"I'll tell
you all about it afterwards, mother. Be sure that I am doing something
right that ought to be done," he reassured her. "If only I can go now."
Having obtained permission, he shot away, and arriving at the
school-house, flew into the midst of a crowd of boys. But before their
plan could be carried out the children were obliged to sit two whole
hours on the school-benches. It truly seemed to-day as if they would
never end.
Lux, the sexton's boy, who preferred pulling the bell-rope and being
violently drawn up by it to sitting in school, tapped his neighbor's
sleeve.
"How late is it, Max?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Max," Lux whispered again, "the second expedition will be more fun than
the first. I look forward to it more, don't you?"
"You can look forward to the shame-bench if you don't keep quiet," Max
retorted, squinting with his eyes in the direction of the teacher.
The latter had actually directed his eyes to the side where the
whisperers sat. Lux, bending over his book, kept quiet at last. Finally
the longed-for hour came and in a few minutes the whole swarm was
outside. With a great deal of noise, but in a quick and pretty orderly
fashion they now formed a procession, which began to move in the
direction of Apollonie's little house. Here a halt was made. Kurt,
climbing to the top of a heap of logs, which lay in the pathway, stood
upright, while the others grouped themselves about him.
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