. One of the boys pulled the
pipe out of his pocket with a yell; Aloys tried to seize it, but it
passed from hand to hand with shouts of laughter, and the more
impatiently he demanded it the less it was forthcoming, until it
disappeared altogether, and every one professed to know nothing of what
had become of it. Aloys began to whimper, which made them laugh still
more; so at last he snatched the cap of the first robber from his head,
and ran with it into the house of Jacob the blacksmith. Then the
capless one brought the pipe, which had been hidden in the wood-yard.

Jacob Bomiller the blacksmith's house was what is called Aloys'
"go-out." He was always there when not at home, and never at home after
his work was done. Aunt Applon, (Apollonia,) Jacob's wife, was his
cousin; and; besides his own mother and us children, she and her eldest
daughter Mary Ann always called him by his right name. In the morning
he would get up early, and, after having fed and watered his two cows
and his heifer, he always went to Jacob's house and knocked at the door
until Mary Ann opened it. With a simple "Good-morning," he passed
through the stable into the barn. The cattle knew his step, and always
welcomed him with a complacent growl and a turn of the head: he never
stopped to return the compliment, but went into the barn and filled the
cribs of the two oxen and the two cows. He was on particularly good
terms with the roan cow. He had raised her from a calf; and, when he
stood by her and watched her at her morning meal, she often licked his
hands, to the improvement of his toilet. Then he would open the door of
the stable and restore its neatness and good order, often chatting
cosily to the dumb beasts as he made them turn to the right or left.
Not a dunghill in the village was so broad and smooth and with such
clean edges as the one which Aloys built before the house of Jacob the
blacksmith; for a fine dunghill is the greatest ornament to a
villager's door-front in the Black Forest. The next thing he did was to
wash and curry the oxen and cows until you might have seen your face in
their sleek hides. This done, he ran to the pump before the house and
filled the trough with water: the cattle, unchained, ran out to drink;
while he spread fresh straw in their stalls. Thus, by the time that
Mary Ann came to the stable to milk the cows, she found every thing
neat and clean. Often, when a cow was "skittish," and kicked, Aloys
stood by her and