says that healthy blood and sound limbs are better than money."

"Yes, but a rich man can live where he chooses," quoth Fritz. "If Mayer
Rothschild wished to live in the woods, he could have done so. Couldn't
he, Uncle Braun?"

"Yes, but his living there would only be for pleasure, while the father
of Franz lives there to protect and care for our forests. Each man
should do his duty to the best of his ability in the sphere that
Providence has placed him."

"Boys, do you see that old gray tower rising high above the treetops?"
he continued. "It is the old Eschenheimer tower, and gave its protective
strength to the city wall, which long ago has disappeared; but the old
tower remains a monument of the past. Do you notice that ivy has climbed
to its very top? There was an old saying that when ivy reaches the top
of any high building, the beginning of the end has come, and you will
soon see that building in ruins. But the ivy reached the top long ago,
and the tower still stands."

"And looks strong enough to stand forever," said Paul.

"Did you ever hear of Hans Winkelsee, who was once imprisoned there?"
asked Uncle Braun.

"No. Please tell us about him," said the three eagerly.

"Hans Winkelsee was, in his time, one of the boldest, most daring
robbers that ever infested the Frankfort forests and the foresters did
their best to entrap him and make him their prisoner, but for a long
time he eluded them. At length his time came, and he who had lived the
wild, free life of a bird of prey was in a narrow cell at the top of
Eschenheimer tower, judged guilty of so many crimes that he was
sentenced to death.

"He who had roamed the forest, after deer and other wild animals, and
had lain in wait to plunder travelers, now saw nothing, heard nothing
but the creaking of the weather-vane on the top of the tower, which
tormented him by day and robbed him of sleep by night until he preferred
going to the gallows to longer imprisonment.

"'Oh, that I were free to see the bright sunshine, the moon and the
stars; hear the thrush sing and the owl hoot!' he would say to himself
in the darkness of his cell. 'But I see nothing, hear nothing but the
horrible grating sound overhead.'

"'Well, Winkelsee,' said the jailor one evening as he stood at the cell
door, 'you must feel it a great relief to be safely in here, as would a
bear that had escaped the hunters and the dogs, and was safe in the
depths of his cave.'

"'I could endure i