I'll not at the gate
Kiss you early or late.'

Slimak turned towards the river where his wife could be plainly seen in
her white chemise and red skirt, bending over the water and beating the
linen with a stick until the valley rang. Stasiek had already strayed
farther towards the ravines. Sometimes he knelt down on the bank and
gazed into the river, supported on his elbows. Slimak smiled.

'Peering again! What does he see down there?' he whispered.

Stasiek was his favourite, and struck him as an unusual child, who
could see things that others did not see.

While Slimak cracked his whip and the horses went on, his thoughts were
travelling in the direction of the desired field.

'How much land have I got?' he meditated, 'ten acres; if I had only
sown six or seven every year and let the rest lie fallow, how could I
have fed my hungry family? And the man, he eats as much as I do, though
he is lame; and he has fifteen roubles wages besides. Magda eats less,
but then she is lazy enough to make a dog howl. I'm lucky when they
want me for work at the manor, or if a Jewess hires my horses to go for
a drive, or my wife sells butter and eggs. And what is there saved when
all is said and done? Perhaps fifty roubles in the whole year. When we
were first married, a hundred did not astonish me. Manure the ground
indeed! Let the squire take it into his head not to employ me, or not
to sell me fodder, what then? I should have to drive the cattle to
market and die of hunger.