“Just give your orders to the tenant the way you want things done here. She is not a bad woman and will gladly do all to please you and will manage the household well in my absence. She knows that the house and estate will be hers if she serves us both well unto the day of our death, for we have given her our written agreement. Don’t stay at home all the time. Go out to different places and visit the neighbors to learn what is happening among people and out in the world and you’ll have something to laugh at. Go to church also and say a little prayer for me there. It is good for those who are on a journey if we pray for them at home. I, too, shall always remember you in a prayer. Indeed, I’ll do nothing else there than pray for you!”
“Oh, but if you’d only rather stay right here!”
“Keep your things in good order so that they would last. Wear your fur coat whenever you wish, but take care of the top coat, for such a piece of goods you can’t again get in a hurry. Those new shirts, the linen for which I spun for you last winter, you know, those with the little red hearts at the collar band, do not wear them all the time. Put them on only on Sundays and holidays so that you’d not wear them out at once, for then you’d have no memento of the work of my hands—and that would grieve me. Don’t stop your work. Keep at it every day and in that way you will chase away the loneliness most surely. It will be best if you begin right away to work on that cage in which to shut
