"How did you get out without my seeing you afterwards?" Otto wanted to know all about it.
"Oh! while you were running around with the other boys, I got out easily enough. I listened; but yesterday and to-day, as I was not certain where you were, I went through the teacher's kitchen, and asked his wife if she had any errand for me to do,—she often gives me a message to carry somewhere,—and then I went out that way. Yesterday I was behind the kitchen-door when you ran into the schoolroom."
Now Otto knew all the ghost story. He offered his hand again to Wiseli. "I thank you," he said; and they both ran off with happy hearts, each a separate way.
OLD AND NEW.
Summer was over, and Autumn had followed in her footsteps. The evenings were cool and misty. In the damp meadows the cows were eating the last grass of the season, and here and there little fires were visible where the sheep-boys cooked their potatoes and warmed their stiffened fingers.
It was on such a misty evening that Otto, on leaving the schoolhouse, ran home for a moment to tell his mother that he was going to see what kept Wiseli from school; for she had not been there since the autumn vacation,—certainly not for eight days.
As he approached the beech grove, he saw Rudi sitting before the door, eating pear after pear from a heap that lay before him.
"Where is Wiseli?" asked Otto.
"Outside," was the answer.