) family reasons caused me to move from
Griesheim to this place, Keilhau.[114] Next came other pupils also, with
Langethal's arrival in September. My household was growing fast, and yet
I had no house of my own. In a way only comprehensible to Him Who knows
the workings of the mind, I managed by November to get the school that I
now occupy built as a frame-house, but without being in possession of
the ground it stood on.

I pass over the space of a year, which was nevertheless so rich in
experiences of trouble and joy, of times when we were cast down, and
other times when we were lifted up, that its description would easily
fill many times the space even of this long letter. In June of the
following year I became in the most remarkable way possessor of the
little farm which I still hold, in Keilhau, and thus for the first time
possessor also of the land upon which the schoolhouse had already been
erected.[115] As yet there were no other buildings there.

In September 1818 I brought to the household, still further increased,
and now so rich with children and brothers, its _housewife_, in the
person of a lady whom a like love of Nature and of childhood with my
own, and a like high and earnest conception of education, as the
preparation for a life worthy of man, had drawn towards me. She was
accompanied by a young girl whom she had some time before adopted as a
daughter, and who now came with her to assist her in the duties of the
household.[116]

We had now a severe struggle for existence for the whole time up to
1820. With all our efforts we never could get the school house enlarged;
other still more necessary buildings had to be erected first, under
pressing need for them.[117] In the year 1820, on Ascension Day, my
brother from Osterode, whose two sons were already my pupils, came to
join me with his whole family and all his possessions; urged by his
love for his boys, and a wish to help in the advancement of my life's
purpose. As my brother, beyond the two sons I have mentioned, had three
daughters, my family was increased by five persons through his
arrival.[118]

The completion of the school-house was now pushed on with zeal; but it
was 1822 before we got it finished. Our life from this point becomes so
complex that it is impossible to do more than just mention what applies
to the Association formed by our still united members.

In 1823, Middendorff's sister's son Barop, till then a divinity
student in Halle,