uring the foddering, said Uli, and the dung must be spread while still
warm, especially in winter. Once frozen, it wouldn't settle any more and
one would get no manure from it. With that he went at it himself, and
the two men calmly let him work and made fun of him behind the
stable-doors and in the fodder-passage.

In the house they had long since begun to wonder that the new overseer
did not come home, and to fear that he might have driven off and away.
Joggeli had sat down at the window from which he could see the road,
almost looked his eyes out, and began to scold: he hadn't thought
Johannes was as bad as that, and here he was his cousin, too, and such a
trick he wouldn't play on the merest stranger; but nowadays one couldn't
place reliance upon anybody, not even one's own children.

While he was in his best vein, Freneli came in and said, "You can look a
long time; the new man's out there spreading the manure they've taken
out; he probably thinks it's better not to let it pile up. If nobody
else will do it he probably thinks he must do it himself."

"Why doesn't he show himself when he comes home?" said Joggeli; and
"Good gracious, why doesn't he come to supper?" said the mother. "Go and
tell him to come in at once, we're keeping something warm for him."

"Wait," said Joggeli, "I'll go out myself and see how he's doing it and
what's been done."

"But make him come," said the mother; "I think he must have got good and
hungry."

Joggeli went out and saw how Uli was carefully spreading the manure and
thoroughly treading it down; that pleased him. He wanted to look for the
milker and the carter, to show them how Uli was doing it and to tell
them to do it so in the future; he looked into the fodder-passage and
could not take his eyes from it for a long time, as he saw the handsome,
round, appetizing fodder-piles and the clean path between them. He
looked into the stable, and as he saw the cows standing comfortably in
clean straw and no longer on old manure he too felt better, and so he
now went to Uli and told him that it had not really been the intention
that he should do all the dirty work himself; that was other people's
business. He had had the time for it, said Uli; there was no place for
him in the threshing, and so he had done this in order to show how he
wanted it done in the future. Joggeli wanted to bid him come in; but Uli
said he would first like to watch the cleaning up after the threshing;
he wanted