The railway brought Slimak no luck either. It became increasingly difficult to buy fodder for the animals, and no one now asked him to sell his produce. The salted butter, and other produce of which he had laid in a stock, went bad, and they had to eat the fowls themselves. The Germans did all the trading with the railway men, and even in the little town no one looked at the peasant's produce. So Slimak sat in his room and did no work. Where should he find work? He sat by the stove and pondered. Would things continue like this? would there always be too little hay? would no one buy from him? would there be no end to the thieving? What was not under lock and key in the farm-buildings was no longer safe. Meanwhile the Germans drove about for miles in all directions and sold all that they produced. 'Things are going badly,' said Slimakowa. 'Eh...they'll get straight again somehow,' he answered. Gradually poor Stasiek was forgotten. Sometimes his mother laid one spoon too many, and then wiped her eyes with her kerchief, sometimes Magda thoughtlessly called Jendrek by his brother's name or the dog would run round the buildings looking for some one, and then lay down barking, with his head on the ground. But all this happened more and more rarely. Jendrek had been restless since his brother's death; he did not like to sit indoors when there was nothing to do, and roamed about. His rambles frequently ended in a visit to the schoolmaster; out of curiosity he examined the books, and as he knew some of the letters, the schoolmaster's daughter amused herself by teaching him to spell. The boy would purposely stumble over his words so that she should correct him and touch his shoulder to point out the mistake. One day he took home a book to show what he had learnt, and his overjoyed mother sent the schoolmaster's daughter a couple of fowls and four dozen eggs. Slimak promised the schoolmaster five roubles when Jendrek would be able to pray from a book and ten more when he should have learnt to write. Jendrek was therefore more and more often at the settlement, either busy with his lessons or else watching the girl through the window and listening to her voice. But this happened to annoy one of the young Germans, who was a relation of the Hamers. Under ordinary circumstances Jendrek's behaviour would have attracted his parents' attention, but they were entirely engrossed in another subject. Every day convinced them more firmly of the fact that they had too little fodder and a cow too many. They did not say so to each other, but no one in the house thought of anything else. The gospodyni thought of it when she saw the milk get less in the pails, Magda had forebodings and caressed the cows in turns, Maciek, when unobserved, even deprived the horses of a handful of hay, and Slimak would stand in front of the cowshed and sigh.