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 not succeed very well, for she told him curtly, that he had already shown how clever he was at managing, so then let him manage again according to his own sweet will.

Grandfather began to feel himself veritably isolated. At home all avoided him, and indeed he avoided others more than they avoided him. He then began to drive out to his sons and married daughters, but there also he did not gain much help. None of them was willing to take upon himself the responsibility of advising when matters might turn out badly—for they knew grandfather well.

And after all what advice could they give? Even could they have disentangled his eager confused questions as easily as he entangled them, grandfather would still not have wanted any of their advice. He always knew best himself the author of the confusion—if he could not find the clue who was to find it. When, therefore, he returned home from these visits to his children, he felt his own desolateness even more strongly than before. He had no one to whom to unburden himself and was an object of pity like all the rest.

It is said, “Paint not the devil upon a wall or verily he will appear.”

In fact, grandfather began to hanker after Novak, and when Novak appeared quite unexpectedly, grandfather felt it almost a blessing to have him to converse with.

Novak well knew that he would find it no jesting matter with grandmother, or with Uncle John. He did not come to grandfather at the house, but managed to call him behind the barn, where stood in about seven rows the huge ancestral lindens, in whose shadow he rested as on a feather-bed. To their branches had migrated, at some time or other, a family of starlings, and because the place pleased them had settled themselves there, and multiplied to an innumerable colony. Here it was “chiff-chaff” all day long, and if the old ones flew away, why, then the young ones piped.

Here then Novak awaited grandfather, and when grandfather told him that he thought the weight on his heart grew lighter, Novak said he knew of a remedy, but it must be taken at once if it was to have any effect.

Grandfather, however, had been starving for want of advice, and he inquired what the remedy was. Novak answered without circumlocution, “Your son must get married.”

And at once he had so many reasons for it at the tip of his tongue that grandfather’s head went round.