began to regularly
bombard the pine that kept his knapsack a prisoner. But it did not give
it up, and when he had grown hot and red and tired but very much
cheered, he had to go home without his knapsack.

The housemaid had been back a long time when he arrived. She opened
the door for him with a red face--she had run so hard after him--and an
angry look. "Hm," she said irritably, "you've been kept, I
suppose?"

He pushed her aside. "Hold your tongue!" He could not bear her at
that moment, when coming in from outside where everything had been so
quiet, so free.

His parents were already at table. His father frowned as he
looked at him, his mother asked in a voice of gentle reproach in which
there was also a little anxiety: "Where have you been so long? Lisbeth
has been looking for you everywhere."

"Well?" His father's voice sounded severe.

The boy did not give any answer, it seemed to him all at once as
though his tongue were paralysed. What should he tell those people
sitting indoors about what he had been doing outside?

"He's sure to have been kept at school, ma'am," whispered the
housemaid when she handed the meat. "I'll find it out from the other
boys to-morrow, and tell you about it, ma'am."

"Oh, you!" The boy jumped up; although she had whispered it in a low
voice, he had heard it all the same. His chair fell down behind him
with a crash, and rushing up to the girl with clenched fist he seized
hold of her so roughly that she gave a shrill scream and let the dish
fall out of her hand.

"You goose, you goose!" he howled in a loud voice, and wanted to
strike her. His father only pulled him away with difficulty.

"Woelfchen!" Kate's fork had fallen out of her hand with a clatter,
and she was staring at her boy with dilated eyes.

The maid complained bitterly. He was always like that, he was
unbearable, he had said before to her: "Hold your tongue!" No, she
could not put up with it, she would rather leave. And she ran out of
the room crying.

Paul Schlieben was extremely angry. "You are to be civil to
inferiors. You are to be polite to them, just because they have to
serve. Do you hear?" And he seized hold of the boy with a strong hand,
laid him across his knees and gave him the whipping he so well
deserved.

Wolfgang ground his teeth together and bore the punishment without
uttering a sound and without a tear.

But every stroke fell on his mother's heart. She felt as if she
herself had been bea