The sun had set and it was growing dark among the bushes in the garden, where the children, with red cheeks, were seeking each other and hiding again. All of a sudden there came a loud, penetrating call: "To bed, to bed!" Ritz had just found a fine hiding-place in the henhouse, where he had comfortably settled, secure from being discovered, when this terrible call reached him. It struck him like a thunderbolt. Yes, it took his breath away so that he turned white and hadn't the strength to rise; for, with the call came the remembrance of the three sentences which he had to write: three whole sentences and nine different qualities, and he had forgotten everything, and now all the time had gone and he had to go to bed.
"Where are you, Ritz?" It sounded into his hiding-place. "Come, crawl out. I know you are in there and will be covered with feathers from head to foot."
The aunt stood before the henhouse, and Sally and Kaetheli beside her full of expectation, for they had sought Ritz for a long time in vain. But Auntie had experience in such things. Ritz actually came crawling out of the henhouse and stood now in a lamentable condition before his aunt.
"How you do look! You ought to have been in bed an hour ago, you haven't a drop of blood in your cheeks," the aunt exclaimed. "What is the matter with you, Ritz?"
"Where is Mamma?" asked Ritz in his fright.
"She is upstairs; come, she will put you to bed at once when I have got you finally together. Come, Sally, and you, Kaetheli, go home now."
With these words she took Ritz by the hand, and drew him up the stone steps into the house, and wanted to bring him up the stairs to the bedroom. Then everything was over and no rescue from going to bed at once. Now Ritz stopped his aunt and groaned: "I must—I must—I have to write three sentences for punishment."
"There we have it." But Ritz looked so miserable that Auntie felt great pity for him. "Come in here," she said, and shoved him into the living-room, "and take out your things."
Now she sat down beside him and the whole affair proceeded finely. Not that Auntie formed the sentences, no indeed, she was not going to cheat the teacher; but she knew well what was needed to form a sentence and she pushed and spurred Ritz and brought so many things before him, and reminded him how they looked, that he had his three sentences and his nine qualities together in no time. Now there came a feeling to Ritz that he had not acted right, when he said that an aunt must not always be reminding people, and when now Auntie asked: "Ritz, why had you to write the sentences?" then the feeling grew stronger in him, for he felt that he could not tell the cause of his punishment without making his aunt angry. He stuttered, "I have—I have—the teacher has said, that I made an unfitting sentence."
"Yes, I can imagine that," said Auntie. "Now quickly to bed."