Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: 1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/seedtimeandharv00reutgoog 2. Compare the "Authorized Edition" issued in Leipzig (1878) under the title "An Old Story of My Farming Days (_Ut Mine Stromtid_)". 3. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe]. SEED-TIME AND HARVEST _A NOVEL_. TRANSLATED FROM THE "UT MINE STROMTID" OF FRITZ REUTER. PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1878. * * * * * Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by LITTELL & GAY, In the Office of the Library of Congress at Washington. * * * * * * * * Lippincott's Press. _Philadelphia_. * * * Seed-Time and Harvest; OR, "DURING MY APPRENTICESHIP." CHAPTER I. In the year 1829, on St. John's day, a man sat in the deepest melancholy, under an ash-tree arbor, in a neglected garden. The estate, to which the garden belonged, was a lease-hold estate, and lay on the river Peene, between Anclam and Demmin, and the man, who sat in the cool shade of the arbor, was the lease-holder,--that is to say, he had been until now; for now he was ejected, and there was an auction to-day in his homestead, and all his goods and possessions were going to the four winds. He was a large, broad-shouldered; light-haired man, of four and forty years; and nowhere could you find a better specimen of what labor could make of a man than she had carved from this block. "Labor," said his honest 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, there might well have been no one with greater need and reason to speak with his Lord God, than this man. 'Tis a hard thing for any one to see his household goods, which he has gathered with labor and pains, piece by piece, go wandering out into the world. 'Tis a hard thing for a farmer to leave the cattle, which he has fed and cared for, through want and trouble, to other hands that know nothing of the difficulties which have oppressed him all his life. But it was not this which lay so heavy on his heart; it was a still deeper grief which caused the weary hands to lie folded together, and the weary eyes to droop so heavily.