Algernon Blackwood

“ In winter, each Stube with its Bruder, we wandered through the lovely forest paths, skated, tobogganed, or plunged in high snow-boots through the great drifts in the woods. It was the real Black Forest then. No tourist was ever seen. No carriages, bicycles, or “visitors for health” ever crossed our path. Unmolested, we explored new glades, and found in every direction unknown little valleys hidden away among the dense trees and Strafe (punishment) , when to the pain of carpeted with moss a foot thick. ”

“ The forest closed in upon it from all sides, pierced only by roads that lead to picturesque villages, equally out of the world; or by glades that meandered among the trees till they stopped at a secluded farmhouse or sawmill droning away its life on some little turbulent mountain stream.
Everywhere one came across evidences that the fairy life of the deep woods mingled more or less freely with the peasant life of the village⁠—pools were haunted; certain pathways unsafe after dark; open knolls were used by the witches for their revels ”

“ Football, which we played in the autumn in a big field outside the village, though nominally compulsory, was equally unpopular among the majority; for, with few exceptions, the English boys kept the ball to themselves while the others trailed after it in a languid sort of way that showed no real desire to come into contact either with the ball or with the boy behind it. Some of the Bruder, however, played exceedingly well, and there was one Russian master especially who ran like the wind and dribbled like an all-England forward. ”

“ A favourite form of punishment for those who merited their displeasure by not playing up at football, or by “sneaking” in some form or other, was waschen⁠—to wash them in the snow. I well remember this penalty being inflicted upon a big French boy whose face, if you please, we considered had not a sufficient acquaintance with soap and water.
He shirked the icy basins in the Waschkammer, and as he lived in our Stube we were obliged to take notice of it. Hints were of no avail. The opportunity came one day when we were out for a trudge in the forest. The snow was soft and very deep. ”

“ Then the journeys to the wooden church across the village square were pretty frequent. The men and boys sat on one side of the centre aisle, and the women and girls’-school on the other. We had no dealings with them, either out of church or in it. An English boy in our Stube had a sister in the Mädchen-Anstalt, but he rarely saw her, and then only by special arrangement. If we chanced to meet a portion of the girls’-school out for a walk, the Bruder switched us off immediately into the forest before we could catch the merest sight of their sweet faces. ”

“ At half-past eleven the Prediger began his sermon, but on the stroke of twelve, no matter what he was saying, the organ and orchestra crashed out a terrific chord and all the congregation rose to their feet and sang a hymn. Of all the services, though, the Easter Festival was the most picturesque, when in the early morning starlight we marched silently out to the “God’s acre” and took part in a sort of watching service round an open grave, waiting for the light in the east to spread across the sky. ”

“ The Sauerkraut was genuinely sauer and not at all like the savoury dish provided with Frankfurter sausages in most German hotels; but as our appetites dealt more with quantity than with mere flavour, there was never any grumbling, and boys and Brüder alike did justice to all they got. Cases of sickness were exceedingly rare⁠—I hardly recall a single one⁠—and no doubt the excellent plain living did much to keep us all in such robust condition. ”

“ The day began at half-past five in the morning, when a wicked bell rang in the great Schlafzimmer where we all slept⁠—a very large room on the top floor, with lofty ceiling and excellent ventilation⁠—and, seizing his dressing-gown, each boy raced at full speed downstairs after the Bruder and into the Waschkammer, where the boys of his particular Stube washed and dressed. If he did not reach the room before the door was closed, his reward was probably half-breakfast ”

“ One boy was chosen from each Stube to go to the little Conditorei that lay on the farther side of the village square, close to the Home for Widows, and there to expend as judiciously as possible the various sums entrusted to his care by the other boys. Ten pfennigs each, about 2d., was allowed per head, and by careful selection one could buy a good deal for the amount. It was even possible to get a double quantity by inducing a boy who wanted none for himself to purchase for you, but this was considered a mean trick and was very little resorted to except by the exceptionally greedy. ”

“ For a long time it was very difficult to reconcile the two ideas, and quite impossible to solve the puzzle whether the robbers would molest the schoolboys out after dark for their pocket-money, or whether the charcoal-burners and pixies would send their offspring side by side with the ordinary pupils to learn the portentous difference between sein and haben. ”

“ Little boys, who knew they could not manage all their share in the appointed time, would pass on to the bigger ones, and sometimes⁠—though of course this was against the rules⁠—to those unfortunates who were half-breakfasting with a portion of only a single slice apiece. ”

“ There were no visible rewards to compensate the self-denial of these masters, well styled Brothers, who, with small pay and less comfort, devoted the best years of their lives to the bringing up of young lads under conditions that to many of them must have amounted to exile ”

“ The leaders among the boys were the natural leaders. The Engländer led in games and outdoor exercises, if not in study. No one attempted to dispute their authority there. Sometimes they took the law into their own hands, and the masters, if they knew of it, never interfered. ”

“ For the purposes of both study and play, the boys were divided into four rooms erste Stube, zweite Stube, etc., where they lived together during the day under the constant eye of at least one Brother; and the medley of strange German slang that was sometimes heard in these rooms reminds me forcibly of that delightful youth in Punch not long ago who, when he wanted to tell a Frenchman to “shut up,” attacked him vigorously with “Fermez! ”