A friend sent me a link to the entire book online. It's from Mark
Twain's dark period towards the end of his life. Don't look up
anything before you just read it, since it's so short. It really makes me want to read more Twain, because his just my "type" -- beautiful prose (very modern feeling) and heavy content. It starts off in a small
isolated village in Austria and tells about these three boys that
befriend a mysterious stranger with powers that end up causing a bit
of a ruckus in the remote and "middle ages" style fanatically religious locale. The setting feels like Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude and the way the narration feels like a Grimm's fairy tale or C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters. It's short! Tell me if you want the link!