Literary Collections
Read books online » Literary Collections » Short Stories by - (easy readers .txt) 📖
  • Author: -
  • Performer: -

Book online «Short Stories by - (easy readers .txt) 📖». Author -



1 ... 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Go to page:
keep his thoughts about this piece of news to himself. So he said, “Well, this is what I call a circumstantial dream. But what didst thou do, old master, in the morning, on awakening? Didst thou not follow whither thy guardian angel beckoned thee?”

“Pooh,” said the dreamer, “why should I toil, and have my labor for my pain? It was nothing, after all, but a mere dream. My guardian angel takes little charge of me, I think, else I should not, to his shame, be going hitching about here on a wooden leg.”

Franz took out the last piece of silver he had on him: “There,” said he, “old father, take this other gift from me, to get thee a pint of wine for evening-cup; thy talk has driven away my ill humor. Neglect not diligently to frequent this bridge; we shall see each other here, I hope, again.”

The lame old man had not gathered so rich a stock of alms for many a day as he was now possessed off; he blessed his benefactor for his kindness, hopped away into a drinking shop to do himself a good turn; while Franz, enlivened with new hope, hastened off to his lodging in the alley.

Next day he got in readiness everything that is required for treasure-digging. The unessential equipments, conjurations, magic formulas, magic girdles, hieroglyphic characters, and such like, were entirely wanting; but these are not indispensable, provided there be no failure in the three main requisites—shovel, spade, and, before all, a treasure underground. The necessary implements he carried to the place a little before sunset, and hid them for the meanwhile in a hedge; and as to the treasure itself, he had the firm conviction that the goblin in the castle and the friend on the bridge would prove no liars to him. With longing impatience he expected the rising of the moon, and no sooner did she stretch her silver horns over the bushes than he briskly set to work, observing exactly everything the old man had taught him; and happily raised the treasure without meeting any adventure in the process, without any black dog having frightened him, or any bluish flame having lighted him to the spot.

Father Melchior, in burying this penny for a rainy day, had nowise meant that his son should be deprived of so considerable part of his inheritance. The mistake lay in this, that death had escorted the testator out of the world in another way than said testator had expected. He had been completely convinced that he should take his journey, old and full of days, after regulating his temporal concerns with all the formalities of an ordinary sick-bed; for so it had been prophesied to him in his youth. In consequence he purposed, when, according to the usage of the church, extreme unction should have been dispensed to him, to call his beloved son to his bedside, having previously dismissed all bystanders, there to give him the paternal blessing, and by way of farewell memorial direct him to this treasure buried in the garden. All this, too, would have happened in just order, if the light of the old man had departed like that of a wick whose oil is done; but as death had privily snuffed him out at a feast, he undesignedly took along with him his secret to the grave.

With immeasurable joy the treasure-digger took possession of the shapeless Spanish pieces, which, with a vast multitude of other finer coins the old chest had faithfully preserved. When the first intoxication of delight had in some degree evaporated, he bethought him how the treasure was to be transported, safe and unobserved into the narrow alley. The burden was too heavy to be carried without help; thus, with the possession of riches, all the cares attendant on them were awakened. The new Crœsus found no better plan than to intrust his capital to the hollow trunk of a tree that stood behind the garden, in a meadow; the empty chest he again buried under the rose-bush, and smoothed the place as well as possible. In the space of three days the treasure had been faithfully transmitted by instalments from the hollow tree into the narrow alley; and now the owner of it thought he might with honor lay aside his strict incognito. He dressed himself with the finest; had his prayer displaced from the church, and required, instead of it, “A Christian thanksgiving for a traveler on returning to his native town, after happily arranging his affairs.” He hid himself in a corner of the church, where he could observe the fair Meta, without himself being seen; he turned not his eye from the maiden, and drank from her looks the actual rapture which in foretaste had restrained him from suicide on the bridge of the Weser. When the thanksgiving came in hand, a glad sympathy shone from all her features and the cheeks of the virgin glowed with joy.

Franz now appeared once more on the Exchange; began a branch of trade which in a few weeks extended to a great scale; and as his wealth became daily more apparent, Neighbor Grudge, the scandal-chewer, was obliged to conclude, that in the cashing of his old debts he must have had more luck than sense. He hired a large house, fronting the Roland, in the market-place; engaged clerks and warehousemen; carried on his trade unweariedly; married Meta; provided for old Timbertoe; lived happily with his wife; and found the most tolerable mother-in-law that has ever been discovered.

Transcriber’s Notes

The Table of Contents was added by the Transcriber.

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed. Inconsistent hyphenation was not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; all unbalanced quotation marks were remedied.

Words in dialect have not been checked for consistency and have not been changed.

The credit line for each story was printed at the bottom of the story’s first page. In this eBook, those credit lines have been repositioned just below the titles and enclosed in parentheses.

Page 151: “mien” was printed as “mein”; changed here.

Page 160: “via Bourdeaux” was printed as “via., Bourdeaux”; changed here.

Page 195: “ricocheting” was printed as “richocheting”; changed here.

Page 201: “curiosities” was printed as “curosities”; changed here.

Page 210: “chimpanze” was printed that way.

Page 217: The “m” in “Embalm” was italicized in the original book; not changed here.

Page 252: “young gentleman” was printed as “young gentlemen”; changed here.

Page 255: “he was now possessed off” was printed that way.






End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Short Stories, Vol. V., No. 2, Mar. 1891, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT STORIES ***

***** This file should be named 59805-h.htm or 59805-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/5/9/8/0/59805/

Produced by Charlie Howard and The Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)


Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country outside the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
 
1 ... 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Go to page:

Free ebook «Short Stories by - (easy readers .txt) 📖» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment