The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries V

This volume, containing chiefly masterpieces of the Novel of Provincial Life, is illustrated by the principal works of one of the foremost painters of German peasant life, Benja...

Early in the morning through the autumnal mist two children of six or seven years are wending their way, hand in hand, along the garden-paths outside the village. The girl, evid...

Farmer Rodel, whose house with its red beams and its pious text in a large heart over the door, was not far from Josenhans's had let himself be appointed guardian of the orphan...

"I know where to find them! I can get some!" cried Damie with genuine eagerness and joy. And away he ran out of the village, at such a pace that Amrei could hardly keep up with...

All Souls' Day came. It was dull and foggy, and the children stood among a crowd of people assembled in the churchyard. Crappy Zachy had led Damie there by the hand, but Amrei h...

Accordingly, when her uncle came the next morning, Amrei declared that she would remain where she was. There was a strange mixture of bitterness and benevolence in her uncle's r...

A woman who leads a solitary, isolated life and bakes bread for herself quite alone, is called an "Eigenbrötlerin" (a woman who bakes her own bread), and such a woman, as a rule...

During the next year there was plenty of life in Farmer Rodel's house. "Barefoot," for so Amrei was now called, was handy in every way, and knew how to make herself liked by eve...

Scheckennarre's house was duly rebuilt, and in handsomer style than before; and the winter came, and with it the drawing for recruits. Never had there been greater lamentation o...

"Glory to America!" the village watchman, to the amusement of all, cried several nights when he called out the hours, in place of the usual thanksgiving to God. Crappy Zachy, be...

"Yes, but unless an angel comes down from the sky and asks me, I shall not get a partner," said Amrei, half in fun and half in sorrow. And then she began to wonder why there had...

[The memory of the handsome stranger, and of the dance, and of all the new and wonderful emotions that had filled her heart on that eventful day, to Amrei was a sacred one indee...

One Sunday afternoon Barefoot, according to her custom, was leaning against the door-post of the house and gazing dreamily out before her, when Coaly Mathew's grandson came runn...

While Barefoot was dreaming and working and worrying in village, field, and wood, sometimes feeling a strange thrill of joy, at other times thinking herself completely deserted,...

On the evening of the same day that John had ridden away from Zumarshofen, Crappy Zachy came to Farmer Rodel's house and sat with the proprietor in the back room for a long time...

The following morning, when Barefoot awoke, she found the necklace that she had once received from Dame Landfried lying on her bed, and she had to think for some time before she...

[The two lovers mount the white horse, which Amrei suggests they call "Silverstep," and start out through the moonlight for John's home. As they ride along they talk and sing an...

The day had dawned when the two lovers reached the town; and already long before, when they encountered the first early-riser, they had alighted. They felt that they must have a...

Meanwhile Amrei went on, wrapped in thought. Her manner showed the effect of the self-reliance she had learned to practice in her childhood. It was not for nothing that she had...

Amrei felt so much at home in the house that, by the second day, she was acting as if she had been brought up there from childhood. The old man followed her around and looked on...

It is not morality that rules the world, but a hardened form of it called "custom." As the world is now disposed, it would rather forgive an offense against morality than an off...

A dark night lay upon the earth; still darker was the place where a subdued voice repeatedly called, "Johannes." It was a tiny chamber in a large farmhouse; the voice came from...

After they had hung up the lantern out in the stable and bedded the horses, the master himself made a bed for the cow, which tramped restlessly back and forth and could not lie...

Uli's answer was cut off by the cow, which proclaimed her pangs more clearly: now there was work to do, and the conversation could not be continued. All went well, and finally t...

[Uli's fellow-servants, on his master's farm and on the neighboring ones, attempt to drag him back into his old ways, chiefly with ridicule and mockery. At times his resolution...

[A Neighboring village, Brandywine, is to play a championship game of _hurnuss_ (a kind of ball game played in spring and autumn in the canton of Bern), with Uli's village, Pota...

[The author points out the disastrous consequences of giving the servants on a farm only unheated rooms to live in, and no access to the warm house; on Sundays they seek warmth...

[Uli becomes quite settled in steady habits, and soon has a nice little sum of money in hand. But others get wind of it, and they borrow various sums of him, promising to pay ba...

[Uli's improvement proceeds steadily, and his self-respect with it. The two maids are greatly impressed by him, and both set their caps for him. Stini, the elder, is very ugly a...

[Uli is sent to market with a cow, which he sells at a good profit. On the way home he encounters the daughter of a neighbor, struggling with four little pigs. She begs his assi...

[Uli gradually reaches something like perfection, and his savings amount to a handsome sum. But the money seems to come too slowly, and he begins to feel impatient. The master i...

On the following morning the sleigh was made ready and the box fastened on it, and Uli had to breakfast with the family in the living-room--coffee, cheese, and pancakes. When th...

Calmly, with resolution taken, he joined the workers; it was afternoon, shortly after dinner. They were threshing by sixes. The milker and carter were preparing fodder; these he...

[Uli insists on going to church, but can get no one to accompany him, and all but Freneli ridicule him. The people at church recognize in Uli the new overseer, and wonder how lo...

[Uli requests the mistress to be allowed to sit in the house on Sunday afternoons. Freneli, Joggeli, and especially Elsie are put out, the latter because she is wont to spread o...

[Uli is sent to market to sell two cows and bring back two others. On the way a man catches up with him and buys his cows at a higher price than Uli expected to get. At the mark...

[Things now run like a newly oiled machine; but Joggeli is discontented and constantly seeks cause for complaint against Uli. He arranges with the miller to have the latter atte...

[Joggeli sows in Uli's mind suspicion of Freneli, intimating that she is injuring him behind his back. Uli is deeply wounded, and shows it; but neither Freneli nor her aunt know...

[The other servants had been wondering at Uli's good behavior, and, not being able to understand it from their viewpoint, had sought for the explanation in self-interest; for El...

So the trip went off safely and innocently, but not without consequences. Little by little the thought began to turn Uli's head that he could easily make himself happy by gettin...

[Elsie and her mother go to spend a week at the Gurnigel, a fashionable resort, leaving a heavenly peace behind them. Elsie attracts extraordinary attention with her clothes, an...

[Joggeli will not hear to the affair, fearing to lose Uli. Freneli chides Elsie for breaking her promise to Uli, and the latter is at first completely stunned, overwhelmed with...

[Uli's behavior staggers the gossips, but his assumed indifference soon becomes genuine; none the less, he is resolved to give up his place at Christmas. Johannes and Trinette a...

ALL this weighed on the good mother's mind, and when she reflected that Uli and Freneli would both leave besides, that her son-in-law would then get the reins wholly into his ha...

[Freneli's restless eagerness to give Uli her answer banishes sleep, and she rises before all the others, only to find Uli before her at the wash-trough, and there they plight t...

From this point on affairs went much better than Uli had expected, and many a time he could not but think that he was faring better than he deserved and was forcibly reminded of...

good entertainment for Lina." Godfrey felt inclined to take the old man to task for using such a word as "deuced," but on second thoughts refrained from doing so, for he knew th...