Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/130

 whenever he moved, glanced and gleamed in a sudden and bewildering way.

"What's the matter?" he asked Thekla, in rather an abrupt tone.

"I'm a little tired, sir," she replied timidly.

"Oh, ho!" said August. "I've caught you. You've been working at something! I never mistake the signs. Now see here,—that's a thing I don't allow: it's against my rules. You may thank your luck I was not here. Whenever I find children doing it, I give them a rap of some sort to remember me by. So recollect that, and look out."

Thekla shrank back, half alarmed; for, though August laughed, his voice was menacing. And she reflected with satisfaction that the big wash just concluded would be the last before winter. For you must know that, in the Black Forest, Monday is not the terrible occasion it is with us, and "washing days" come round a great way apart, once in three months perhaps, or something like that.