The first snow, in large and thick flakes, fell gently and silently on the barren branches of the ancient pear-tree, standing like a sentinel at my house door.  The first snow of the year speaks both of joy and sadness.  It is so comfortable to sit in a warm room and watch the falling flakes, eternally pure and lovely.  There are neither flowers nor birds about, to make you see and hear the beautiful great world.  Now the busy peasant has time to read the stories in his calendar.  And I, too, stopped my spinning-wheel, the holy Christ-child’s gift on my thirteenth birthday, to fold my hands and to look through the calendar of my thoughts.

I did not hear a knock at the door, but a little man came in with a cordial “Good morning, little sister!” I knew him well enough, though we were not acquaintances.  Half familiar, half strange, this little time-worn figure looked.  His queer face seemed stamped out of rubber, the upper part sad, the lower full of laughing wrinkles.  But his address surprised me, for we were not in the least related.  I shook his horny hand, responding, “Hearty thanks, little brother.”  “I call this good luck,” began little brother:  “a room freshly scoured, apples roasting in the chimney, half a cold duck in the cupboard; and you all alone with cat and clock.  It is easier talking when there are two, for the third is always in the way.”

The old man amused me immensely.  I sat down on the bench beside him and asked after his wife and family.  “Thanks, thanks,” he nodded, “all well and happy except our nestling Ille.  She leaves home to-morrow, to eat her bread as a dress-maker in B—.”—­“And the other children, where are they?” “Flown away, long ago!  Do you suppose, little sister, that I want to keep all fifteen at home like so many cabbages in a single bed?” Fifteen children!  Almost triumphantly, little brother watched me.  I owned almost as many brothers and sisters myself, and fifteen children were no marvel to me.  So I asked if he were a grandfather too.

“Of course,” he answered gravely.  “But I am going to tell you how I came by fifteen children.  You know how we peasant folk give house and land to the eldest son, and only a few coppers to the youngest children.  A bad custom, that leads to quarrels, and ends sometimes in murder.  Fathers and mothers can’t bring themselves to part with the property, and so they live with the eldest son, who doles out food and shelter, and gets the farm in the end.  So, in time, a family has some rich members and more paupers.  Now, we’d better sell the land and let the children share alike; but then that way breaks estates too.  I was a younger child, and I received four hundred thalers;—­a large sum forty years ago.  I didn’t know anything but field work.  The saying that ’The peasant must be kept stupid or he will not obey’ was still printed in all the books.  So I had to look about for a family where a son was needed.  One day, with my four hundred thalers in my pocket,