It being a work-day, there were but few people on the mill-pond road: only a few children playing about. Though early in the morning, the sun was hot, but agreeably tempered by the wind, which blew hard enough to make the orchards toss their branches about, laden with ripe red cherries, and the corn beat against the fences in boisterous waves. The huts stood open, and their gates as well; the bedding lay spread upon the hedgerows, and everybody was out in the fields. Some were bringing in the last of the hay, which filled the nostrils with aromatic scent, and left long strips that waved like streaming Jews’ beards, from the trees the heaped-up wagons passed under. They walked along, pondering the question of how the property should be divided. A ditty rose, wafted on the wind—possibly from the fields where they were at work on the potatoes; from the mill came the beating of the water-wheels, mingling with the strokes of a washerwoman’s batlet hard by. “The mill is continually grinding now,” Magda remarked. “Aye, the days before harvest are the miller’s harvest.” Hanka sighed. “Times are much harder this year than last. Everyone complains bitterly, and the _Komorniki_ are really starving.” “And the Koziols,” the blacksmith added, “are prowling about to snap up anything they can lay hands on!” “Say not that. The poor creatures keep themselves alive as best they can. Yesterday Kozlova sold her ducklings to the organist’s wife, and got some money thereby.” “They will soon drink it all,” Magda returned. “I will say no word to their hurt; but ’tis strange that my boy found the feathers of the drake I lost during father’s funeral, behind their cow-byre.” “And who was it,” Yuzka asked, “that made off with our bedding that very same day?” “When is their suit against the Voyt to come off?” “Not so soon. But Ploshka is for them, and they will make things hot for the Voyt and his wife.” “Ploshka was ever a meddler with other folk’s matters.” “Our friend, hoping to become Voyt, is currying favour everywhere.” Here Yankel passed by, dragging and pulling at the mane of a hobbled horse, that lashed out and resisted with all its might and they laughed and made merry at his expense. “Oh, ’tis well for you that ye can laugh! What trouble I have with the beast!” “Stuff it with straw, fix a new tail on it, and take it to some fair: it will never do as a horse, but ye may sell it for a cow!” the smith bawled. Their laughter became a roar, for the horse had jerked himself free, leaped into the pond, and, in spite of threats and entreaties, lain down wallowing in the water. “A remarkable brute. Bought of a gipsy, no doubt?” “Set a pail of vodka before it: ye may then perhaps tempt it out!” joined in the organist’s wife, who sat by the pond, watching a flock of ducklings, as downy as yellow catkins, while a hen ran cackling along the bank in dismay. “’Tis a fine lot.—From the Koziols, I suppose?”