them like a cloud, then settled at the other end, shrieking continually
in astonishment that earth should be poured on to such lovely grain.

'Silly fool! Silly fool! What a silly fool!' they cried.

'Bah!' murmured Slimak, cracking his whip at them, 'if I listened to
you idlers, you and I would both starve under the fence. The beggars
are playing the deuce here!'

Certainly Slimak got little encouragement in his labour. Not only that
the sparrows noisily criticized his work, and the chestnuts scornfully
whisked their tails under his nose, but the harrows also objected, and
resisted at every little stone or clod of earth. The tired horses
continually stumbled, and when Slimak cried 'Woa, my lads!' and they
went on, the harrows again resisted and pulled them back. When the
worried harrows moved on for a bit, stones got into the horses' feet or
under his own shoes, or choked up, and even broke the teeth of the
harrows. Even the ungrateful earth offered resistance.

'You are worse than a pig!' the man said angrily. 'If I took to
scratching a pig's back with a horsecomb, it would lie down quietly and
grunt with gratitude. But you are always bristling, as if I did you an
injury!'

The sun took up the affronted earth's cause, and threw a great sheaf of
light across the ashen-coloured field, where dark and yellow patches
were visible.

'Look at that black patch,' said the sun, 'the hill was all black like
that when your father sowed wheat on it. And now look at the yellow