Thursday, were pealing 
 out in gladness; warm spring sunshine flooded the 
 earth, and Easter happiness filled the air. 
 
 In all the homes there was feasting and merry- 
 making, with egg-hunts for the children and fun for 
 everyone. Frieda and Gretchen ran upstairs and 
 down, looking for eggs in every nook and corner, 
 while Fritz and his aunt laughed merrily over their 
 excitement. 
 
 The eggs that were served for breakfast looked 
 innocent enough, but when Frieda opened hers 
 she found nothing but cotton, while Gretchen's 
 was filled with white powder. 
 
 " We never have anything but rolls and coffee for 
 first breakfast, so I might have known it was a 
 joke," laughed Frieda. 
 
 "Ach! how did I ever live without children 
 in the house ? " sighed Frau Hess, as the little 
 girls shrieked with delight over each new discovery 
 of eggs or hares. 
 
 Not until they found the garnet ring and the string 
 
EASTER EGGS 9 1 
 
 of pink beads, did they suspect that it was no Easter 
 hare that had hidden them in such funny places. 
 
 " It was you who hid the eggs! " cried Gretchen, 
 running to throw her arms around the good Frau 
 Hess; while Frieda at the same time made a dash 
 for Fritz, who led her a chase through the rooms 
 and up and down the stairs, until she caught him 
 at last in the music room and kissed him a dozen 
 times. 
 
 " Now give us some Easter music on the new 
 violin," suggested Frau Hess, and the boy opened 
 his violin case to find that the little hare had been 
 there before him and left a fair white egg. 
 
 " It looks like a perfectly good egg," he said 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " That it does," said his aunt. " Will you have 
 the cook boil it for second breakfast ? " 
 
 But there had been so many surprises that Fritz 
 was suspicious, and took the egg to the table where 
 he opened it with the greatest care, to find nothing 
 inside but a sheet of paper. 
 
 " The tailor in the fairy story must have sewed 
 the shell together," he said wonderingly, for not a 
 trace could be found of its ever having been broken 
 before. 
 
 " Perhaps it is a letter from Till Owlglass," sug- 
 gested Frau Hess. 
 
 "Oh, is it?" cried Frieda. "Let me see it," 
 
92 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 and she ran to look at the note from the funny 
 old man who has been playing pranks on German 
 children for more than six hundred years. 
 
 " Till Owlglass had nothing to do with it," 
 replied Fritz, reading the note, which was written 
 in a boyish hand. "It is from Ernst von Eisen, 
 and they want me to go with them on the walking 
 trip. 
 
 " It is just what I wanted to do," he added, turning 
 to his aunt. " Herr Mark is going to take them up 
 the Rhine, and I could see Hermann and Paul, 
 and all the places they have told me about." 
 
 " We will write to ask your father's permission 
 this very morning," suggested Frau Hess. 
 
 But Fritz hesitated, looking thoughtfully at his 
 violin. " There are my music lessons, and I was 
 going to practise all summer," he said. " Herr 
 Klingler is going to have an orchestra next year, 
 and he told me I must study hard if I wished to 
 play with the others." 
 
 " You will work all the better after a little play," 
 replied his aunt, and went at once to send a letter to 
 Schloss Wentzel. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AN OLD, OLD LETTER 
 
 It was a lovely morning in late June, and Fritz 
 sat at the open window looking at an old book 
 which he had found in his aunt's bookcase. 
 
 " What are you reading, Fritzchen ? " asked Frau 
 Hess, leaning over the boy's shoulder. 
 
 "What an old letter!" she added, as she read 
 the date, — June 19, 1530. " It was written nearly 
 four hundred years ago." 
 
 Fritz looked up into her face with a laugh. " Mar- 
 tin Luther must have been a jolly sort of a father," 
 he answered. " This is a letter which he wrote 
 to his little son, Hans. Listen, now, while I read 
 it to you." 
 
 " Grace and peace in Christ be with thee, my 
 dear little son! 
 
 " I am very pleased to see you so diligent, and 
 also praying. Continue to do so, my child, and 
 when I return I shall bring you something from the 
 great fair. 
 
 " I know a beautiful garden, where there are many 
 
94 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 children with golden robes. They pick up the 
 rosy-cheeked apples, pears, plums, etc., from under 
 the trees; sing, jump and rejoice all day long. They 
 have also pretty ponies with golden reins and silver 
 saddles. 
 
 " I asked whose garden it was, and to whom 
 the children belonged. The man said, ' These are 
 the children who love to pray and learn their les- 
 sons.' 
 
 " I then said, ' Dear Sir, I also have a son, Han- 
 schen Luther; might not he, too, come into the 
 garden and eat the beautiful fruit, and ride upon 
 those pretty ponies, and play with those children ? ' 
 
 " ' If he loves prayer and is good,' said the man, 
 ' he can, and Lippus and Jost, and they shall get 
 whistles and drums, and all sorts of musical instru- 
 ments, and dance and shoot with little cross-bows.' 
 
 " And he showed me a lovely lawn, all ready for 
 dancing, where whistles, flutes, etc., hung. But 
 it was still early, and the children not having break- 
 fasted, I could not wait for the dancing, so I said 
 to the man, ' Dear Sir, I must hurry away and 
 write all this to my dear little son Hans, and tell 
 him to pray and be good, that he may come into 
 this garden; but he has an aunt Lene, whom he 
 must bring also.' 
 
 " ' That he can,' said the man, ' write him to do 
 so.' Therefore, dear little sonny, learn your lessons 
 
AN OLD, OLD LETTER 95 
 
 and pray, and tell Lippus and Jost to do so, too, 
 and then you will all get into the garden together. 
 
 " I commend you to God, and give Aunt Lene a 
 kiss from me. Thy dear father, 
 
 " Martin Luther." 
 
 " Is it not a good letter, Aunt Hess ? " Fritz asked 
 as he finished reading it. 
 
 " That it is," she answered. " I have read it 
 before. Many children besides Lippus and Jost 
 have heard of that garden since Luther wrote about 
 it to his little boy. 
 
 " You would see the room where he lived for a 
 year, and the very desk where he worked while he 
 was translating the Bible into German and writing 
 some of our splendid hymns, if you should go to 
 Eisenach and climb to the top of the Wartburg," 
 she concluded. 
 
 " Perhaps we may go there next year with Herr 
 Mark," Fritz replied. " But to-morrow we go to 
 Hannover and walk through the forest to Hamelin 
 Town, and here is the letter Alice Blake has just 
 written me, and the poem she sent me which tells 
 all about the Pied Piper. I am going to take it 
 with me to read to Otto and Ernst. It will give them 
 good practice in their English. Is my knapsack 
 all packed for the journey ? " 
 
 " Yes, eager one," she smiled, " and the trip 
 
96 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 is all written down in plain writing, from the mo- 
 ment you leave Berlin to the moment you see 
 Schloss Wentzel." 
 
 Fritz clapped his hands. " Think of walking along 
 the Rhine!" he cried. 
 
 Aunt Hess laughed aloud. " Now you are be- 
 ginning all over again," she said. " For the last 
 three months I have heard nothing but talk about 
 your walking-trip. Your mother tells you in every 
 letter that you must take enough stockings, so that 
 when one pair wears out you will still have many 
 more, and your father urges me to see that you have 
 plenty of money for everything you will need." 
 
 " Yes," interrupted Fritz, " and every day Herr 
 Klingler complains that I need every minute of 
 the time for my violin practice, instead of tramping 
 across country for two weeks." 
 
 "Ach!" exclaimed Frau Hess, "will the man 
 never be satisfied? We will tell him that you will 
 learn the secret of music when you walk through 
 the forests. The birds will sing it to you. Is it 
 not so ? " 
 
 " Jawohl," answered the boy, as he opened the 
 map for the hundredth time to look forthe railroad 
 which runs from Berlin to Hannover. " It takes four 
 hours on the train," he said to himself, also for the 
 hundredth time. " I wish we were starting this 
 minute." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 IN THE GREEN FOREST 
 
 " Kuckuck, Kuckuck ruft aus dem Wald. 
 Lasset uns singen. 
 Tanzen und springen ! 
 Kuckuck, Kuckuck, ruft aus dem Wald." 
 
 sang Otto, beating time to the music with his walk- 
 ing-stick. " There," he said when the song was 
 ended, " no one can say that in Hannover I do not 
 sing the best of German." 
 
 A group of merry-makers, just turning into the 
 lovely Maschpark on the outskirts of the city, heard 
 what Otto said and nodded their heads with a 
 laughing, " Ja! Ja! Everybody knows that the 
 best German is spoken in Hannover." 
 
 It was only five o'clock, but the three boys with 
 their tutor were already on their way out of the 
 city, taking advantage of the cool of the early 
 morning for their tramp. 
 
 As they passed a little restaurant they saw a 
 motherly German woman making coffee for her 
 brood of hungry children. Farther on they met a 
 goose girl driving her flock of geese to market, a 
 
98 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 boy whistling and prodding three pigs with a long 
 stick to keep them in the road, and a woman, har- 
 nessed beside a dog to a little milk- wagon, who was 
 knitting as she trudged sturdily along. 
 
 Soon the city was left behind, but the tutor turned 
 to take a last look at its chimneys and spires as he 
 asked, " What shall we remember of Hannover, 
 Fritz, to tell the good Frau Hess when she asks 
 us about it ? " 
 
 Fritz shook his head. " Ask Ernst," he said. 
 " Ernst has a stuffed head; out of it he will pull 
 some facts about Hannover. I can remember only 
 that it was the birthplace of the beautiful Queen 
 Louise, and that in one of the squares we saw a statue 
 of John Gutenberg, the man who invented printing." 
 
 But Ernst also shook his head. " Ask Otto 
 to start another song," he urged. " I was copying 
 the poem about the Pied Piper last night and did 
 not go over my notes." 
 
 So Otto started one song and then another as 
 they tramped gaily along the highway toward 
 Hamelin, thirty miles away, stopping now and then 
 while Herr Mark pointed out the sights and gave 
 Ernst facts for his notebook. 
 
 Sometimes their way led past enormous fields 
 planted with beets for the beet-sugar, where women 
 with their heads tied up in bright handkerchiefs 
 were pulling weeds from the endless rows of green 
 
Copyright by Underwood «fe Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 "The boys sat down to watch some peasants harvesting rye" 
 Page 99 
 
IN THE GREEN FOREST 99 
 
 beet-tops. Or there were potato fields, — acres and 
 acres of them starred with white blossoms, — for 
 Germany raises more potatoes than any other 
 country in the world. 
 
 Then there were apple orchards; broad fields 
 of oats, wheat, barley, and rye; and forests of hop- 
 poles, up which the tender green vines were twining 
 their way. 
 
 After a while the boys sat down in the shade of 
 a great oak to watch some peasants harvesting rye, 
 and Herr Mark took a bag of ripe cherries from his 
 pocket to eat with their sandwiches. 
 
 Before noon they stopped again, — this time at a 
 little village of thatched houses scattered along each 
 side of a narrow, straggling street. The tutor 
 called at one of the vine-covered doorways to ask 
 for milk, and the kindly hausfrau invited them all 
 to rest within the shaded porch, and brought out 
 a plate of zwieback with the milk. 
 
 Otto gazed with curious eyes at the stone floor 
 of the neat kitchen, and tried to call his brother's 
 attention to the geese, hens, pigs, and babies that 
 tumbled about together in the yard at the back of 
 the house; but Fritz was pointing out a stork's nest 
 on the opposite roof, and Ernst was more interested 
 in counting the baby storks that stretched up their 
 necks to be fed. 
 
 It was at the fountain in this village that the boys 
 
IOO FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 had an adventure. Just as they were taking a drink 
 of the clear, cool water, a troop of cavalry clattered 
 down the street and stopped to water their horses 
 at the great stone trough. 
 
 The twinkling eyes of the inn — little narrow 
 windows set deep in the thick white walls — looked 
 out from under gabled eyebrows as they had looked 
 many a time before, in the years gone by, upon 
 German soldiers in the village street. But to the 
 children who ran from every direction and stood 
 clustered in the doorways to watch the horses and 
 their riders, it was always a wonderful sight. 
 
 Herr Mark drew his boys into one of the crowded 
 doorways and they stood looking on while the horses 
 dipped their heads deep into the water for a cooling 
 drink, and then tossed them in the air until their 
 bridles clanked and jingled. As fast as one pair of 
 horses were satisfied they moved aside to make room 
 for another at the trough, and when one of the 
 officers was backing his horse away from the foun- 
 tain, a barefooted child — a little flaxen-haired girl 
 only three or four years old — started to run across 
 the street from one doorway to another. 
 
 In an instant she would have been trampled 
 under the iron hoofs of the horse; but Fritz sprang 
 forward and snatched her back, just in time to 
 save her. 
 
 " Meine Liebchen! Meine Herzchen! " screamed 
 
IN THE GREEN FOREST IOI 
 
 the mother, rushing out into the street; the horses 
 reared and plunged, the officers called out quick 
 orders, and for a moment there was a wild scene of 
 excitement. But in the end the soldiers galloped 
 away, four abreast, along the road to Hannover; 
 the children ran back to their play, and the street 
 was quiet once more. 
 
 The grateful mother thanked Fritz over and 
 over again for saving her baby, and when she 
 learned where the boys were bound, she called her 
 husband, who was just ready to start off to market 
 with a load of vegetables, and bade him give the 
 lads a ride. 
 
 It was a hot, sultry afternoon, and the three boys 
 were glad to jog slowly along the road behind the 
 old farm-horse, listening drowsily while Herr Mark 
 talked with the farmer about the weather and the 
 crops. Just as the man began a long story about 
 his son Martin who had gone up into the mountains 
 to learn wood-carving, Otto's head began to nod. 
 When at last the farmer reached the end of the 
 story, all three boys had to be shaken out of a sound 
 sleep to bid him good-bye and thank him for the 
 ride. 
 
 " Our way leads through the forest," the tutor 
 explained when they begged for a longer ride; 
 and after shaking hands with the farmer and wishing 
 him good luck at the market, the boys watched him 
 
102 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 drive down the road and then took a path that led 
 into the forest. 
 
 This forest, like so many others in Germany, 
 was carefully cultivated. The trees had been set 
 out in rows, " so straight that they looked like 
 the aisles of a church," Fritz said; but Otto thought 
 they looked rather like the long rows of beets in 
 the beet-fields. " And there are the women weeding 
 the rows," he added, pointing to two peasants 
 who were gathering fagots to carry home for fire- 
 wood. 
 
 It was cool and restful after the sunny road, and 
 the boys ran along throwing up their caps and 
 shouting for joy. Their shout was answered by 
 another, and looking down through the green 
 forest aisles, they saw a company of school-boys 
 with their teacher, marching toward the road which 
 they had just left. 
 
 Fritz waved his cap and the boys called out a 
 friendly greeting; the teacher started a song, and 
 in a moment the forest was ringing to the merry 
 singing of boyish voices. 
 
 " Ach, what is so good as the forest ? " said Fritz, 
 with a happy sigh, when they had thrown themselves 
 to rest under the spreading branches of a great 
 fir which was already marked for its journey to 
 market. 
 
 "There are not many countries that look after 
 
IN THE GREEN FOREST IO3 
 
 their forests so carefully as Germany," said Herr 
 Mark. " Just as there are armies of laborers in the 
 fields, planting and harvesting the grains and vege- 
 tables, so there are other armies in the forests, 
 planting new trees and cutting down those that 
 are full-grown." 
 
 " It sounds too much like work," said Otto, 
 lazily, from his bed on the soft carpet of brown 
 needles. 
 
 " With thirty-five million acres of forest-land to 
 take care of, there is always plenty of work," an- 
 swered the tutor. " There are acres and acres of 
 young seedlings hardly a foot high to be set out 
 and watered; then there are the plantations of 
 youngsters no taller than you are, to be trimmed 
 and pruned; and finally there are the full-grown 
 trees to be cut down and hauled away to the lumber- 
 barge for a trip down the river to the saw-mills. 
 And not a fagot of all the wood is wasted. The 
 trunks and branches go for timber; the stumps are 
 broken up for firewood; the twigs, too, are gathered 
 and burned; and even a good layer of leaves and 
 moss will sell for fuel or fertilizer." 
 
 " I shall become a forester," said Otto decidedly. 
 
 " Is it so pleasant to lie under the trees that 
 you will make it your life-business?" asked Herr 
 Mark with a laugh. 
 
 " No, but there is always good company in the 
 
104 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 woods," Otto answered, pointing to another group 
 of boys who were just entering the glade from one 
 of the many foot-paths that criss-crossed through 
 the forest. 
 
 " Everyone loves the trees and the pleasant 
 paths under them," replied the tutor. " We have 
 been a tree-loving people ever since the first tribes 
 built their rude huts in the forests, thousands of 
 years ago. You cannot walk half a day through the 
 woods without meeting a walking-club off for a 
 tramp, a company of school-children with their 
 teacher, or a family out for a picnic." 
 
 And so the boys found it, as they tramped along, 
 the next day, on their way to Hamelin. 
 
 " If we meet the Pied Piper of Hamelin," said 
 Fritz, as they walked at last along the streets of 
 the quaint old town, " we will ask him to teach us 
 the tune that he played for the rats. Then I can 
 play it on my violin and catch all the rats in our 
 barns at home." 
 
 " Listen," cried Otto, " there's the Piper now! " 
 and turning a corner they saw a band of strolling 
 musicians walking slowly down the street and play- 
 ing, a merry tune. 
 
 In front of the musicians there was a group of 
 little boys and girls singing and dancing, and from 
 one doorway and then another a child bobbed out 
 to dance along with the others. 
 
IN THE GREEN FOREST IO5 
 
 "It is just like Browning's poem," said Ernst, 
 and opened his notebook to read from the poem 
 which he had copied so carefully: — 
 
 " Out came the children running : 
 All the little boys and girls, 
 With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, 
 And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, 
 Tripping and skipping ran merrily after 
 The wonderful music with shouting and laughter." 
 
 " And there they go to Koppelberg Hill," added 
 Herr Mark, as musicians and dancers disappeared 
 around the corner. " Let us leave our knapsacks 
 at the hotel, and then I will show you the very street 
 where, more than six hundred years ago, rats and 
 children followed the Pied Piper out of the town." 
 
 " Why, is the story true ? " asked Otto in surprise. 
 
 " I can't tell you," replied the tutor. " We will 
 take a walk through Pied Piper Street and you can 
 see what you think about it." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 " THE WATCH ON THE RHINE " 
 
 " So here we are in Cologne at last," exclaimed 
 Fritz, as they sat eating their breakfast of rolls and 
 coffee. 
 
 "What are we going to do first?" asked Otto,- 
 helping himself to a third roll. 
 
 " Otto, man! " cried Fritz in mock horror, " don't 
 you know that no one in Germany eats more than 
 two rolls for first breakfast ? " 
 
 " But I shall need three rolls if we are going to 
 walk as much as we did last week," Otto declared. 
 " Where are we going first ? " he repeated. 
 
 " To the Cathedral, of course," Ernst told him. 
 "It is one of the grandest cathedrals in the whole 
 world. It covers two acres of ground and has two 
 towers which are over five hundred feet high, besides 
 ever so many little towers. It was six hundred and 
 thirty-two years after it was begun before it was 
 finished, and it cost millions of dollars." 
 
 Here Fritz interrupted with, " In one of the towers 
 is an enormous bell which was made from cannon 
 captured in the wars with the French in 1871. It 
 weighs twenty-seven tons, and it takes twenty-eight 
 
"the watch on the rhine" 107 
 
 men to ring it; " and Otto chimed in with, " There 
 is an inscription on it which says: 
 
 " < I am the Emperor's bell, 
 The Emperor's praise I tell.' " 
 
 Herr Mark laughed heartily. " You have learned 
 your lesson so well that I shall reward you by taking 
 you first to one of the shops where a fountain of 
 cologne-water will sprinkle your handkerchief for 
 nothing," he said. 
 
 "The famous cologne of Cologne!" exclaimed 
 Fritz. " We shall never have a better chance to save 
 money. Every stop at the free cologne-fountains 
 means pfennige in our pockets." 
 
 " Then you may stand at the fountains all day 
 while we cross the bridge of boats," said Otto. 
 " You can save enough pfennige to pay the bridge- 
 toll for the rest of us." 
 
 " Come, let us be off! " suggested the tutor, rising 
 from the table. " There are many famous things to 
 see in the city besides the Cathedral and the cologne, 
 and we take the boat for Bonn this afternoon at 
 four o'clock." 
 
 In the street he hailed a passing tram-car, and 
 as they rode through the Ring Strasse, Herr Mark 
 told the boys a little of the early history of the city. 
 
 " The Romans founded a colony here about two 
 
I08 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 thousand years ago and called it Colonia," he said. 
 " That is where we get the name Cologne." 
 
 " Look! " cried Otto, who was turning round to 
 look out of the window, " do see those narrow 
 streets. I'd like to see an automobile try to get 
 through them. They aren't even wide enough 
 for my pony cart." 
 
 i " Those houses were built hundreds of years ago, 
 before ever wheeled carriages had been thought of 
 here," replied the tutor; " and there was no need for 
 wide streets for foot-passengers. The houses were 
 built close together «for protection. In the early 
 days, Cologne had a hard struggle for existence, and 
 it has seen some terrible warfare; but now it is 
 one of the finest and wealthiest cities in the country." 
 
 " It certainly does an enormous amount of busi- 
 ness," said Fritz, as they reached the river and saw 
 all the wharves piled high with bales and boxes, 
 while boats and river-barges were being loaded 
 and unloaded. 
 
 "Where do all the things come from?" asked 
 Ernst. 
 
 " And where do they go ? " added Otto. 
 
 " They come from all over the world," answered 
 Herr Mark, " and they are distributed by train or 
 boat throughout this part of Europe. 
 
 " And they go to all parts of the world, too," he 
 added, " loaded with the products of our factories; 
 
Copyright !>y Underwood ifc Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 One of the many Ruined Castles on the Rhine 
 Notice the picturesque and rugged scenery. Page 109 
 
"THE WATCH ON THE RHINE IO9 
 
 for you must know that Germany manufactures al- 
 most everything you can think of. There are some 
 river-barges just being loaded. Perhaps those big 
 crates contain Christmas toys, all marked with the 
 magic words ' Made in Germany.' " 
 
 " Christmas toys! " cried Otto. " What are they 
 doing with Christmas toys in July? " 
 
 " They send them early so that they will be ready 
 for the Christmas trade," replied the tutor. " When 
 we take our delightful trip up the Rhine you will 
 see hundreds of boats and barges which carry 
 an immense amount of this freight." 
 
 And the trip up the Rhine was, indeed, delightful 
 from beginning to end. Every moment there was 
 some new scene of beauty or interest; some historic 
 spot to point out, some famous legend to tell. 
 
 The first day' they rode to Bonn, crossing the 
 river for a trip up the ■ Drachenfels, or Dragon's 
 Rock, the highest point along the river. Then 
 they took the steamer again and rode past village 
 after village, tower after tower, ruin after ruin. 
 
 " Why are there so many ruined castles ? " Otto 
 asked, as the tutor pointed out an unusually lonely 
 tower on the side of a rugged hill. 
 
 " In olden times the barons who lived in this part 
 of the country were robbers and fighters," Herr 
 Mark told him. " They chose these very high points 
 upon which to build their strongholds, and from 
 
IIO FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 them they could look down into the valleys and along 
 the rivers and behold their enemies from afar. Some- 
 times it was a merchant whom they spied, who was 
 carrying his wares to trade in a distant city; but 
 it made no difference to the baron in his high castle. 
 He swooped down upon enemies and merchants 
 alike, and killed or robbed them, as it happened. 
 
 " If the country had been the strong empire then 
 that it is now, such lawlessness would have been 
 punished. As it was, the scattered cities were the 
 first to interfere with the barons and their wild 
 doings, and for the sake of protecting the merchants 
 on their travels, they formed leagues and forced 
 the robbers to sign agreements not to interfere with 
 their trade. After many years the knights gave 
 up living in their ' eagle's nests ' and the castles 
 gradually fell to ruin." 
 
 And so the happy hours ran on, while the forest- 
 covered hills came closer and closer to the river's 
 banks, until at last they were within sight of Co- 
 blentz and the celebrated fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, 
 and Ernst opened his camera for a picture of the 
 enormous equestrian statue of Emperor William I 
 which stands on the point of land where the French 
 river Moselle flows into the Rhine. 
 
 A bridge of boats connects the city with the 
 fortress, and it is safe to say that Coblentz will 
 never again pass out of the possession of the Germans, 
 
THE WATCH ON THE RHINE III 
 
 for the " Broad Stone of Honor," Ehrenbreitstein, 
 is a fortress that cannot easily be taken. 
 
 " There is Paul ! " shouted Fritz, and pointed 
 out the tall soldier brother to Ernst and Otto long 
 before the steamer drew up to the landing-place. 
 
 " Welcome to Coblentz ! Welcome to our for- 
 tress! " was Paul's hearty greeting; and the boys 
 had soon crossed the bridge and were trying then- 
 speed up the winding road to the citadel. 
 
 " This fortress is large enough to hold one hundred 
 thousand men, and we have provisions enough in 
 stock to withstand a long siege," Paul told them as 
 they climbed under the guns to the fortifications 
 on the top of the broad rock. " Everything down 
 to the last button on the last soldier's coat, as the 
 old Emperor used to say, is all ready for war. 
 
 " There is a garrison here now of five thousand 
 men, and day and night ' The Watch on the Rhine ' 
 is maintained." 
 
 " I have decided that, after all, I will be a soldier 
 and not a forester," Otto declared, after Paul had 
 shown them over the fort and they had watched the 
 men practising gun-firing; but when they were on 
 the boat the next day, and he saw men clambering 
 up and down the vine-clad hills at work among 
 the vineyards, he almost decided to give up soldiering 
 for grape-raising. 
 
 " I didn't think there could be so many grape- 
 
112 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 vines in the world!" he exclaimed. "What do 
 they do with all the grapes? And why do they 
 build so many stone walls in the vineyards?" 
 
 " They make wine of the grapes," replied Hen- 
 Mark, " and they build the stone walls to keep the 
 soil from washing down the hillsides when it rains. 
 This part of the Rhineland is famous for its wine, 
 and at Bingen we shall see some of the finest vine- 
 yards in the country. 
 
 " Look, there is the city now, and there, on the 
 opposite hill is the National Monument," and he 
 pointed to the great statue of Germania erected by 
 the nation to commemorate the victory over France 
 in 1871. 
 
 The boys looked up at the distant monument, 
 towering above the vineyards on the hill, and then, 
 as the steamer glided swiftly towards Bingen and the 
 end of their happy holiday together, they began 
 singing, softly at first and then louder and louder, 
 the stirring song of the Fatherland, " The Watch 
 on the Rhine." 
 
 " A roll like thunder strikes the ear, 
 
 Like clang of arms or breakers near, 
 
 Rush forward for 'the German Rhine 1 
 
 Who shields thee, dear beloved Rhine? 
 
 Dear Fatherland, thou need'st not fear, 
 Thy Rhineland watch stands firmly here ! " 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 FRITZ RECEIVES A MEDAL 
 
 Just as the green waters of the river run like a 
 gleaming thread through the Rhine Valley of 
 Germany, so the happy walking tour ran like a thread 
 of melody through Fritz's memory all the rest of the 
 summer. 
 
 Over and over again, when he was back in Schloss 
 Wentzel and his fingers were playing never-ending 
 scales on the violin, his thoughts would run merrily 
 off to live the days with Herr Mark and the boys 
 once more. 
 
 Then he would laugh aloud at the memory of 
 Otto, astride a donkey's back, climbing to the top 
 of the Drachenfels. What a jolly companion Otto 
 made for a journey! He was always thinking of 
 something mischievous to do, — always jumping 
 upon the back of a donkey and clambering up the 
 rocky hillsides, — always having to beg pfennige 
 from Fritz to pay for the ride afterwards. 
 
 And then there was Ernst, who tried to keep 
 account of the number of miles they walked each 
 day; and who was always writing down facts about 
 the height of the mountains, the names of the ruins, 
 
1 14 FRITZ ,IN GERMANY 
 
 the dates when the cities were first settled, and all 
 sorts of useful and useless bits of information. 
 
 " Studious Ernst! " thought Fritz, his fingers run- 
 ning up and down the strings of his violin so that 
 they sang and trilled as he played; " he should have 
 been listening to the nightingales that sang so 
 sweetly at the twilight end of our days." 
 
 " Of what are you thinking, lieber Fritzchen ? " 
 asked a voice behind him, and turning round he 
 saw his mother, with Frieda and her circle-sisters 
 standing in the doorway. 
 
 " I was thinking of the birds that sang in the forest 
 when we were climbing up to Hamelin Town," 
 he replied. 
 
 " You disturbed our meeting," Frieda told him. 
 " I was telling Hilda and Eva and Ursula about my 
 visit to Berlin, and how, when I went to school 
 with Gretchen, I was not allowed to wear even the 
 least bit of jewelry for fear that it would take my 
 mind off my lessons, and then your trills and melo- 
 dies took our minds entirely from our sewing." 
 
 " You are a little goose girl," Fritz answered. 
 " My mind is on my lesson even when it is walking 
 along the Rhine with Otto. You should learn to 
 have two minds, one for work and one for play." 
 
 " Fritzchen," his mother said to him earnestly, as 
 the little girls went back to their sewing, " if you 
 play for Herr Klingler as you played but now for 
 
FRITZ RECEIVES A MEDAL 115 
 
 yourself, he cannot fail to give you a place in the 
 orchestra." 
 
 " That was my playing mind," Fritz answered 
 with a laugh, and then added, " I will ask that you 
 may be one of the judges at the recital, Mutterchen. 
 Then I shall have all of the places." 
 
 But when the day of the recital came at last, Fritz 
 looked down from his seat on the platform and 
 wished that his mother, who sat so quietly between 
 Frau Hess and Baron von Wentzel, might be all 
 three of the judges. " I can never play before so 
 many people," he thought, rubbing his fingers which 
 were as cold as ice, and trying to wait patiently 
 while one boy after another played in turn. 
 
 He did not guess that his mother's hands, too, 
 were icy cold, and that while she sat so quietly 
 in her seat, her heart was beating faster and faster 
 and her thoughts were flying to the time when her 
 Fritz should take up his violin and stand before 
 them all to show what he could do. 
 
 " If he will only look at me when he plays! " 
 she thought, and smiled up at him encouragingly 
 as he made his bow and tucked his violin under his 
 chin. 
 
 But it was Otto's round face and jolly smile that 
 sent his thoughts away from the crowd before him, 
 and his bow flying back and forth over the strings. 
 
 " Who is that boy? His playing made me think 
 
Il6 FRITZ IN GERMANY 
 
 of the merry skaters in the Thiergarten," said some 
 one in the audience. 
 
 " It reminded me of the nightingales in the 
 Lustgarten," said another; but Frieda and Gretchen 
 squeezed each other's hands and whispered that 
 Fritz played better than any one else in the wide 
 world. 
 
 When the playing was finished, the judges went 
 into a little room to talk it over, and came back 
 again, after what seemed a very long time, with a 
 list of those who were to receive places in the or- 
 chestra. Herr Klingler read the list aloud, and all 
 the fathers and mothers beamed with pride as then- 
 sons' names were called and they rose to bow 
 and thank the judges. 
 
 Then the music master took a medal from a little 
 box and called Fritz out before the audience again. 
 " I give you this medal," he said as he pinned it to 
 the boy's breast, " because you have done such 
 faithful work. I have been pleased with your 
 diligence, and give you this for a reward. It means, 
 too, that you shall be my first violin." 
 
 There was a great clapping of hands, both among 
 the players on the platform and the people in the 
 audience. Otto thumped Ernst on the back, and 
 Frieda hugged Gretchen in her excitement. 
 
 Baron von Wentzel walked straight up to the 
 platform to shake hands with his son, and Frau 
 
FRITZ RECEIVES A MEDAL 117 
 
 von Wentzel and all the other fathers and mothers 
 followed him. Everyone shook hands with everyone 
 else; Herr Klingler told the fathers that the boys 
 were doing well, and then he told the boys that they 
 must work harder than ever. The mothers beamed 
 and smiled, and promised that their sons should 
 practise three hours every day in the week, and the 
 sons were all the time gathering up their instruments 
 and putting them carefully into the cases, so that 
 there was the greatest excitement and confusion. 
 
 In the midst of it all the voice of Frau Hess rose 
 above the din. " Now we will go to the Thier- 
 garten, — Otto and Ernst and Gretchen and Frieda, 
 and all of us," she said. " And we will lunch in the 
 fine great restaurant, and row on the lake, and 
 pick the flowers, and watch the fountains, and 
 feed the animals in the zoo." 
 
 But Fritz hardly heard what she was saying. 
 His thoughts were far away in Schloss Wentzel, 
 and he was thinking of the great celebration in honor 
 of Hans Wendling, and how the old man had said, 
 " It is not so difficult. I have done nothing but live 
 here and do my work, and now the medal comes 
 to me." 
 
n8 
 
 PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 
 AND DICTIONARY 
 
 aoh (ak), ah ! oh ! 
 
 Baa sin' (sang), basin, lake. 
 
 Be'haim, Martin (Ba'him), a German navigator, 1459- 
 1506. 
 
 Blng'Sn, a town on the Rhine. 
 
 blt'te, please. 
 
 Blti'cher (ker), a Prussian general, 1742-1819. 
 
 Bru'der (broo), brother. 
 
 Bur boW (boor sha'), a dog's name. 
 
 dan ke schon (dan'ke schen), thank you. 
 
 DSnk'mal, monument. 
 
 der (dar), the. 
 
 D8n ner wet'ter (vSt), " thunder-weather," an excla- 
 mation. 
 
 Dra chen fels (Dra'kSn fSls), one of the " Seven Moun- 
 tains " on the Rhine. 
 
 Drosch'ke (drosh'ki), a public carriage. 
 
 Dtt'rer, Albrecht, a German painter and engraver, 1471- 
 1528. 
 
 Eh ren breit'stein (a rSn brit'stin), a fortress on the 
 Rhine. 
 
 Ei'aen ach (i'zen ak), a town in Germany. 
 
 El'be, a river in Germany. 
 
 Flee'te, canals. 
 
 Prau (frow), Mrs. 
 
H9 
 
 PrSu leia (froy'lin), Miss. 
 
 Frie da (free'da), a girl's name. 
 
 Frltz'chSn, little Fritz. 
 
 Ortt'ne wald (valt), a royal hunting-park near Potsdam. 
 
 Gut'gn Tag' (goot), good-day, good-morning. 
 
 Haua frau (hous' frow), housewife. 
 
 Herr (har), Mr., Sir. 
 
 Herz'chgn (hartz), little heart, heart's dearest. 
 
 Hoch, high, salute, hurrah ! 
 
 ja (ya), yes. 
 
 ja wohl (ya vol'), yes indeed. 
 
 Kai ser (ki'zer), emperor. 
 
 Kai ser in (ki'zer in), empress. 
 
 klein (kiln), little. 
 
 Kranz'chgn (krants), little garland, club, circle. 
 
 Kring'lea (Is), salted, twisted cakes. 
 
 Kris Kring'le, the Christ Child. 
 
 Leb'Sns Hcht (lab), life-light. 
 
 lie'be, lie'ber (le'ber), dear. 
 
 Lieb'chgu (leb), darling. 
 
 Lob, praise. 
 
 Lust gar ten (loost' gar tSn), a park in Berlin. 
 
 Mahl zeit (mal'zit), mealtime. 
 
 mein, mein'er (min'er), my. 
 
 Mut'ter (moot), mother. 
 
 Mut'ter chSn (moot), little mother. 
 
 nein (nin), no. 
 
 Ffgn'nlg, penny, one fourth of a cent. 
 
 FfBf'fer kuch'Sn (kook), spice cake, gingerbread. 
 
120 
 
 Bans Sou ci (s5n sod se'), " free from care," a palace in 
 Potsdam. 
 
 SchlSss, castle. 
 
 Schwes'tern (schvSs), sisters. 
 
 Spree (spra), a river in Germany. 
 
 Stras'se, Street. 
 
 Ta del (ta'dl), demerit, reproof. 
 
 Tan'te, aunt. 
 
 Tern pel hof'er P61d, a parade ground in Berlin. 
 
 Thier' gar tSn (ter), a large park in Berlin. 
 
 Till Owl'glass (Till Eulenspiegel), a traditional player of 
 pranks. 
 
 un'ter (oon), under. 
 
 TJn'ter d£n LIu'dSn, " Under the Lindens," a street in 
 Berlin. 
 
 von (fon), of. 
 
 Wart burg (vart'boork), a forest-covered hill near Eisen- 
 ach. 
 
 Weih'nacht (vi), Holy Night, Christmas Eve. 
 
 Weih'nachts baum (bowm), Christmas tree. 
 
 Wend'llng (vSnt), a name. 
 
 Went'zSl (vSnt), a name. 
 
 Wil'hSlm (vil), William. 
 
 wrfl kSm'mSn (vil), welcome. 
 
 Zwle'back (tsve), twice baked, a kind of biscuit or rusk. 
 
LITTLE-PEOPLE 
 
EVERYWH