Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/138

132 lay it aside! Think: "whom God loveth he chastiseth."'

"Thus I was again among them, and was as their own. My brother offered to let me have a room in his house, but I preferred to remain with my parents in the cottage where my husband had lived. The children soon were entirely at home, and my parents loved them dearly. I sent them regularly to school. When I was young, girls did not learn to write; it was thought enough if they could read a little, and that only the town girls. And yet it is a great pity and a sin when a person has the gift of the Holy Ghost and does not improve it. When, however, there is no opportunity, what is one to do? My husband was a man who knew the world, he knew how to write, too; in short, he was fit for a wagon or a carriage. And that is well; every-body might be so!

"I wove blankets as before and earned many a handsome groschen. Those were hard times—war, disease, and famine everywhere. A bushel of rye cost a hundred guilders in bank notes! that is something to say. But God loved us, and so in one way and another we managed to pull through. The distress was so great that people went about with money in their hands unable to buy. [sic] My father was a man whose like is seldom found; he helped every-body where and how he could. When the neighbors were driven to the last extremity, they usually turned to him. Sometimes the poorer peasants came to him saying: 'Let us have a bushel of rye; we haven't a crust of bread in the house!' He would say: 'As long as I have, I give; when I have no more, others will do it,' and at once