er two and fell downstairs at that when
he tried to get into his room. I should think you'd have waked up, he
made such a noise. He was drunk, and now he won't want to get up; and
anyhow I'd rather he wouldn't take a lantern into the stable while he's
tipsy."

"Servants are a trial nowadays," said the farmer, striking a light and
dressing. "You can hardly get 'em or pay 'em enough, and then you're
supposed to do everything yourself and never say a word about anything.
You're not master in your own house any more, and you can't do enough of
your own errands to keep from quarrels and from being run down."

"But you can't let this go on," said his wife; "it's happening too
often. Only last week he went off on two sprees; you know he drew his
pay before Ash Wednesday. I'm not thinking of you alone, but also of
Uli. If nothing's said to him he'll think he's got a right to go on so,
and will keep on worse and worse, and then we'll have to take it on our
consciences; for masters are masters after all, and let folks say what
they will about the new fashion, that it's nobody's business what the
servants do out of working hours, we're masters in our own house just
the same, and we're responsible to God and men for what we allow in our
house and what we overlook in our servants. Then too I'm thinking of the
children. You must take him into the sitting-room after breakfast, and
read him the riot act."

You must know that there prevails on many farms, especially those which
belong to the real farmer aristocracy--i.e., those which have for a long
time been handed, down in the same family, so that family customs have
been established and family respectability is cherished--the very
pleasant custom of causing absolutely no quarrel, no violent scene,
which could attract the neighbors' attention in any way. In proud calm
the house stands amid the green trees; with calm, grave demeanor its
indwellers move about and in it, and over the tree-tops sounds at most
the neighing of the horses, never the voices of men. There is little
noisy rebuke. Man and wife never rebuke each other in public; and
mistakes of the servants they often ignore, or make, as it were in
passing, a remark, let fall merely a word or a hint, which reaches only
the ear for which it is intended. When something unusual occurs or the
measure is full, they call the sinner into the sitting-room as
unostentatiously as possible, or seek him out while he is working alone,
and