[Footnote 1: _Gospodarz_: the owner of a small holding, as distinct from the villager, who owns no land and is simply an agricultural labourer. The word, which means host, master of the house, will be used throughout the book. _Gospodyni_: hostess, mistress of the holding. _Gospodarstwo_: the property.] Josef Slimak. Slimak's cottage is by the roadside, the front door opening on to the road, the back door into the yard; the cowhouse and pigsty are under one roof, the barn, stable, and cart-shed forming the other three sides of the square courtyard. The peasants chaff Slimak for living in exile like a Sibiriak.[1] It is true, they say, that he lives nearer to the church, but on the other hand he has no one to open his mouth to. [Footnote 1: Sibiriak: a person of European birth or extraction living in Siberia.] However, his solitude is not complete. On a warm autumn day, when the white-coated gospodarz is ploughing on the hill with a pair of horses, you can see his wife and a girl, both in red petticoats, digging up potatoes. Between the hills the thirteen-year-old Jendrek[1] minds the cows and performs strange antics meanwhile to amuse himself. If you look more closely you will also find the eight-year-old Stasiek[2] with hair as white as flax, who roams through the ravines or sits under the lonely pine on the hill and looks thoughtfully into the valley. [Footnote 1: Polish spelling, _Jedrek_ (pronounced as given, Jendrek, with the French sound of _en_): Andrew.] [Footnote 2: _Stasiek_: diminutive of Stanislas.] That gospodarstwo--a drop in the sea of human interest--was a small world in itself which had gone through various phases and had a history of its own. For instance, there was the time when Josef Slimak had scarcely seven acres of land and only his wife in the cottage. Then there came two surprises, his wife bore him a son--Jendrek,--and as the result of the servituty[1] his holding was increased by three acres. [Footnote 1: _Servituty_ are pieces of land which, on the abolition of serfdom, the landowners had to cede to the peasants formerly their serfs. The settlement was left to the discretion of the owners, and much bargaining and discontent on both sides resulted therefrom; the peasants had to pay percentage either in labour or in produce to the landowner.] Both these circumstances created a great change in the gospodarz's life; he bought another cow and pig and occasionally hired a labourer. Some years later his second son, Stasiek, was born. Then Slimakowa[1] hired a woman by way of an experiment for half a year to help her with the work. [Footnote 1: Slimakowa: Polish form for Mrs. Slimak.]