“What now? Must I dress up for work as for church?” He eyed her with disdain, for she looked as though someone had swept the cabin floor with her. Then he walked away. The smith was busy at work; his hammers were heard from a distance, loudly and tunefully clinking; and the forge, hot as hell, was uproarious with the tempestuous streams from the bellows that puffed in cadence. Michael himself was working with his assistant, forging long bars of iron; and his face looked like a blackamoor’s, and he beat on the anvil, as it were, out of sheer spite against it, smiting unweariedly. “And for whom are those thick axle-trees?” “For Ploshka’s wagon. He is to cart timber for the sawmill.” Antek rolled a cigarette and sat down by the door-step. The hammers went on with pertinacious fury, smiting rhythmically again and again on the red-hot iron, slowly changing its shape beneath their strokes, as they bent it to the will of those who wielded them; and the smithy vibrated. “Would ye not like to cart timber as well?” asked Michael, thrusting the bar deep into the flame, and working the bellows. “I suppose the miller would not be willing. I hear he is the organist’s partner, and hand in hand with the Jews.” “But you have horses,” he said with bland friendliness; “horses and all that is needful. And your Pete does naught but lounge about your farm-yard.—And they pay pretty well.” “No doubt a little money before the harvest would be a good thing; but then, am I to go and beg the miller to do me a service?” “No: arrange matters direct with the dealers.” “Whom I do not know!—If you would speak for me....” “Since you ask me, I am willing—and shall go to them this very day.” Antek went out hurriedly; for now the hammers were playing, and a deluge of sparks of fire flew on every side. “I shall be back this instant, and am only going to look what kind of timber they are bringing in.” At the sawmill, likewise, the workers were lively; the logs were being hewn into shape one after another; the saws rasped harshly through the great trunks, while the water, pouring out of the wheels into the river, boiled and bubbled and foamed, swirling along the narrow mill-tail banks. Rough pine-logs, with their boughs scarcely lopped off, thundered down out of the carts, till the earth shook; while half a dozen workmen were busy with their axes, squaring them for the mill; and others were carrying the sawn boards out into the sunshine. Matthew was foreman there, and Antek could see him busily engaged, both working himself and directing the work of the others. They met with hearty good-fellowship. “Why, what’s become of Bartek?” Antek asked, looking round him. “He had enough of Lipka, and is gone from us.” “Some folk must needs be always on the move!—Ye seem to have work for a long time in advance, with so much timber here!”