'You see, my boy,' he continued, more kindly, 'we have bought the new cow from the Soltys and we shall want more hay, so I am going to ask the squire to let me rent the field.' 'I see....But, daddy, I am always wondering what the grass thinks when the cows chew it up.' 'What should it think? It doesn't think at all.' 'But, daddy, why shouldn't it think? When people are standing round the church in a crowd, they look like grass from a distance, all red and yellow, like flowers in a field. If some horrible cow came and lapped them up with her tongue, wouldn't they be able to think?' 'People would scream, but the grass says nothing.' 'It does say something! A dry stick cracks when you tread on it, and a fresh branch cries and clings to the tree when you tear it off, and the grass squeaks and holds on with its feet,...and...' 'Oh! you are always saying queer things,' interrupted his father; 'and you, Jendrek, are you glad that we are going to the manor-house?' 'Is it I who is going or you?' said Jendrek, shrugging his shoulders. 'I shouldn't go.' 'Well, what would you do?' 'I should take the hay and stack it in the yard; then let them come!' 'You would dare to cut the squire's hay?' 'How is it his? Has he sown the grass? or is the field near his house?' 'Don't you see, silly, that the meadow is his just as well as his other fields?' 'They are his, so long as no one takes them. Our land and our house were his once, now they are yours. Why should he be better off than we are? He does nothing, yet he has enough land for a hundred peasants.' 'He has it because he has it, because he is a gentleman.' 'Pooh! If you wore a coat, and your trousers outside your boots, you would be a gentleman; but for all that you wouldn't have the land.' 'You are stupid,' said Slimak, getting angry. 'I know I am stupid, that is because I can't read or write, but Jasiek Gryb can, and therefore he is clever, and he says there must be equality, and there will be when the peasants have taken the land from the nobility.' 'Jasiek had better leave off taking money from his father's chest before he disposes of other people's property! He might give mine to Maciek and take the squire's for himself, but he would never give his own away. Let it be as God has ordered.' 'Did God give the land to the squire?' 'God has ordered that there should not be equality in the world. A pine is tall, a hazel is low, the grass is still lower. Look at sensible dogs. When a pail of dish-water is brought out to them, the strongest drinks first, and the others stand by and lick their lips, although they know that he will take the best part; then they all take their turn. If they start quarrelling, they upset the pail and the strong get the better of the weak. If people were to say to each other: Disgorge what you have swallowed, the strong would drive off the weak and leave them to starve.'