"I suppose you mean to ask, 'Did it ever grow on people's heads?' my dear. No. It is the wool of a kind of goat. But the black hair is real hair. Most dolls, however, wear light wigs. People usually prefer them."
"Do little girls in Sonneberg help make the dolls, just as Bertha and
I help you on the Santa Claus images?" asked Gretchen.
"Certainly. They fill the bodies with sawdust, and do other easy things. But they go to school, too, just as you and Bertha do. Lessons must not be slighted."
"If I had to help make dolls, just as I do these images," said Gretchen to her sister as their father went out and left the children together, "I don't believe I'd care for the handsomest one in the whole toy fair. I'd be sick of the very sight of them."
"Look at the time, Bertha. See, we must stop our work and start for school," exclaimed Gretchen.
It was only seven o'clock in the morning, but school would begin in half an hour. These little German girls had to study longer and harder than their American cousins. They spent at least an hour a day more in their schoolrooms.
As they trudged along the road, they passed a little stream which came trickling down the hillside.
"I wonder if there is any story about that brook," said Bertha. "There's a story about almost everything in our dear old country, I'm sure."
"You have heard father tell about the stream flowing down the side of the Kandel, haven't you?" asked Gretchen.
"Yes, I think so. But I don't remember it very well. What is the story, Gretchen?"