At the end of March a telegram from Hamburg announced the birth of a
fine boy, to whom Wilhelm was to stand godfather. He was to be named
Paul Wilhelm, and to be known by the latter name. When the warm
weather came, Paul and his family were to go to the moor, and during
the removal Malvine went with her mother and grandmother, who had
both nursed her tenderly, to Berlin for a visit. Paul went through a
great deal of worry and anxiety this summer. He had everything at
stake in waiting for the results of his undertaking. All his money
was in the buildings, the earth-works, and waterworks; if the barren
swamp did not yield twice the sum intrusted to it he was a ruined
man. But as July drew near, and Paul looked at the thick standing
ears of barley and wheat, he felt the weight of his anxiety lifted,
and in August he proclaimed in letters to his friends that the
battle was won, the harvest more abundant than he had dared to hope
for, and the remaining half-year would complete the transformation
of the worthless moorland into a veritable Australian gold mine. He
regarded his property now with a parental tenderness, as if it were
some living being whom he had trained and educated. The first
harvest had given him experience, and opportunity for new work, and
he stayed through the autumn and winter in his house in the midst of
his workmen, whom he felt inclined to canonize.
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