Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/seedtimeandharv00reutgoog
2. Compare the "Authorized Edition" issued in Leipzig (1878) underthe title "An Old Story of My Farming Days (Ut Mine Stromtid)".
In the year 1829, on St. John's day, a man sat in the deepestmelancholy, under an ash-tree arbor, in a neglected garden. The estate,to which the garden belonged, was a lease-hold estate, and lay on theriver Peene, between Anclam and Demmin, and the man, who sat in thecool shade of the arbor, was the lease-holder,--that is to say, he hadbeen until now; for now he was ejected, and there was an auction to-dayin his homestead, and all his goods and possessions were going to thefour winds.
He was a large, broad-shouldered; light-haired man, of four and fortyyears; and nowhere could you find a better specimen of what labor couldmake of a man than she had carved from this block. "Labor," said hishonest face,--"Labor," said his firm hands which lay quiet in his lap,folded one upon another as if for praying.
Yes, for praying! And in the whole broad country of Pomerania, theremight well have been no one with greater need and reason to speak withhis Lord God, than this man. 'Tis a hard thing for any one to see hishousehold goods, which he has gathered with labor and pains, piece bypiece, go wandering out into the world. 'Tis a hard thing for a farmerto leave the cattle, which he has fed and cared for, through want andtrouble, to other hands that know nothing of the difficulties whichhave oppressed him all his life. But it was not this which lay so heavyon his heart; it was a still deeper grief which caused the weary handsto lie folded together, and the weary eyes to droop so heavily.
Since yesterday he was a widower, his wife lay upon her last couch. Hiswife! Ten years had he striven for her, ten years had he worked andtoiled, and done what human strength could do that they might cometogether, that he might make room for the deep, powerful love whichsung through his whole being, like Pentecost bells over green fieldsand blossoming fruit-trees.
Four years ago he had made it possible: he had scraped togethereverything that he had; an acquaintance who had inherited from hisparents two estates had leased one of them to him,--at a high rent,very high--no one knew that better than himself,--but love givescourage, cheerful courage, to sustain one through everything. Oh, itw