up for the long privation. But here they
hastened to tear off the padlocks; then, going into the garden, they
tore away the dividing hedge, heedless of the cabbage destroyed in the
operation.

Then they went to their sister's, and sat side by side at the
dinner-table.

In the afternoon they sat in church together, each holding one side of
their mother's hymn-book.

They lived in harmony from that day forth.

IVO, THE GENTLEMAN.

1.
THE FIRST MASS.

[Illustration: Valentine the carpenter.]

One Saturday afternoon the busy sound of the hammer and of the adze was
heard on the green hill-top which served the good folks of Nordstetten
as their public gathering-place in the open air. Valentine the
carpenter, with his two sons, was making a scaffolding designed to
serve no less a purpose than that of an altar and a pulpit. Christian
the tailor's son Gregory was to officiate at his first mass and to
preach his first sermon.

Ivo, Valentine's youngest son, a child of six years of age, assisted
his father with a mien which betokened that he considered his services
indispensable. With his bare head and feet he ran up and down the
timbers nimbly as a squirrel. When a beam was being lifted, he cried,
"Pry under!" as lustily as any one, put his shoulder to the crowbar,
and puffed as if nine-tenths of the weight fell upon him. Valentine
liked to see his little boy employed. He would tell him to wind the
twine on the reel, to carry the tools where they were wanted, or to
rake the chips into a heap. Ivo obeyed all these directions with the
zeal and devotion of a self-sacrificing patriot. Once, when perched
upon the end of a plank for the purpose of weighing it down, the motion
of the saw shook his every limb, and made him laugh aloud in spite of
himself: he would have fallen off but for the eagerness with which he
held on to his position and endeavored to perform his task in the most
workmanlike manner.

At last the scaffolding was finished. Lewis the saddler was ready to
nail down the carpets and hanging. Ivo offered to help him too; but,
being gruffly repelled, he sat down upon his heap of chips, and looked
at the mountains, behind which the sun was setting in a sea of fire.
His father's whistle aroused him, and he ran to his side.

[Illustration: Valentine and his son folded their hands as the
vesper-bell rang.]

"Fathe