baking and boiling were pleasant during the cool afternoons.

No month seemed to us so cheery as October. During its course the apples
and pears were gathered, and an old privilege allowed the pupils "to
glean"--that is, to claim the fruit left on the trees. This tested the
keenness of our young eyes, but it sometimes happened that we confounded
trees still untouched with those which had been harvested. "Nitimur in
vetitum semper cupimusque negata,"--[The forbidden charms, and the
unexpected lures us.]--is an excellent saying of Ovid, whose truth, when
he tested it in person, was the cause of his exile. It sometimes brought
us into conflict with the owners of the trees, and it was only natural
that "Froebel's youngsters" often excited the peasants' ire.

Gellert, it is true, has sung:

"Enjoy what the Lord has granted,
Grieve not for aught withheld."

but the popular saying is, "Forbidden fruit tastes sweetest," and the
proverb was right in regard to us Keilhau boys.

Whatever fruit is meant in the story related in Genesis of the fall of
man, none could make it clearer to German children than the apple. The
Keilhau ones were kept in a cellar, and through the opening we thrust a
pole to which the blade of a rapier was fastened. This sometimes brought
us up four or five apples at once, which hung on the blade like the flock
of ducks that Baron Munchausen's musket pierced with the ramrod.

We were all honest boys, yet not one, not even the sons of the heads of
the institute, ever thought of blaming or checking the zest for this