“I went this morning to hire labourers in Vola, offering three _zloty_ a day and their board, but could get no one. Everyone wants to plough his own fields first. They promised to come, but only in a week or two.” “My God!” he said, heaving a sigh; “one man has only a couple of arms: what can he do?” “Ah, but ye are of use to the folk, and of no little use. Were it not for your wise head and kind heart, I cannot tell what would become of us.” “Could I do all I long to do, there would be an end of suffering on earth!” He threw out his arms with a gesture of pained helplessness, and hastened away to the Voyt’s dwelling. But it was long before he got there; cottage after cottage attracted him. The village had somewhat quieted down. Some of the more excitable women were still loud in talk outside their cabins, but the greater part had gone to cook the dinner. Only the wind howled along the roads and swept through the trees as heretofore. But presently, dinner over, and the gale notwithstanding, the whole place was swarming with folk, and an increasing clatter of women’s tongues resounded about the gardens, in every part of the farm-yards, before the huts, in the passages and in the rooms they led to. For only women and lasses were toiling there; of males, there were only little boys. They were all the more feverishly earnest in their work because the day before had been a sort of half-holiday, with the confessions to the priests who had come; and the morning had been lost because of the gendarmes. Easter was near, Holy Tuesday had come already, and so much still to be done! A spring cleaning was necessary, clothes had to be made for the children, and in some cases for the grown-ups too; and corn required to be ground, and the Hallow-fare to be got ready! In every cottage the goodwives’ brains were whirling to find out how all this was to be accomplished. Most carefully did they look through their store-rooms for anything to be either sold to the tavern-keeper or taken over to town to get the needful funds. Several women even drove off at once after dinner, with saleables under the litter in their carts. “I hope no tree may fall on you by the way!” Roch said warningly to Gulbas’ wife, who had such a wretched jade to her cart that it scarcely made any headway against the wind. And with that he entered her farm-yard, where the girls, who had been trying to plaster up the chinks, could reach no higher than the tops of the windows. In that work he helped them, made some slaked lime in a tub for the whitewash, and a sort of straw brush to lay it on. Then he walked on to Vahnik’s, where the lasses were carting dung, but so clumsily that half of it fell out into the road, while they pulled the unruly horse along by the bridle. Up came Roch, shovelled the dung into the cart, set all to rights there, and whipped the horse into obedience.