vants
and day-laborers. It is harvest-time; stormy weather would be injurious
now, but a storm between people working together would be still worse.

Tobias gave the servants to understand that he was glad to let the
little boy Peter sit in the saddle and manage the whip; for, thanks to
his care, the wagon would move on safely.

Matters continued in this way during the whole harvest-time. Peter and
Tobias stood opposite one another like two men that, with axes raised,
ready to strike each other, wait a moment to draw their breath. When
will the blow fall?

Landolin pretended to see or hear nothing that was taking place between
the head-servant and his son. He had not had a confidential talk with
Tobias since the evening after the trial. But Tobias was not concerned
about it. A man does not say to the forest behind his house, "It's
right for you to stay there and keep on growing;" and it was just as
easy to imagine the mountains moving away with the forest as to think
of Tobias leaving the farm, especially since he had helped, so cleverly
and well, to have his master acquitted.

But Tobias often looked at his master to see if he would not say a word
of reproof to Peter for his overbearing manner.

When Landolin could no longer avoid doing so, he said, shaking his
finger and winking confidentially: "Let him alone. A horse that pulls
so hard at first will soon let up."

But Peter did not let up. The principal part of the harvest was over.
They were about to take the grain that had been threshed out on rainy
days to market. This had been for many years Tobias's undisputed right,
but Peter now declared that he would do it alone.

"It's not necessary for me to answer you," replied Tobias. "You are not
the master. The farmer and I will show you who is master."

He called Landolin, and made his complaint to him. Landolin took a
grain of wheat out of a sack that had just been filled; bit it in two;
looked at the white meal, and nodded without giving a reply. But Tobias
pressed him for an answer, and demanded to know whether he was in the
farmer's service or in Peter's.

"Peter and I are now one and the same," said Landolin, at length,
swallowing the grain of wheat, the first that had ripened since spring.
He decided that it would be wisest to side with his son. Tobias could
do him no more harm, and one need not be better than all the rest of
the world; ingratitude is the world's wages. But still he did not want
to app