know before I die. You have no time to lose, Baard, either for me or
for the gard."

They were both silent; at last the school-master says,--

"Shall we walk out and take a look at the gard in this fine weather?"

"Yes; let us do so. I have work-people on the slope; they are
gathering leaves, but they do not work except when I am watching them."

He totters off after his large cap and staff, and says, meanwhile,--

"They do not seem to like to work for me; I cannot understand it."

When they were once out and turning the corner of the house, he paused.

"Just look here. No order: the wood flung about, the axe not even
stuck in the block."

He stooped with difficulty, picked up the axe, and drove it in fast.

"Here you see a skin that has fallen down; but has any one hung it up
again?"

He did it himself.

"And the store-house; do you think the ladder is carried away?"

He set it aside. He paused, and looking at the school-master, said,--