e story you have just
told me;' and so he did. Speidel-Roettmann leant at his ease on the
window-cushion, and all the people listened in amazement to the story
the smith was shouting out. Speidel-Roettmann is very fond of his son,
and very proud of him, but he dare not venture to show this before his
wife, more especially for the last seven years.

"Yonder, above the ford--we can see the cottage from our window--lives
a Schilder, or wood-turner, nicknamed Schilder-David. He is a worthy
man, though one of the poorest in the village, but he would rather
starve than accept of assistance from any one. Moreover, he is a great
searcher of Holy Writ. Light is seen later in his cottage than in any
other house in the village, and that is very significant for so poor a
man. He has a Bible, that he has read through sixteen times, from the
first syllable to the last, both of the Old and the New Testament. I
saw the Bible once, and the leaves looked very much crumpled and worn,
for David always reads with four fingers on the page. On the first leaf
of the Bible he regularly marks down the date when he begins to read it
afresh, and the day when he has read it through. The longest period is
rather more than two years; three times, however, he read it from
beginning to end within the year; that was when his three daughters
emigrated; another time, when his hand was so severely injured, that it
was thought it must be amputated; and, last of all, the year in which
his grandson Joseph was born. In his youth, he is said to have been
very jovial and merry, and he knew every kind of song, and once, by his
singing, he got a stock of firewood. On one occasion, he came to the
father of Speidel-Roettmann to buy wood: Old Roettmann, being in good
humour, said, 'David, for every song you sing me I will give you a
Klaft or bundle of wood, and I will send it to your house for you--so,
that's a bargain.' David sung so many songs, that he sung two cartloads
of wood into his house; therefore, he is called Klafter-David--but he
does not like to be reminded of that name now-a-days.

"The wife of Schilder-David is one of those persons whose nature it is
to sleep away the greater part of their lives; who walk about and
regularly finish their work, but not a single word is ever said about
them, either for good or evil. We have here an unusual number of such
persons. Moreover, the wife of Schilder-David has been for some years
almost stone-deaf. They had fi