Erick and Sally | Page 6

had lingered to the last moment. The father was just leaving his study when both rushed toward him and now it began: "We have--the Middle Lotters--with the Lower Wooders--"
"Hush, hush," said the father. "First get your breath, then relate, one after the other; but before anything, first the soup." With these words the father took Ritz's hand, and Sally and Edi followed them into the dining-room. Sally pulled Edi a little back and whispered:
"Tell me quickly, what did they tell about the strange boy?"
"About him?" returned Edi in a somewhat scornful tone. "I had forgotten all about him! We have something else to do than to talk about a strange boy, of whom one does not even know whether he will come to Upper Wood to school."
This answer was somewhat unexpected to Sally and had a saddening effect; but she always could find a way out of an unpleasant situation. So she sat as still as a mouse during the whole time the soup was eaten, and her thoughts were hard at work.
Now the father turned to Edi and said: "Now you can relate your adventure, while Ritz remains quiet, and afterwards his turn will come." Ritz looked quite obedient for he had two large noodles on his plate to work with.
But Edi, in a moment, put down knife and fork and quickly began: "Just think, Papa, we have made three songs, one for each parish. First, the Lower Wooders began. The sixth class were angry because we laughed at them, that they only now have to make sentences, and we in the fourth class have begun to write them already. They made a song about us which runs:
"'Of Upper Wood the boys They in their minds rejoice Because they think that they the cleverest are, But if ever they must fight They are in sorry plight And they turn round and run for ever so far.'
"How do you like that song, Papa?"
"Well, that is such as Lower Wooders would make," said the father.
"And then," Edi continued, "we have made a song for an answer, that goes thus:
"'And of Lower Wood the crowd They always yell so loud That they never, never stay within their den, For all dispute and strife They are much alive For they use their fists when they ought to use their pen.'
"How do you like this one, Papa?"
"Just about the same. And who has sung about the Middle Lot?" asked the father.
"The Lower Wooders and we together; they too had to have a song, but the shortest, as it ought to be. It runs so:
"'And they of Middle Lot They all together plot That they are striving zealously for peace, But with quarrelling they never cease.'
"And how do you like that, Papa?"
"They are, all three of them, kind of fighting songs, Edi," answered the father, "and I should prefer that you keep busy with your history studies, instead of taking sides in these party-fights. One never knows where one comes out, and such poetry usually ends with lumps on the heads."
Edi seemed much disappointed as he attacked his noodles with a visibly spoiled appetite.
"And what has been your experience, Sally? Why are you so pensive?" the father continued.
"Kaetheli was not at school," reported Sally, "and I had so much to talk over with her. Perhaps she is sick; may I go to see her this afternoon? We have no school, you know."
"Aha, Sally wants to see the strange boy," the sharp-witted Edi remarked.
"You may go, Sally," the mother said, answering a questioning look from the father. "But you will not go into any house where you have no business, just to look at strangers. I know you are capable of doing such things. You can start soon after dinner."
Sally was very happy. She quickly fetched her straw hat and took leave. But outside she did not run straight through the passage-way as she usually did in similar cases, but went to the kitchen door and peeped in, and when she saw 'Lizebeth at the sink, where the latter was scraping her pans, she went in very close to the old woman and said somewhat mysteriously: "'Lizebeth, does Edi or Ritz perhaps have a torn mattress on their bed?"
'Lizebeth stopped scraping and turned round. She looked at Sally from head to foot, put her hands on her hips and said very slowly and importantly: "May I ask what you mean by that question, Sally? Do you think this household is so carried on that one lies about on ragged mattresses and sleeps, until a little one, who is far from old enough to turn a mattress, thinks of coming to ask 'does not this one or that one have a ragged mattress' on his bed? Yes, Sally, what cobwebs you do have in your head."
"I do