t carefully, sought and
found the colored handkerchief, wiped off the sweat, blew his nose,
put the handkerchief away, folded the coat with great attention,
and returned to his saw-horse much refreshed. Here he came to the
conclusion that he had perhaps set the saw at too sharp an angle, and
so he performed a new operation upon it which took some time, and
finally, with much grunting, achieved the complete division of the log
into two pieces. By this time the midday bells were ringing from the
church-tower, so he quickly got into his coat, put the saw away, and
went into the house to dinner.

"You're punctual, I'm bound to say that for you," remarked the weaver.
The woman brought in the soup, after which there was some cabbage with
a slice of bacon, and Huerlin fell to with a will.

After dinner the sawing was supposed to continue, but this he declined
with emphasis. "I'm not accustomed to it," he said in an injured tone,
and stuck to it. "I'm tired out, and must have a little rest."

The weaver shrugged his shoulders and said "Do as you like--but a man
that won't work must'nt expect any supper. At four o'clock there'll be
bread and cider, if you've done your sawing--otherwise nothing more
till the soup at night."

[Illustration: A HUMAN LOAD]
Franz Wilhelm Voigt

Bread and cider, thought Huerlin, and was confronted with a very serious
problem. In the end he went out and picked up the saw again; but he
shuddered at the thought of working in the hot midday hours, and he
let the wood lie where it was. He went out in the street, found a
cigar-stump on the pavement, put it in his mouth, and slowly covered
the fifty paces to the bend in the road. There he stopped to take
breath, sat down by the roadside on the fine warm turf, looked out over
the many roofs and down to the market-place, catching a glimpse at the
bottom of the valley of his old factory, and dedicated this place as
the first of the Sun-Brothers--the place to which afterward so many of
his comrades and successors have come to lounge away their summer
afternoons, and often mornings and evenings as well.

The gentle, beneficent contemplation of an old age free from cares and
troubles, which he had promised himself in the poorhouse, and which
that morning had faded under the pressure of hard work like a fair
mirage, now returned gradually to him. His heart soothed by the feeling
of a pensioner assured for the rest of his days from anxiety, hunger,
and homel