But stumbling homewards, the good man swears at the "bad" wife who is coming to meet him without a light through this ghastly fog; and when finally, his hat awry and jammed low on his forehead, he tumbles into the hut, the woman knows what beatings she has already borne and may receive again, if she does not hasten and escape into the garret or some safe place.
My voyages of discovery have cheered me more than I should have thought possible. A sad fate hangs over this little people, but this fate sometimes makes an unspeakably droll face. Besides I do not consider these foresters so utterly depraved and wretched. They are neglected and uncouth. Perhaps something might be made of them; but first the leaven must be added.
The race will not die out so easily. Right here in the damp, dark forest-land the little ones flourish like mushrooms. The youngsters follow the path of their elders and carry the grappling-iron for roots, or the herdsman’s staff, or the hatchet for pitch, or the axe for wood.
But, according to the reports made to the priest in Holdenschlag, the forest children are all girls. The boys are mostly christened with the water of the woods; they are recorded in no parish-register, that they may remain unnoticed outside by the bailiffs and omitted from the military list. The men here say that the government and whatever belongs to it costs them more than it would be worth to them, and they will renounce it. That may be all true, but the government does not renounce the healthy Winkelstegers.
The girls also, when they are somewhat fledged, soon take up ant- and root-digging, gathering herbs, and they know of a market for everything; they pick strawberries and hops and the fruit of the juniper for the brandy-distillers. And the little boys, still too young to look after themselves, already help with the brandy-drinking.
A short time ago I watched a troop of children. They are playing under a larch-tree. The fallen larch-cones are their stags and roes, which they are pretending to feed with green brushwood. Others run about playing "Hide and Seek" behind the bushes, "Holding Salt," "Driving out Hawks," "Going to Heaven and Hell," and whatever all the tricks and games are called. It is pleasant to watch them; to be sure they are all half naked, but they have well-formed and healthy limbs, and their games are more childishly gay than any which I have ever seen other children play. This is the vulnerable spot of the horny Siegfried, who is here called _Waldteufel_.