ation: LUDWIG THOMA]

But the Bridge Farmer was a timid person, and as he grew older he
brooded frequently over the affair, and resolved to repair the damage.
That is, not the damage which the neighbor had suffered, but the
disadvantages that might accrue to his own immortal soul.

Because we know nothing for certain, and because the Almighty Judge
perhaps thought differently about the lightning-rod oath, and did not
observe the Eynhofen tradition.

So he considered what and how much he must give in order to balance the
account and make his merit outweigh his badness.

That was not simple and easy, for no one could tell him: So and so many
masses will square you; but it was possible that he might make a
miscount of one and lose everything.

The Bridge Farmer had never been stupid in his earthly affairs, and had
often given too little, but never too much.

But in this deal with Heaven he thought more would be better, and as he
had often read in the paper that nothing afforded a better claim on the
next world than assistance in supplying priests for the many empty
posts, he resolved to have a boy study for holy orders entirely at his
own expense.

His choice fell upon Matthew Fottner, and this he rued more than once.

He should have considered more carefully the quality of the Fottner
boy's intellectual endowments.

And he would have saved himself much vexation and much anxiety if he
had taken more time and picked out some one else.

He was in too much of a hurry, and because the teacher said nothing
against it and old man Fottner at once agreed with joy, he was
satisfied.

Doubtless he took the priest at Eynhofen as an example, thinking that
what _he_ knew couldn't be hard to learn.

Now Matthew was not exactly stupid; but he had no very good head for
studying, and his pleasure in it was not immoderate either.

When they told him that he was to become a priest, he was content, for
the first thing he grasped was that he could then eat more and work
less.

And so he went to the Latin School at Freising. The first three years
were all right. Nothing brilliant, but good enough so he could show his
reports at the parsonage when he came home for vacations.

And when the priest read that Matthew Fottner was of moderate talent
and industry and was making sufficient progress, he would say each time
in his fat voice: _magnos progressus fecisti, discipule!_

Matthew did not understand; nor did his father, who st