There lived in the Black Forest a widow by the name of Frau Barbara Munkin; her husband had been a charcoal-burner, and after his death she brought up her son to the same business. Young Peter Munk, a cunning fellow of sixteen, was much pleased to sit all the week round on his smoking piles of wood, just as he had seen his father do; or, all black and sooty as he was, and a scarecrow to the people, he would go down to the towns to sell his charcoal. But a charcoal-burner has plenty of time to think about himself and others; and when Peter Munk sat on his half-burned piles of wood, the dark trees about him and the deep stillness of the forest disposed him to tears and filled his heart with nameless longings. Something troubled him, and he could not well make out what it was. Finally he discovered what it was that had so put him out of sorts; it was his occupation. "A lonely black charcoal-burner," reflected he. "It is a miserable life. How respectable are the glassmakers, the watchmakers, and even the musicians of a Sunday evening! And when Peter Munk, cleanly-washed and brushed, appears dressed in his father's best jacket with silver buttons and with bran-new red stockings, and when one walks behind me and thinks, Who is that stylish-looking fellow? and inwardly praises my stockings and my stately walk--when he passes by me and turns around to look, he is sure to say to himself: 'Oh, it's only Charcoal Pete!'" The raftsmen on the other side of the forest also aroused his envy. When these giants came over among the glass-makers, dressed in their elegant clothes, wearing at least fifty pounds of silver in buttons, buckles, and chains, when they looked on at a dance, with legs spread wide apart, swore in Dutch, and smoked pipes from Cologne three feet long in the stem, just like any distinguished Mynheer--then was Peter convinced that such a raftsman was the very picture of a lucky man. And when these fortunate beings put their hands into their pockets and drew out whole handfuls of thalers and shook for half a-dozen at a throw--five guldens here, ten there--then he would nearly lose his senses, and would steal home to his hut in a very melancholy mood. On many holiday nights he had seen one or another of these timber merchants lose more at play than his poor father had ever been able to earn in a year.