This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 edition. Excerpt: ... 181 IVO. THE FIRST MASS. One Saturday afternoon there was a great hammering and carpentering on the Boxhill: Valentine the joiner was busy with his two sons, erecting a scaffolding, which in truth was to serve for nothing less than an altar and a pulpit. Gregory, the son of Christie the tailor, was the next morning to pass his Primitia, as the celebration of the first mass and the first sermon of a young ecclesiastic is called. Valentine's youngest son Ivo, a fair-haired boy six years old, assisted his father with an air of great importance: bare-headed and bare-footed, he climbed about the timbers as nimbly as a squirrel. Whenever a plank was raised, he cried aloud, like his father, "Hollo! lend a hand here!" put his shoulder to the work, and panted as if he had the hardest share of the toil. Valentine kept little Ivo constantly employed; he had to wind the cord upon the roller, to collect the tools, or to pile up the shavings into a heap. Ivo set to work in good earnest, with a look of vast diligence; but once when he was seated on the end of a beam, to steady it, the motion of the saw made him shake so, that he could not stop laughing and nearly fell to the ground however he held fast, and exerted all his efforts to accomplish his important task. The scaffolding was at length finished, and Ludwig the sadler was ready to nail down the carpet. Ivo wanted sadly to help him; but the gruff man pushed him away, and Ivo sat down quietly upon the heap of shavings, gazing on the distant hills, behind which the sun was going down in a purple glow. All at once he heard his father's whistle; he jumped up and ran to meet him.. 1 "Father," said Ivo, "how I should like one day to go to Hochdorf!" "Why so?" "Look-ye," said the boy, "it is close to...