I was now allowed to sketch freely in the streets without hindrance or interruption, save for the presence of the younglings, which, after all, need not prove distracting or disconcerting. On the contrary, it may be even stimulating. Their criticism, for one thing, is largely enthusiastic, and this sometimes proves contagious. “_Fein!_” “_Hübsch!_” The pencil probably makes effort to prove worthy of such compliment. Then again, there is generally something patient and gently apologetic in the presence of a child, while one grown-up looking over the shoulder is usually sufficient for disconcertment. I am sketching the Kirchestrasse. The name, however, is not visible at my end of the street, and I make inquiry of the little girl who for the last ten minutes has been standing quietly by my side. She misunderstands me at first, and upon my sketch-block writes her own name, “Charlotte Reseler.” There let it remain to add the value of a memory to the drawing. On one such sketching expedition I was overtaken by a motor-waggon, packed with German soldiers, straight from the front, who seemed somewhat surprised to see me thus walking alone through the streets of the town with a sketch-block under my arm. The waggon was decorated with fir branches, while chalked upon the sides were such inscriptions as “Nach der Heimat!” In the streets also were decorations, flags and fir festoons, and garlands bearing the legend, “Willkommen!” One thing, however, cannot be lifted from these streets, nor lightened into them, and that is the dejection of defeat; the flush of victory. [Illustration: THE OLDEST HOUSE IN BEESKOW.] I was sketching what is, since the burning of the “Grüne Baum,” the oldest house in Beeskow. I had hardly started, when the proprietor of the shop in the lower part of the building came running over, and, talking too rapidly for my entire comprehension, gave me to understand at least that he desired something added to my sketch. He disappeared, and in a few minutes there was unfurled from an upper window a great chocolate and white flag of Brandenburg. A little boy had all this while stood quietly by my side, save when, quite unbidden, he went over, and placed himself by the front of the house, just at the proper spot, that I might put him into the picture. He spoke now, but whether for my information or encouragement I know not. “England,” said he, “hat gewonnen--Deutschland hat verloren!” I turned to look at him; he was but nine or ten, yet his voice sounded so forlornly that to me, standing in this street of gathering dusk and down-trodden snow, there came a sense of the awful tragedy of defeat! A SOLDIERS’ BALL