drifted through the house. At least I
never had what could be called a really good appetite during this
period, despite the fact that it would have been particularly worth
while just then. Especially would such have been the case when, as
usually happened about the first of December, a stag was sent in from
the chief forester's and was hung up, eviscerated, as game usually is,
against the gable end of the servants' house. Day after day the cook
would go to this horrible gable ornament and cut out, first the
haunch, then the shoulders and legs, with the result that we always
heaved a sigh of relief when the glory of this venison was a thing of
the past.

A far happier time was the baking week, which began with spice-nuts
and sugar cookies, and ended with bretzels, wreath-cakes, and cakes
baked on tins. Not only were we admitted to the bakeroom, where there
was a most alluring odor of bitter almonds and grated lemons; we also
received, as a foretaste of Christmas, a bountiful supply of little
cake-rolls, baked especially for us children. "I know," said my
mother, "that the children will upset their stomachs eating them, but
even that is better than that they should be restricted to too low a
diet. They shall have joyful holiday feeling during all these days,
and nothing can give it to them better than holiday cakes." There is
something in that view, and it may be absolutely right if the children
are thoroughly robust. But we were not so robust that the principle
could be applied to us without modification. And so, about Christmas
time, I was always much given to crying.

On New Year's Eve there was a club ball, which I, being the oldest
child, was allowed to witness. I took my position in one corner of the
hall and looked on with vacillating feelings. When the dancing couples
whirled past me I was happy, on the one hand, because I was permitted
to stand there as a sort of guest and share in the pleasure with my
eyes, and yet, on the other hand, I was unhappy, because I was merely
an onlooker instead of a participator in the dance. My personal
insignificance weighed heavy upon me, doubly heavy because of the
gastric condition I was regularly in at this reason, and it continued
so until the nightwatchman, wrapped in his long blue cloak, came into
the hall at midnight and, after blowing a preliminary signal on his
horn, wished everybody a happy New Year. Then, as if by magic, my
feeling of sentimentality vanished entirely,