" "Oh, no, Miss Rose," I protested, "my mother has
indeed a great closet, but it is full of good things to eat and
contains no skeletons." "You little goosie-gander; you don't
understand," replied Miss Rose; "I was only joking. Of course your
mother kept the door carefully locked to keep you boys from
foraging?" "No madame," said I, "it was not necessary to lock the
door." "Did she keep a guard, then?" said Rose. "Oh, yes," I replied,
"and it was very hard to pass in without being knocked down." "Was it
a man?" she asked mischievously. "Why, yes; mamma kept a strong, old
Limburger right behind the door," I said.
When the girls had ceased laughing, Rose said, "What did your mother
tell you when you left for America?" "My mother," I answered,
"implored me with tearful eyes to ever remember how my father's
great-great-grandmother Brunhilde (who was exceedingly beautiful) was
enticed into the depths of a dark forest by a wily, old German King.
Indiscreetly and unsuspectingly she followed him. There clandestinely
did he favor her graciously by adding a bar sinister to our knightly
escutcheon and a strain of the blood royal to our family. This
happened long, long ago in the dark ages or some other dark place--it
may have been the Schwarzwald--and it was the curse of the stony
field that did it.
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