country round was burned up, there was still rain in the little
valley; and its crops were so heavy, and its hay so high, and its
apples so red, and its grapes so blue, and its wine so rich, and
its honey so sweet, that it was a marvel to everyone who beheld
it and was commonly called the Treasure Valley.

The whole of this little valley belonged to three brothers,
called Schwartz, Hans, and Gluck. Schwartz and Hans, the two
elder brothers, were very ugly men, with overhanging eyebrows and
small, dull eyes which were always half shut, so that you
couldn't see into THEM and always fancied they saw very far into
YOU. They lived by farming the Treasure Valley, and very good
farmers they were. They killed everything that did not pay for
its eating. They shot the blackbirds because they pecked the
fruit, and killed the hedgehogs lest they should suck the cows;
they poisoned the crickets for eating the crumbs in the kitchen,
and smothered the cicadas which used to sing all summer in the
lime trees. They worked their servants without any wages till
they would not work any more, and then quarreled with them and
turned them out of doors without paying them. It would have
been very odd if with such a farm and such a system of farming
they hadn't got very rich; and very rich they DID get. They
generally contrived to keep their corn by them till it was very
dear, and then sell it for twice its value; they had heaps of
gold lying about on their floors, yet it was never known that
they had given so much as a penny or a crust in charity; they
never went to Mass, grumbled perpetually at paying tithes, and
were, in a word, of so cruel and grinding a temper as to receive
from all those with whom they had any dealings the nickname of
the "Black Brothers."