At times of hard work, my mother was fond of a good table:
"Who works with a will may eat with a will," she said. "My mother used always to say, 'Who dares not risk to lose a tittle, dares not either win a little.'"
My father was content with scanty fare; he was always fearing that the home would be ruined.
These were the only differences in their married life; and even those did not go deep. They uttered them only to each other: when father talked to strangers, he praised mother; when mother talked to strangers, she praised father.
They were of one mind as regarded the bringing-up of children. Work and prayer, thrift and honesty, were our main precepts.
I only once received a proper thrashing. In front of the house was a young copse of larch—and fir-trees, which gradually grew up so high that it shut out the view of the mountains on that side. Now I loved this view and I thought that father would be sure to thank me if I—who was an enterprising lad in those days—cut down the little trees. And, true enough, one afternoon, when everyone was in the fields, I stole into the little wood with an axe and began to cut down young trees. Before long, my father appeared upon the scene; but the thanks which he gave me had a very queer look.
"Lend me the hatchet, boy!" he said, quietly.
I thought, "Now he'll tackle to himself: so much the better"; and I passed him the axe.
He used it to chop off a birch-switch and flattened it across my back.
"Wait a bit!" he cried. "Do you want to do for the young wood? It has more rods for you, where this came from!"