"We really must go home," whispered mother. "Trudel will be anxious."
"Oh, but mother I want to dance round the fire with the fairies, and I want a fairy wand with shooting stars," said Lotty almost aloud.
Suddenly it seemed as if the fairies became aware that they were observed. They vanished away, and all became dark. Lottchen said she could hear the sound of little feet stamping out the fire.
"Fairies, dear fairies, come again, do," said Lotty.
No answer, perfect stillness, not even a leaf stirred.
"Well, you are not so polite as our tree man, not half," said Lotty, "though you are so pretty. Good night," she shouted.
There was a sound of suppressed laughter; then from hill and dale the word "good night" was echoed all around. Spellbound, as if in a trance, they moved toward the farm. Trudel was wild with herself when she heard what she had missed.
"_To-morrow_," she said, but to-morrow is sometimes a long, long way off, and the fairies did not show themselves again during these holidays.
One of Lottchen's favourite walks was the echo walk, but she usually came home quite hoarse after having been this way. The path wound below the fairy heath on the incline of the hill; further down still were the fir-woods through which the light shone.
"Angel-pet!" "Cherry-ripe!" "Cheeky fellow!" "You're another!" So Lotty shouted the whole time, and the echoes came back so surprisingly distinct that Lotty was sure it must be really the fairies answering her. When you turned the corner of the hill, the echoes ceased. It was too queer.
The next day Trudel distinguished herself again. Two great cart-loads of swedes arrived that were to be stored up as fodder for the cattle in the winter. Now the joy was to throw these through a hole in the wall into the cellar. Hermann stood in the cart and Trudel threw the swedes to him as the bricklayers throw the bricks to one another. Fritz and Lottchen helped too; they had to take their turn and be very quick, as the hole was small. Hour after hour this went on, till the children were as black as chimney sweeps, and yet Trudel's energy did not fail. At last the carts were empty, and only then did the little workers leave off, dead tired.
Hermann could make curious heads out of the swedes, with eyes and nose and mouth. If you put an old candle-end inside, they looked ghastly, like some Chinese god. Lotty declared that they rolled about in the yard at night and grinned at her, and that she did not like "heads without people."