She's given me presents, Lord knows
how many, and would have given me lots more if I hadn't kept stopping
her." "Do as you will," said Johannes, "but I tell you again: consider
it well. It seldom turns out well when such different folks come
together, and it has rarely turned out well when a servant has married
his master's daughter. I set great store by you; to another man I
wouldn't have said so much. Now I must go home; come and see us some
time when you have the leisure; then we'll talk the matter over some
more, if it's not too late."
Uli looked discontentedly after his master. "I shouldn't have thought,"
he reflected, "that he would grudge me my good fortune. But that's the
way with these cursed farmers; they're all alike; they don't want to see
a servant get hold of a farm. Johannes is one of the best of 'em; but he
can't stand it either to see his servant get to be richer than he is and
own a finer farm. Why else should it have mattered to him whether
Elsie's pretty or ugly? He didn't just lookout for a pretty one when he
married. They seem to think it's almost a sin when the like of us thinks
of a farmer's daughter, and still many a one might be glad if she got a
mannerly servant for a husband and didn't have to live like a dog on the
farm all her life." But he said to himself that he wouldn't let himself
be dissuaded so easily; the thing had gone on too long and there had
been too much talk about it for him to back out that way.
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