ut steadiness there was none. In the summer I bathed with my
companions on the sea-shore; this my uncle saw from his garden behind
his barn, and told it to my father, who came in the morning with a good
rod into the room, in front of my bed, whilst I was asleep; he worked
himself up into a rage, and spoke loud in order to awake me. When I
awoke, and saw him standing before me, and the rod lying on the
next bed, I knew well what was in the wind, and began to pray and
entreat--weeping bitterly. He asked what I had done? I swore I would
never again, all my life long, bathe in the sea. 'Yes, sir,' he said
(when he called me 'sir,' I knew well that matters stood badly between
us), 'if you have bathed, then I must use the mop.' Thereupon he seized
the rod, threw my clothes over my head, and gave me my deserts. My
parents brought up their children well. My father was somewhat hasty,
and when his temper got the upper hand, he knew no moderation. Once
when he was in a rage with me,--he was standing in the stable, and I in
the doorway,--he caught hold of the pitchfork and threw it at me. I
sprang aside, but it had been thrown with such violence, that the
prongs stuck deep into one of the oaken tubs of the bathroom, and it
required great strength to draw it out. Thus the merciful God hindered
the evil designs of the devil against me and my father. But my mother,
who was exceedingly gentle and tender, sprang forward in such cases,
saying, 'Strike harder, the good-for-nothing boy has well deserved it!'
But at the same time she would lay hold of the hand in which he held
the rod, so that he might not strike too hard.

"My father's house was still very unfinished, and an outhouse was built
against it, with its entrance close to the well. A miller dwelt therein
named Lewark-Lark,--who had many naughty children that cried day and
night. At daybreak these young larks began to chirp, and continued the
whole day, so that one could neither see nor hear until my father drove
out the old larks with their young ones, pulled down the outhouse, and
set to work in earnest to finish the whole house at great cost of
labour and money. My parents received from Greifswald a considerable
amount of cash; for my mother had been obliged to turn everything into
money, so that many called him the rich man of the Vehr Strasse. But in
a few years this appeared very doubtful, for my parents had great
anxiety and loss of money, and also hindrance to the hoped-fo