in their furs, and pine trees, and cocks and hens, and all sorts
of animals, and now and then--very reverently--a Madonna and
Child. It was all very rough, for there was no one to teach him
anything. But it was all lifelike, and kept the whole troop of
children shrieking with laughter, or watching breathless, with
wide open, wondering, awed eyes.

They were all so happy; what did they care for the snow outside?
Their little bodies were warm, and their hearts merry; even
Dorothea, troubled about the bread for the morrow, laughed as she
spun; and August, with all his soul in his work, and little rosy
Ermengilda's cheek on his shoulder, glowing after his frozen
afternoon, cried out loud, smiling, as he looked up at the stove
that was shedding its heat down on them all:--

"Oh, dear Hirschvogel! you are almost as great and good as the
sun! No; you are greater and better, I think, because he goes away
nobody knows where all these long, dark, cold hours, and does not
care how people die for want of him; but you--you are always
ready; just a little bit of wood to feed you, and you will make a
summer for us all the winter through!"

The grand old stove seemed to smile through all its iridescent
surface at the praises of the child. No doubt the stove, though it
had known three centuries and more, had known but very little
gratitude.

It was one of those magnificent stoves in enameled faience which
so excited the jealousy of the other potters of Nurnberg that in a
body they demanded of the magistracy that Augustin Hirschvogel