"Not now," said mother, "it's going to be a surprise."
"Did mother see him too?"
"Do you think so?" said Lottchen. "Mother's a fairy herself."
"I think," said Trudel, "she sees all sorts of queer things; but she won't tell us everything she sees."
"It spoils some things to tell about them," said Lottchen. "I shan't tell Hermann and Fritz about the tree man."
However, when she got home again, she could not contain herself. "Do you believe in fairies and tree men?" she said to the boys.
"Of course not, that's all rot," said Hermann. "Like Santa Claus and such things, just invented to stuff us up!"
"Santa Claus will never come to you any more if you talk like that; he is quite true, I know. Trudel saw him come in last year when she was in bed, and she heard him filling our stockings. Of course she did not dare to turn round and look at him," said Lottchen.
"I don't say it isn't nice to believe such things," said Hermann conscientiously, "but it isn't true; it's superstitious. You know quite well, Trudel, who Santa Claus really is."
Trudel was silent; she was ten years old, and she had her doubts.