stoves are black, and it had flowers and birds and beautiful ladies
and grand gentlemen painted all over it, and everywhere it was
brilliant with gold and bright colors. It was a very old stove, for
sixty years before, Karl's grandfather had dug it up out of some
broken-down buildings where he was working, and, finding it strong and
whole, had taken it home; and ever since then it had stood in the big
room, warming the children, who tumbled like little flowers around its
shining feet. The grandfather did not know it, but it was a wonderful
stove, for it had been made by a great potter named Hirschvogel.

A potter, you know, children, is a man who makes all sorts of things,
dishes and tiles and vases, out of china and porcelain and clay. So
the family had always called the stove Hirschvogel, after the potter,
just as if it were alive.

To the children the stove was very dear indeed. In summer they laid a
mat of fresh moss all around it, and dressed it up with green boughs
and beautiful wild flowers. In winter, scampering home from school
over the ice and snow, they were always happy, knowing that they would
soon be cracking nuts or roasting chestnuts in the heat and light of
the dear old stove. All the children loved it, but Karl even more than
the rest, and he used to say to himself, "When I grow up I will make
just such things too, and then I will set Hirschvogel up in a
beautiful room that I will build myself. That's what I will do when
I'm a man."

After Karl had eaten his supper, this cold night, he lay down on the
floor by the stove, the children all around him, on the big wolf-skin
rug. With some sticks of charcoal he was drawing pictures for them of
what he had seen all day. When the children had looked enough at one