Grimms' Fairy Tales

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night which made the flesh creep, the listeners sometimes said: 'Oh,
it makes us shudder!' The younger sat in a corner and listened with
the rest of them, and could not imagine what they could mean. 'They are
always saying: "It makes me shudder, it makes me shudder!" It does not
make me shudder,' thought he. 'That, too, must be an art of which I
understand nothing!'

Now it came to pass that his father said to him one day: 'Hearken to me,
you fellow in the corner there, you are growing tall and strong, and you
too must learn something by which you can earn your bread. Look how your
brother works, but you do not even earn your salt.' 'Well, father,' he
replied, 'I am quite willing to learn something--indeed, if it could but
be managed, I should like to learn how to shudder. I don't understand
that at all yet.' The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and
thought to himself: 'Goodness, what a blockhead that brother of mine is!
He will never be good for anything as long as he lives! He who wants to
be a sickle must bend himself betimes.'