obliged to live there because otherwise he would have to be called
there, and that would have been inconvenient. This peace-making man was
Kaetheli's father. And the other was old Marianne, who lived in her own
house and pulled horse-hair for a living, and never did harm to anyone.

When on the next morning the three children of the parsonage passed
Marianne's house on their way to school, Sally said: "It is fun to go to
school to-day for the strange boy of yesterday will come too; if we only
knew his name. Kaetheli described him to me; he wears velvet pants. Of
course he will come to Upper Wood to school."

"Of course," said Edi with a dignified air; "who would think of going to
Lower Wood to School?"

"Of course, who would go there to school?" observed Ritz.

Then the three in perfect harmony entered the schoolhouse. But no
strange face was to be seen in the whole schoolroom; everything went on
in the usual way to the end of the morning. Then everyone hurried away
in different directions. Sally was standing there, somewhat undecided;
she would like to have heard something new of the strange boy and his
mother, for she loved to hear news, and now not even Kaetheli, with whom
she talked things over, had been in school. But now she saw Edi soaring
along like an arrow into the midst of a crowd of boys, and they all
acted so strangely and they shouted so strangely that Sally thought that
something particular must be in preparation there, and no doubt
concerned the new-comers. Then she could hear something from Edi. She
went slowly on and kept on turning round, but Edi did not come, and only
after Sally had long since greeted the mother and was about to call her
father out of his study for dinner, did the two brothers come running