Such slovenly creatures as most girls are nowadays make very expensive wives; most of them thought that all that was needed to make a good wife was a blue-silk piece of material to wrap round their heads, gloves in summer and embroidered slippers in winter. If you found that one of the cows in the cowshed was a poor specimen, that was certainly bad luck, but you could change it all the same; but if you are landed with a wife who does you out of a house and farm, that’s the end of it, and you can’t get rid of her. That’s why it’s more useful to think about other things rather than marriage and to let girls remain girls.

“Yes, yes, you’re quite right,” the older godfather said; he was an insignificant looking little man in cheap clothes, but he was respected very much and called “Cousin,” for he had no children, but did possess a farm of his own without a mortgage on it and 100,000 Swiss francs in capital. “Yes, you are right,” he said. “Womenfolk are just no use any more. I won’t say that there isn’t one here or there who would do credit to a house but such are few and far between. All they can think about is foolery and showing off; they dress up like peacocks, strut about like daft storks, and if one of them has to do half a day’s work, she gets a headache that lasts three days, and spends four days lying in bed before she is herself again. When I was courting my old woman, things were different, you didn’t have to fear as much as you do now that you might get, instead of a good mistress of the house, only a fool or a devil about the house.”

“Now look here, godfather Uli,” said the godmother who had been wanting to talk for a long time, but had not bad a chance, “anyone would think that it was only in your young days that there were any decent farmers’ daughters. The only thing is, you just don’t know them and you don’t take any notice of girls any more, which of course is quite right in an old man like you; but there are decent girls still, just as much as in the days when your old woman was still young. I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but my father has told me many a time that if I go on as I have been doing, I shall outdo my late mother yet, and she became a really famous woman. My father has never taken such fat pigs to market as last year. The butcher has often said that he’d like to see the lass who had fed those pigs. But there’s plenty to complain about in young fellows today; just what on earth is wrong with them then? They can certainly smoke, sit around in the inn, wear their white hats on the slant and open their eyes as wide as city-gates, hang around all the skittle-games, all the shooting matches and all the loose girls; but if one of them is supposed to milk a cow or plow a field, he’s had it, and if he takes a piece of timber in his hands, he behaves as stupidly as a gentleman or even a lawyer’s clerk. I have often solemnly sworn that I won’t have anybody as a husband unless I know for certain how I can get on with him, and even if one of them here or there may turn out to be something of a farmer, that doesn’t help you to know at all what he would be like as a husband. “

At this the others laughed heartily, making the girl blush as they joked with her; how long did she think that she would want to take a man on approval until she knew for certain what sort of a husband he would be?

In this way, laughing and joking, they ate a lot of meat and did not forget the pear-slices either, until eventually the older godfather said that he thought that they should be contented for the time being and move away a little from the table, for your legs got quite stiff beneath the table and a pipe is never more welcome than after you’ve been eating meat. This counsel received general acclamation, even though the father and mother tried to persuade the guests not to leave the table; once people had moved away, there was hardly a hope of bringing them back again. “Don’t you worry, cousin!” said the older godfather, “as soon as you put something good on the table, you’ll have us all together again without much trouble, and if we stretch our legs a bit, we shall be all the more handy at tackling the food again. “

The men now made the round of the cattle-sheds, took a look at the hayloft to see if any of the old hay was still available, made compliments about the lush grass and stared up into the fruit-trees to calculate how great the blessing of this crop might be.

The cousin made a halt beneath one of the trees that was still in bloom and said that this was as good a place as any to sit down and have a pipe, it was cool here, and as soon as the womenfolk had served up something good again, they would be near at hand. Soon they were joined by the godmother who with the other women had been inspecting the vegetable garden and the plantations. The other womenfolk came after the godmother, and one after another lowered themselves onto the grass, carefully keeping their beautiful skirts safe and clean, although their petticoats with their bright red edging were exposed to the danger of receiving a souvenir on them from the green grass.

The tree around which the whole company was encamped stood above the house on the first gentle rise of the slope. The beautiful new house was what first caught the eye; beyond the house the glance could rove to the edge of the valley on the other side, looking over many a fine, prosperous farm and further away over green hills and dark valleys.

“You got a grand house there, and everything is well planned about it too,” the cousin said. “Now you can really enjoy being in it, and you’ve got room for everything and everybody; I never could understand how anybody could put up with such a poor house when they have enough money and timber to build for themselves, as you have, for example. “

“Don’t tease, cousin!” the grandfather said. “There’s no cause fur us to boast either about money or timber; and then, building is a grim business, you know when you start, but you never know when you’re going to finish, and now one thing gets in the way, now another; every place has got something else that can go wrong. “

“I like the house extremely well,” one of the women said. “We too ought to have had a new house fur a long time now, but we always shy off at the expense. But as soon as my husband arrives, he must have a good look at this house; it seems to me that if we could have a house like this, I should be in heaven. But all the same I would like to ask—and don’t take it amiss, will you?—why ever that ugly black window-post is there, just by the first window; it detracts from the appearance of the whole house. “

The grandfather pulled a dubious face, drew even more vigorously at his pipe and finally said that they had run out of wood when they were building, there was nothing else just at hand, and so they had taken in their need and haste something from the old house. “But,” the woman said, “the black piece of wood was too short, apart from anything else, and there are pieces joined on top and bottom; besides, any neighbor would have been only too glad to give you a really new.