If he might say so, said Uli, it seemed to him that they ought to bring in the wood now. It was fine weather and the road good, so it would be twice as easy. In February the weather was generally bad and the ground soft; then you couldn't budge anything and ruined all the wagons. That wouldn't do very well, thought Joggeli; it was not customary to begin threshing in February. He hadn't meant that, said Uli. They should continue threshing. He and one more would cut down and get ready all the wood the carter could bring home, and until a load was ready the carter could help them in the woods. Then they couldn't thresh by sixes any more, said Joggeli, if he took a man from the threshing, and when they all cut wood together they could do a lot in a short time. "Well," said Uli, "as you will; but I thought this way: couldn't the milker help in the threshing during the morning and the afternoon, too, if the others help with the manure and the foddering at noon? And sometimes two can do more in the woods than a whole gang, when nobody wants to take hold." "Yes," said Joggeli, "sometimes it goes that way; but let's let the wood go: the threshing's more pressing now."-- "As you will," said Uli, and went somewhat heavy-hearted to bed. "Well, you are the queerest man," said the old woman to her husband. "I liked what Uli said awfully well. It would have been to our advantage; and if those two fine gentlemen, the carter and the milker, don't have time to be drying their noses in the sun all day, it won't hurt 'em a bit, the scamps. Uli will be worth nothing to you, if you go on that way." "But I won't take orders from a servant. If I let him do that he'd think nobody but he was to give orders. You've got to show 'em right from the start how you want to have things." grumbled Joggeli. "Yes, you're the right one to show 'em; you spoil the good ones, and the bad ones you're afraid of and let 'em do as they please--that's your way," said his wife. "It's always been that way, and it isn't going to be any different now."