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In the matter of raising canary-birds -- at once strong of body and of / note, tamed to associate with humanity on rarely friendly terms, and / taught to sing with a sweetness nothing short of heavenly -- Andreas / Stoffel was second to none. And this was not by any means surprising, / for he had been born (and for its saintly patron had been christened) / close by the small old town of Andreasberg: which stands barely / within the verge of the Black Forest, on the southern declivity of the / Harz -- and which, while famous for its mines, is renowned above all / other cities for the excellence of the bird songsters which there and / thereabouts are raised.
Canary-birds had been the close companions of this good Andreas through / all the fifty years of his lifetime. They had sung their sweet song of / rejoicing at his birth -- when the storks had brought him one day, while / his father was far underground at work in the mines, and was vastly well / pleased, when he came home all grimy at night, to find what a brave / boy God had sent him by these winged messengers. They had sung over his / cradle as his mother, knitting, rocked it in the midst of the long / patch of sunlight that came through the low, wide window of the / _bauernhaus_ -- the comfortable home with high-peaked roof, partly / thatched and partly shingled, and with great drooping eaves, that was / nooked snugly on the warm southern slope of the Andreasberg beside a / little stream.