His mother had thought how wonderful it would be to teach him the rudiments herself, for when she was a young girl with nothing to do at home and a great wish to continue her studies, she had gone to a training college and even passed her examination as a teacher with distinction; but--perhaps that was too long ago, for her strength was not equal to the task. Especially her patience. He made so little progress, was so exceedingly slow. Was the boy stupid? No, but dull, very dull. And it often seemed to her as though she were facing a wall when she spoke to him. "You are much too eager," said her husband. But how on earth was she to make it clear to him that that was an "A" and that an "O," and how was she to explain to him that if you put one and one together it makes two without getting eager? She became excited, she took the ball-frame and counted the blue and red balls that looked like round beads on a string for the boy. She got hot and red, almost hoarse, and would have liked to cry with impatience and discouragement, when Woelfchen sat looking at her with his large eyes without showing any interest, and still did not know that one bead and one bead more make two beads after they had worked at it for hours. She saw to her sorrow that she would have to give up the lessons. "He'll do better with a master," said her husband, consolingly. And it was better, although it could not exactly be termed "good." Wolfgang was not lazy, but his thoughts were always wandering. Learning did not interest him. He had other things to think about: would the last leaves in the garden have fallen when he got home from school at noon? And would the starling, for whom he had nailed the little box high up in the pine-tree, come again next spring? It had picked off all the black berries from the elderberry, and had then gone away screaming; if it did not find any more elderberries, what would it eat then? And the boy's heart was heavy with grief--if only he had given it a little bag of berries when it went away. Now the pines in the Grunewald were covered with snow. When Wolfgang had gone to school that morning, his knapsack on his back, the housemaid at his side, the white layer had crackled and broken under his boots. It was very cold. And then he had heard a bird's shriek, that sounded like a hungry croak. The housemaid thought it was an owl--pooh, what did she know about it? It was a raven, the hungry beggar in the jet-black coat, like the one in the primer.