fficulty, obtained on credit from the
toy merchant, and as his poverty did not permit him to pay off the small
debt until much later, he had to submit to being dunned for it years
after, when I, already tall and knowing beyond my years, was walking at
his side. He was inexhaustible in inventing ways to amuse us, and as
with children nothing is necessary but goodwill, he never failed to do
so. It was a source of great delight to us when he took a piece of chalk
in his hand, sat himself down with us at his round table and began to
draw-mills, houses, animals, and all sorts of other things. At the same
time he cracked the merriest jokes, which still resound in my ears. Even
the chief of his pleasures was not one for him if we did not share it.
It consisted in drinking slowly a half jug of brandy, in remembrance of
better days, and in smoking a pipe at the same time, on Sunday morning
after the sermon and before dinner. We each had to have a thimble full
of this brandy or he did not enjoy it himself. The drink was certainly
not the best thing for us, but the quantity was small enough to prevent
disastrous consequences. My father, however, forbade this kind of Sunday
treat when he came to find out about it. This troubled the good old man
exceedingly, but did not prevent him, I am forced to add, from having us
drink with him again; only this took place quite secretly, and he
urgently recommended us to keep out of our father's way, so that he
should not have occasion to kiss one of us and thus discover the
transgression. It was a kiss, to wit pressed upon my father's lips, that
had betrayed the secret the first time.

Sometimes one or the other of his two unmarried brothers, who as a rule
tramped around the country and were probably good-for-nothings, would
spend the winter with him. They always found a ready welcome and
remained until the spring or hunger drove them away. He never turned
them out. Small as his piece of bread might be he gladly divided it once
again, but when he had nothing at all, then indeed he could not give
away anything. It was a regular treat for us when Uncle Hans or Johann
arrived, for they brought news of the world to our nest. They told us of
woods and their adventures in them; of robbers and murderers whom they
had escaped from with great difficulty; of the dark giblet stew which
they had eaten in lonely forest-taverns, and of men's fingers and toes
which they pretended to have found at last in the b