and happiness on the mountains among the goats, of which I now remember nothing more. This I well know, that I seldom had whole toes, but often great bruises; had many bad falls; without shoes for the most part in summer, or else wooden ones; and endured great thirst. My food was in the morning, before day, a rye-broth, that is, a soup made of rye-meal. Cheese and rye-bread are given in a little basket to be carried at one's back; at night cheese-milk; of all however there was a fair allowance. In summer, lying on hay; in winter, on a straw mattrass full of all sorts of vermin. Such are the resting-places of the poor little shepherds who serve the farmers in the wildernesses. CHAPTER II. MASTER THOMAS BECOMES A TRAVELLING SCHOLAR. [Illustration: "The urchin has robbed me of a goose."] As they would not any longer allow me to tend the goats, I entered the service of a farmer who had one of my aunts to wife, and was a fiery passionate man. I had to keep his cows; for at most places in St. Gall they have not shepherds in common, to mind the cows for all; but whoever has a mountain whither he can send them during the summer, has a little shepherd who watches them upon his own property. When I had been with them a while my aunt Frances came, who wished to send me to my uncle, Mr. Anthony Platter, that I should learn _the writings_ (such was their phrase when they wished to send any one to school). That gentleman was at that time no longer in Grenchen, but was become an old man at St. Nicholas, in the village that is called Gasse. When my farmer, whose name was the "Antsche," or "Anthony an der Habzucht," was aware of my aunt's intention, he was much dissatisfied: and said, "That I would learn nothing notwithstanding;" and added, putting the forefinger of his right hand into the palm of the left, "the urchin will learn just as much as I can drive my finger through." That I saw and heard myself. My aunt answered, "Oh! who knows? God has not refused him his gifts: he may yet become a pious priest." And so she led me to the spiritual gentleman, when I was about nine and a half years old. Then it was that my sufferings really began, for the gentleman was a very passionate man, but I a little awkward peasant boy. He beat me barbarously; often took me by the ears and dragged me from the ground. I screamed like a goat that had the knife sticking into it, so that often the neighbours came screaming in to him to know whether he would kill me out and out. I did not remain long with him. Just at this time there came one who had travelled to the schools at Ulm and Munich in Bavaria, a grandson of my old grandfather. This student's name was Paul Summermatter. My friends had told him of me, and he promised them that he would take me with him, and in Germany take me to school. As soon as I heard of this I fell on my knees, and besought God Almighty to help