5 dreamt it. That's the way one spends one's money to make the fish go into other people's nets. You want to buy a cart, do you? Why don't you make one yourself?" Hansli stared at the farmer with his mouth open, and great eyes. "Yes, make it yourself; you will manage it, if you make up your mind," went on the farmer. "You can chip wood well enough, and the wood 10 won't cost you much-what I have n't, another peasant will have; and there must be old iron about, plenty, in the lumber room. I believe there's even an old cart somewhere, which you can have to look at- or to use, if you like. 15 Winter will be here soon; set yourself to work, and by the spring all will be done." Hansli opened his eyes again. "I make a cart! But how ever shall I? I never made one." 66 Good-for-nothing," answered the farmer, "one 20 must make everything once the first time. Take courage, and it's half done." Hansli was on the point of asking if the peasant had lost his head. Nevertheless, he finished by entering into the notion little by little, as a child into cold 25 water. The peasant came now and then to help him; and in spring the new cart was ready, in such sort that on Easter Tuesday Hansli pushed it, for the first time, to Berne. The joy and pride that this new cart gave him it is difficult to form anything like a notion of. If anybody had proposed to give him the Easter ox for it, that they 5 had promenaded at Berne the evening before, and which weighed well its twenty-five quintals, he would n't have heard of such a thing. It seemed to him that everybody stopped as they passed, to look at his cart; and whenever he got a chance he 10 put himself to explain at length what advantages that cart had over every other cart that had yet been seen in the world. He asserted very gravely that it went of itself, except only at the hills, where it was necessary to give it a touch of the hand. 15 A cookmaid said to him that she would not have thought him so clever; and that if she ever wanted a cart, she would give him her custom. That cookmaid, always afterwards, when she bought a fresh supply of brooms, had a present of two little ones 20 into the bargain, to sweep into the corners of the hearth with, things which are very convenient for maids who like to have everything clean even in the corners. From this moment Hansli began to take good 25 heart to his work; his cart was for him his farm; he worked with real joy; and joy in getting anything done is, compared to ill humor, what a sharp hatchet is to a rusty one in cutting wood. The farmers of Rychiswyl were delighted with the 5 boy. There was n't one of them who didn't say, "When you want twigs you've only to take them in my field; but don't damage the trees, and think of the wife sometimes; women use so many brooms in a year." Hansli did not fail; 10 also was he in great favor with all the farm mistresses. They never had been in the way of setting any money aside for buying brooms; they ordered their husbands to provide them, but one knows how things go that way. But now Hansli 15 was there before any one had time to think; and it was very seldom a mistress was obliged to say to him, "Hansli, don't forget us; we're at our last broom." Besides the convenience of this, Hansli's brooms were superb- very different from the 20 wretched things which one's grumbling husband tied up loose, or as rough and ragged as if they had been made of oat straw. Of course, in these houses, Hansli gave his brooms for nothing; yet they were not the worst-placed pieces of his stock; 25 for, not to speak of the twigs given him gratis, all the year round he was continually getting little presents in bread and milk and such kinds of things, which a mistress has always under her hand, and which she gives without looking too close. Also, rarely one churned butter without saying to him, "Hansli, we beat butter to-morrow; 5 if you like to bring a pot, you shall have some." And as for fruit, he had more than he could eat of it; so that it could not fail, things going on in this way, that Hans should prosper, besides being thoroughly economical. If he spent as much 10 as a threepenny piece on the day he went to the town, it was the end of the world. In the morning his mother took care he had a good breakfast, after which he took also something in his pocket, without counting that sometimes here and some- 15 times there one gave him a morsel in the kitchens where he was well known; and finally he did n't imagine that he ought always to have something to eat the moment he had a mind to it. sorcery: witchcraft. quintal: a weight of one hundred pounds. 10 15 EVOLUTION JOHN BANISTER TABB ), an American poet, was During the Civil War he He was captured and with JOHN BANISTER TABB (1845born in Amelia County, Virginia. served on a blockade-running ship. Sidney Lanier spent some time as a prisoner in Point Lookout. 5 In 1884, after his ordination as a priest, he was appointed professor of English in St. Charles College, in Ellicott City, Maryland. Father Tabb, as he is usually called, is the author of four or five very attractive volumes of verse. He has been especially happy in lyric verse. Out of the dusk a shadow, Then, a spark; Out of the cloud a silence, Out of the heart a rapture, Out of the dead, cold ashes, |