"Ja, ja, little one," said Hans, "it is German to love all Nature, and, truly, our forest is beautiful."
Bettina nodded and gazed about at the tall giant-like pines and her little nose drew in the deep fragrance of the firs. She was glad that she did not live in Jena, but deep in this lovely Thuringian wood, where the trunks of the trees looked like armies of soldiers. There were lovely things in the forest.
In its thick, pine-needle carpet grew lovely toadstools, red and yellow and brown, and sometimes all queerly shaped and striped and just like umbrellas and parasols. And the moss was thick and grew like a velvet carpet and raised up the dearest little red cups, and the ferns waved like feathers, and, in spring, there were the lilies of the valley which rang tiny white bells for the fairies to come and dance round the gay little toadstools. And, later, there were the Canterbury bells, so lovely and purple. And, in and out the trees, ran great, bushy-tailed red squirrels who peeped at her with eyes bright and sparkling, and sometimes she saw little companies of deer and tiny fawns with their mothers, and their eyes were like "Little Brother" in the fairy tale, for it was in these very forests that some of the witches once lived, and the fairies in "Grimm," and many of the people of the German stories.
Bettina knew that the fairies slept on the moss and danced under the toadstools, only it was strange that she never had seen them, nor had her mother, nor her father, nor her grandfather, nor Willy.
But they were there. All the stories said so.
"Do you think, grandfather," she asked, "that 'Little Brother' really was turned into a fawn?"
"Who can tell, Kindlein?" answered old Hans, but his mind was on other things than Bettina and her fairy tales.
"Hard times! hard times!" he muttered. "Always war somewhere, and what then for poor people? Work! Work! Work!"
Bettina was too small to understand, but, certainly, affairs were gloomy.
The King of Prussia had declared war upon the Emperor of the French; the Duke of Weimar, ruler of the forest they were walking through and friend of the great poet, Goethe, had joined the king as his ally. And now soldiers were round about and everywhere.