“And do you remember how we used to play ‘Lost in the woods’?” he reminded her, “and Zippel and your Aunt couldn’t find us, and we lay hidden under the old broken boat, laughing and watching your Aunt and Zippel through the cracks as they ran around and wrung their hands?” They both laughed merrily. At every stage of life the preceding stage is childhood, reminiscent of things to laugh at. “Where have you been?” he soon asked her, settling down astride a backless chair. “With my grandfather near Freiburg—we lived near the Schwarzwald—but he died and then grandma died and then I had nobody but Aunt Graettel—she is my great-aunt—and she brought me here.” She heaved a sigh, sadness coming over her face. “Why didn’t you go to your mother?” he asked naively. “I have no mother—I have no father either—they had died before I was two—my father was killed by the thieves.—” She was finishing her toilet as she spoke, having donned a flaming red blouse, and halted for a moment absently, staring blankly in front of her. “Was your father a headman, too?” She nodded, the sadness of her face deepening, and catching her breath she said, “My father was a headman and his father and my grandfather’s father, also my mother’s father. Aunt Graettel is my grandfather’s sister.” Albert gave an involuntary shudder. Zippel had told him so many gruesome tales about headmen. They were all cursed and must cut off men’s heads whether they wanted to or not. Nobody associated with headmen or their children and, like a race apart, lived isolated and intermarried only among themselves. “Are you going to be here long?” he asked. She was hooking her blouse, which fastened on the side, and her eyes were downcast, following her nimble fingers. “I have no other place to go to,” she presently replied. “And I am glad my grandma died so I could come here.” Albert again shuddered. He was not glad his grandmother had died. “Did she beat you?” “No, she didn’t beat me—I wouldn’t let anyone beat me—.” She turned her eyes fiercely upon him as if he had threatened her. “But it was with, those three old hags at their distaffs, drinking and quarreling all the time—from morning till night—oh, I am glad they are all dead!” “Your Aunt Graettel is good to you, isn’t she?” Albert’s voice was sympathetic. He was glad Hedwiga was no more with those drinking witches. “She is very good to me. She is usually in town all day, and when she gets back she always brings me something nice. And I sit on the bank, down the slope, and watch the skiffs go by, and when nobody is around I go swimming on the edge of the river—.”