First each little girl took her herd of geese to the meadow by the brook, and left her flock in charge of an old woman who had nothing else to do but tend geese. Then they met Jozef, who had finished his chores of feeding the cattle and pigs, and Helena, who was older and helped her mother at home. All were dressed in old but bright colored clothes, and all were barefoot and bareheaded, the girls' corn-colored hair hanging in long braids down their backs. All carried baskets in which now lay a little lunch. When they started, Jozef did not walk beside the others, but ran on ahead or lagged behind. He was afraid, since this was a girls' party, that some of his boy friends might call him a "sissy." He wouldn't have been left out, however, for the world. It was still early in the morning, but there was already a heavy warmth in the air, so that the coolness they found underneath the tall trees when they reached them, was very welcome. The road had been dusty, but here the moss and grass were still wet with dew and gave forth a fragrant, pungent odor. The owner did not live in the wood, the only buildings in it being the picturesque log cabin of the forester or caretaker, and a beautiful hunting lodge. Soon the fun began. "Hurrah!" shouted Jozef, discovering two mushrooms, or champignons, showing a brown and a red head above the moss. Such a scampering as there was among the trees until every basket was filled to overflowing. Here Etelka, the youngest of the party, found one that she thought the prize of all. It was red with white raised spots. "Come here!" she cried. "I have found a new kind. Shall I taste it?" Helena took two rapid leaps toward her. "Drop it! Drop it!" she exclaimed. "That's a poison muchomurka. Never, never taste anything of which you are not certain if you don't wish to die." "I thought it prettier than the red ones you found," said Etelka, somewhat abashed. "It is entirely different," and then Helena showed her how it differed and again impressed on all to confine themselves to those they knew. Then the baskets were put down in a circle and the children played hide-and-seek among brown trunked firs with long gray mosses festooned from branch to branch, knotted larch trees, and pines dripping with balsam. At last, tired, they sank down on some netted roots and ate their lunch of thick slices of rye bread spread with goose fat. "I found some sweet-root here once," Jozef volunteered when they had eaten every morsel. "Where?" the girls asked eagerly. Jozef had very vague notions as to where. "Let's agree," suggested Helena, "each to give a nice mushroom to the one who finds some sweet-root first." All were willing, and with shouting, laughter and song the search began. Several times Jozef was quite certain that the prize was his, but it was little Etelka who actually found some underneath some blackberry leaves.