"Yes, papa," Willi and Lili joined in simultaneously, "and we found a very difficult puzzle. It is even too hard for Rolf to guess. We think it is a Rebus."
"If you give me time, I'll guess it," declared Rolf.
"The whole house seems to be teeming with riddles," said the father, "and the riddle fever has taken possession of us all. We ought to employ a person for the sole purpose of guessing riddles."
"Yes, if only I could find such a person," sighed Rolf. To make riddles for some one who would really listen and solve them intelligently seemed to him the most desirable thing on earth.
After lunch the whole family, including Miss Hanenwinkel, went outside to sit in a circle under the apple tree, the women and girls with some sewing or knitting. Even little Hun held a rather doubtful looking piece of material in his hand into which he planted large stitches with some crimson thread. It was to be a present for Jul in the shape of a cover for his horse. Jul, according to his mother's wish, had brought out a book from which he was supposed to read aloud. Rolf sat under the mountain-ash some distance away, studying Latin. Willi, who was expected to learn some verses by heart, sat beside him. The small boy gazed in turn at the birds on the branches overhead, at the workmen in the field below, and at the tempting red apples. Willi preferred visible objects to invisible ones and found it difficult to get anything into his head. It was a great exertion even to try, and he generally accomplished it, only with Lili's help. His study-hour in the afternoon, therefore, consisted mostly in contemplating the landscape round about.
Jul, that day, seemed to prefer similar observations to reading aloud. He had not even opened his book yet, and after letting his glances roam far and wide, they always came back to his sister Paula.
"Paula," he said now, "you have a face today as if you were a living collection of worries and annoyances."
"Why don't you read aloud, Jul, instead of making comparisons nobody can understand?" retorted Paula.
"Why don't you begin, Jul?" said the mother. "But, Paula, I can't help wondering, either, why you have been in such a wretched humor lately. What makes you so reserved and out of sorts?"
"I should like to know why I should be confiding, when there is no one to confide in. I have not a single girl friend in Tannenberg, and nobody at all to talk to."