It was Saturday afternoon, and Caspar, Michael, Fritz, and little Bessy were playing before their house, when presently little Hans came running toward them, and breathlessly cried:
“What have I seen? what have I seen?”
“What have you seen, then?” exclaimed all the children with one voice, collecting around him.
“A monster! a frightful monster!” answered Hans, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“You are afraid of your own shadow, fearful Hans,” said Caspar mockingly; “perhaps your neighbor’s black cat has turned her fiery eyes on you again.”
“I am not afraid of my shadow,” answered Hans angrily; “had you only been there, your ridicule would soon have vanished. A cat is not a bit like a grasshopper—a fearful great grasshopper, on which one could ride!”
At this the children wondered very much; and when Hans related that he had seen the monster in the shepherd’s hut in the field—that it had horns, and such a voice that the whole hut trembled—they almost believed him; and little Fritz thought: “Who knows if it is not one of the rhinoceroses of which Herr Gulmann told us yesterday?”
“Has the monster done you any harm?” asked little Bessy.
“No,” answered Hans; “when I screamed, it shrank back into its house.”
“But I must go and see it,” said Caspar; “and, if you will all follow, I will go now.”