ete-days for him, he turned his thoughts away, lest he
should grow unhappy.

If Fritz's companion, when within doors, was GrettFa, when he was away
on the plain, or among the furze hills, the Starling was ever with him.
Indeed he could easier have forgotten his little cap of squirrel-skin,
as he went forth in the morning, than the cage, which hung by a string
on his back. This be unfastened when he had led his goats into a
favourable spot for pasturage, and, sitting down beside it, would talk
to the bird for hours. It was a long time before he could succeed in
obeying the Curate's counsel, even in part, and teach the bird not to
cry "Potztausend!" Starlings do not unlearn their bad habits much easier
than men; and, despite all Fritz's teaching, his pupil would burst out
with the forbidden expression on any sudden emergency of surprise;
or sometimes as it happened, when he had remained in a sulky fit for
several days together without uttering a note, he would reply to Fritz's
caresses and entreaties to eat by a sharp, angry "Potztausend!" that
any one less deeply interested than poor Fritz would have laughed at
outright. They were no laughing matters to him. He felt that the work
of civilisation was all to be done over again. But his patience was
inexhaustible; and a circumstance, perhaps, not less fortunate--he had
abundant time at his command. With these good aids he laboured on, now
punishing, now rewarding, ever inventing some new plan of correction,
and at last--as does every one who has that noble quality,
perseverance--at last succeeding,--not, indeed, all at once perfectly;
for Star's principles had been laid down to last, and he struggled hard
not to abandon them, and he persisted to cry "Potz------" for three
months after he had surrendered the concluding two syllables; finally,
however, he gave up even this; and no temptation of sudden noise, no
riotous conduct of the villagers after nightfall, no boiling over of the
great metal pot that held the household supper, nor any more alarming
ebullition of ill-temper of the good Fran herself, would elicit from him
the least approach to the forbidden phrase. While the Starling was thus
accomplishing one part of his education by unlearning, little Fritz
himself, under Grettl'a's guidance, was learning to read. The labour was
not all to be encountered, for he already had made some little progress
in the art under his father's tuition. But the evening hours of winter,
wh