"Ah Hanschen! Hanschen!" cried she, "what art thou about—thou hast ruined thy poor mother. See, lackaday! the lady of Dolberg's beautiful chamois skin that was to be dyed of a delicate green for her ladyship's slippers. See the ugly black marks that thou hast made upon it! This comes of all thy letter making and spelling of words and names. Away with the useless—things! Thou canst do better with thy knife and thy time than to be bringing thy mother thus into trouble." And in her anger the Frau Gensfleisch swept the precious letters off the table and threw them into the fire.
Hans started forward in dismay to save them but it was too late. One g alone remained of his treasured letters, but it was enough. He had his knife and he could make others—and more than that, there was left with him a valuable thought. The impression left on the white chamois skin by the blackened letter had caused a new idea to flash into his mind—the idea of Printing. On that evening, and in that little cottage, in fact, the invention of Printing took place.
It was something to have a lucky thought come into one's mind, but it is quite another thing to have patience and industry and perseverance enough to put that thought into action as it were, and make it turn to profit and use. Luckily for Hans and for the world, he had these good qualities even when thus a little boy, and from that time he made it the business of his life to turn the thought to good account. We do not say that the little boy Hans Gensfleisch could at that time foresee any but a very small part of the good which might arise out of the invention of printing. He could not possibly tell before-hand, how through its means, knowledge would be spread all over the face of the earth, nor that that book which was then only to be found in convents and monasteries—locked up and rarely opened—read by a few learned monks, and seldom or ever read to the people;—that this book, or the Bible, would through the invention of Printing, be distributed all over the world, and that rich and poor, wise and simple, young and old, would be able to possess it, and read it, and learn from it the Word of God:—he did not foresee this; but he saw that there might be an easier and a quicker way of making books, and this he felt would be a good and useful thing to bring about, and he resolved that he would do it. He saw that instead of spending so much time in shaping over and over again the same letters, that it would be a great saving of trouble, if letters were to be carved out of wood or any other hard substance, and then blackened with ink and pressed or imprinted on the parchment, for then the same letters could be used many times in making different words in different books.
Hans saw this plainly. He was sure of it, and he was almost sure that no one had ever thought of it before. With a very natural feeling, and certainly not a wrong one, he determined that it should be himself who should bring about this new method of writing. He would keep it secret from every one until he could prove that it was a great and useful discovery.
In the meantime, however, he had much to do. First, he must learn to read and spell, and then he must also be able to write well, so as to shape all the letters correctly when he carved them. From that time Hans lost no more time in play. His cross-bow was laid aside, and he seldom or never joined the other boys of the village in their games of running and wrestling, nor did he follow the hunters to the chase on the hills as he had been accustomed to do, or spend time in loitering with his net along the river side. Instead of all this, he would go on every possible pretext into the town and to the monastery to visit his uncle and get all the knowledge he could. And after some time he told his uncle of his great wish to learn to read and to become a scribe, and begged him to persuade his mother to let him follow out his wish.
Father Gottlieb was pleased with the boy's earnest desire. He was good and pious, and when he saw how full of this high hope was the mind of the young boy, he said, "It is the will of God. He makes the humblest of us tools for the furtherance of his wise designs. His will be done!" And he talked to the Frau Gensfleisch upon the matter, and though he did not think it right to tell her that her son might one day become a great and learned man, yet he persuaded her that it would be wrong to oppose the earnest wishes of Hans who had always been a good, and dutiful, and loving son; and so it was settled between them that henceforth a part of the widow's savings were to pay for the labor which was required for the field and garden, and that Hans was to come to the convent every day to be taught by the monks to read and write.
Henceforward Hans was to be a scholar, and his joy indeed was great.