The rosary flew clattering down on the wooden chair; hastily she snatched her clothes; she rushed to the hearth, and soon Frederick heard her walk across the hall with defiant steps. Margaret did not return; but in the kitchen there was a loud murmuring of strange voices. Twice a strange man came into the bedroom and seemed to be nervously searching for something. Suddenly a lamp was brought in; two men were supporting his mother. She was white as chalk and her eyes were closed; Frederick thought she was dead. He emitted a fearful scream, whereupon some one boxed his ear. That silenced him; and now he gradually gleaned from the remarks of the bystanders that his father had been found dead in the woods by his Uncle Franz Semmler and by Huelsmeyer, and was now lying in the kitchen.
As soon as Margaret regained consciousness she tried to get rid of the strangers. Her brother remained with her, and Frederick, who was threatened with severe punishment if he got out of bed, heard the fire crackling in the kitchen all night and a noise like stroking something back and forth, and brushing it. There was little spoken and that quietly, but now and then sobs broke out that went through and through the child, young as he was. Once he understood his uncle to say, "Margaret, don't take it so badly; we will all have three masses read, and at Eastertide we'll make together a pilgrimage to the Holy Virgin of Werl."
When the body was carried away two days later, Margaret sat on the hearth and covered her face with her apron. After a few minutes, when everything had become quiet, she mumbled, "Ten years, ten crosses! But we carried them together, after all, and now I am alone!" Then louder, "Fritzy, come here!"
Frederick approached her timidly; his mother had become quite uncanny to him with her black ribbons and her haggard, troubled face. "Fritzy," she said, "will you now really be good and make me happy, or will you be naughty and lie, or drink and steal?"
"Mother, Huelsmeyer steals."
"Huelsmeyer? God forbid! Must I spank you? Who tells you such wicked things?"
"The other day he beat Aaron and took six groschen from him."
"If he took money from Aaron, no doubt the accursed Jew had first cheated him out of it. Huelsmeyer is a respectable householder, and the Jews are all rascals!"
"But, mother, Brandes also says that he steals wood and deer."
"Child, Brandes is a forester."