J. F. Campbell Collection > Household stories

12 Grimm's household stories.
to answei-, " No, father, I cannot go there, I am afraid," for he was a
coward. Or sometimes, of an evening, tales were told by the fire'side
which made one shudder, and the listeners exclaimed, " Oh, it makes
us shiver ! " In a corner, meanwhile, sat the younger son listening,
but he could not comprehend what was said, and he thought, '' They
say continually, ' Oh, it makes us shiver, it makes us shiver !' but per-
haps shivering is an art which I cannot understand." One day, how-
ever, his father said to him, " Do you hear, you there in the corner ?
You are growing stout and big ; you must learn some trade to get your
living by. Do you see how your brother works ? But as for you, you
are not worth malt and hops."
" Ah, father ! " answered he, " I would willingly learn something.
What shall I begin ? I want to know what shivering means, for of that
I can understand nothing."
The elder brother laughed when he heard this speech, and thought
to himself, " Ah ! my brother is such a simpleton, that he cannot earn
his own living. He who would make a good hedge, must learn betimes
to bend." But the father sighed.and said, " What shivering means you
may learn soon enough, but you Avill never get your bread by that."
Soon after the parish sexton came in for a gossip, so the father told
him his troubles, and how that his younger son was such a simpleton
that he knew nothing, and could learn nothing. " Just fancy, when I
asked him how he intended to earn his bread, he desired to learn what
shivering meant ! " " Oh, if that be all," answered the sexton, " he can
learn that soon enough with me ; just send him to my place, and I will
soon teach him." The father was very glad, because he thought that
it would do the boy good ; so the sexton took him home to ring the
bells. About two days afterwards he called him up at midnight to go
into the church-tower to toll the bell. " You shall soon learn what
shivering means," thought the sexton, and getting up he went out, too.
As soon as the boy reached the belfry, and turned himself round to
seize the rope, he saw upon the stairs, near the sounding-hole, a white
figure. " Who's there ? " he called out ; but the figure gave no answer,
and neither stirred nor spoke. " Answer," said the boy, " or make
haste off; you have no business here to-night." But the sexton did
not stir, so that the boy might think it was a ghost.
The boy called out a second time, " What are you doing here ?
Speak, if you are an honest fellow, or else I will throw you down-
stairs."
The sexton said to himself, " That is not a bad thought;" but he re-
mained quiet as if he were a stone. Then the boy called out for the
third time, but it produced no effect; so, making a spring, he threw the
ghost down the stairs, so that it rolled ten steps, and then lay motionless
in a corner. Thereupon he rang the bell, and then going home he went
to bed without saying a word, and fell fast asleep. The sexton's wife
waited some time for her husband, but he did not come ; so at last she
became anxious, woke the boy, and asked him if he knew where her
husband was, who had gone before him to the belfry.