your schemes without her fail. Open
your heart to her--deal fairly, generously, and you will reap the merits
of it." It was all in vain--he had not yet come to his senses. Obstinate
as a mule--he determined to try once more. But good-by to the ass! The
only thing he resolved to mount was his shop board--that bore him well,
and brought him continued good, could he only continue to keep it.

His wife, I said, came from the mountains; she, therefore, liked the
sight of trees. Now, in Hans's back-yard there was neither tree nor
turf, so she got some tubs, and in them she planted a variety of
fir-trees, which made a pleasant appearance, and gave a help to her
imagination of the noble firs of her native scenes. In one of these
tubs, Hans conceived the singular design of depositing his future
treasure. "Nobody, will meddle with them," he thought, so accordingly,
from week to week, he concealed in one of them his acquisitions. It had
gone on a long time. He had been out one day, collecting some of his
debts--he had succeeded beyond his hopes, and came back exulting. The
sum was saved; and, in the gladness of his heart, he bought his wife a
new gown. He bounded into the house with the lightness of seventeen. His
wife was not there--he looked into the back-yard. Saints and angels!
what is that? He beheld his wife busy with the tubs. The trees were
uprooted, and laid on the ground, and every particle of soil was thrown
out of the tubs. In the delirium of consternation, he flew to ask what
she had been doing.

"Oh! the trees, poor things, did not flourish; they looked sickly and
pining; she determined to give them some soil more suitable to their
natures; she had thrown the earth into the river, at the bottom of the
yard."

"And you have thrown into the river," exclaimed Hans, frantically, "the
hoarding of three years; the money which had cost me many a weary
day--many an anxious night. The money which would have made our
fortunes--in short, that would have made me Buergermeister of Rapps."
Completely thrown off his guard, he betrayed his secret.

"Good gracious!" cried his wife, exceedingly alarmed; "why did you not
tell me of it?"

"Ay, that is the question!" said he. And it was a question; for, spite
of himself, it had occurred to his mind some dozens of times, and now it
came so overwhelmingly, that even when he thought he treated it with
contempt, it had fixed itself upon his better reason, and never left him
till it had