“Mary, old as I am, I still remember the delight I experienced when a little, rosy-cheeked urchin surreptitiously passed me around the corner of my desk at the old ‘Cross Roads School’ a ‘Secret,’ with the words, ‘Do you love me?’ My grandmother always kept a supply of hoarhound and peppermint lozenges in her knitting basket to give us children should we complain of hoarseness.  My, but ’twas astonishing to hear us all cough until grandmother’s supply of mints was exhausted.  I think.  Mary, I must have had a ‘sweet tooth’ when a child, as my recollections seem to be principally about the candy kept in my grandfather’s store.  I suppose in those early days of my childhood candy appealed to me more than anything else, as never having had a surfeit of sweets, candy to me was a rare treat.  I remember, Mary, when a little child, my thrifty mother, wishing to encourage me to learn to knit my own stockings, she, when winding the skein of German yarn into a ball, occasionally wound a penny in with the yarn.  I was allowed to spend the penny only after I had knitted the yarn and the penny had fallen from the ball.  What untold wealth that penny represented!  And planning how to spend it was greater pleasure still.  Many a pair of long old-fashioned, dark blue and red-striped stockings, were finished more quickly than otherwise would have been done without the promised reward.  I became proficient in knitting at an early age,” continued Aunt Sarah; “a truly feminine occupation, and as I one time heard a wise old physician remark, ‘Soothing to the nerves,’ which I know to be true, having knitted many a worry into the heel of a sock.  I learned at an early age the value of money, and once having acquired the saving habit, it is not possible to be wasteful in later life.”

CHAPTER XXV.

AN ELBADRITCHEL HUNT.

Fritz Schmidt, like many another Bucks County boy, had frequently heard the rural tale of a mythical bird called the “Elbadritchel,” supposed to be abroad, particularly on cold, dark, stormy nights, when the wind whistled and blew perfect gales around exposed corners of houses and barns.  ’Twas a common saying among “Pennsylvania Germans,” at such times, “’Tis a fine night to catch ‘Elbadritchels.’”

[Illustration:  CATCHING ELBADRITCHELS]

For the information of those who may not even have heard of this remarkable creature, it is described as being a cross between a swallow, a goose and a lyre bird.  Have you ever seen an “Elbadritchel?” No one has to my certain knowledge, so I cannot vouch for the truth of this description of it.