sister in the fields. I will do it, too, if only you will not make them
go!"

The old man, irritated by the secret knowledge that he had nobody but
himself to blame for the present dilemma, still more irritated, also, by
this proof of what was always exceedingly displeasing to him,--his son's
having adopted American standards and opinions,--broke out furiously
with a wrath wholly disproportionate to the occasion,--

"You be tam, Johan Weitbreck. You tink we are fine gentlemen and ladies,
like dese Americans dat is too proud to vork vid hands. I say tam dis
country, vere day say all is alike, an' vork all; and ven you come here,
it is dat nobody vill vork, if he can help, and vimmins ish shame to be
seen vork. It is not shame to be seen vork; I vork, mein vife vork too,
an' my childrens vork too, py tam!"

John walked away,--his only resource when his father was in a passion.
John occupied that hardest of all positions,--the position of a
full-grown, mature man in a father's home, where he is regarded as
nothing more than a boy.

As he entered the kitchen and saw his pretty sister Carlen at the high
spinning-wheel, walking back and forth drawing the fine yarn between
her chubby fingers, all the while humming a low song to which the
whirring of the wheel made harmonious accompaniment, he thought to
himself bitterly: "Work, indeed! As if they did not work now longer than
we do, and quite as hard! She's been spinning ever since daylight, I
believe."

"Is it hard work spinning, Liebchen?" he asked.