can understand
that; I couldn't live if I hadn't plenty of work to do: I don't want to
praise myself, but I can work just as hard as any in the village."

"And if you only had a house of your own you'd work harder still,
wouldn't you?"

"Yes," said Emmerence, pushing up her short sleeves, and stiffening her
powerful arms, as if to set about it at once: "yes, then; but even so I
can do just as much work as turns up."

"Well," said Ivo, "do you think of any thing while you work?"

"Yes, of course."

"What, for instance?"

"Whatever happens to come into my head: I never thought of remembering
it afterward."

"Well, give me an instance."

Usually so confident, the girl was in a perfect flurry of
embarrassment.

"Are you ashamed to tell me?"

"Not a bit; but I don't know any thing to tell."

"What did you think this morning when you were cutting the rye? What
sort of thoughts went through your head?"

"Well, I must think; but you mustn't laugh at me."

"No."

"At first, I guess, I thought of nothing at all. You might break me on
the wheel, and I couldn't remember any thing. Then I came upon a nest
of young quails,--dear little bits of things. I put them on one side,
out of the way of the boys. Then I was wishing to see how surprised the
old ones would be when they came to find their house in another spot.
Then I thought of Nat's song, which you can sing too, about the poor
soul. Then I thought, 'Where may Nat have gone to?' Then,--then I
thought, 'I'm glad it's only half an hour till dinner-time,' for I was
getting mighty hungry. There! that's all: it isn't much, is it?" She
tugged bashfully at her sleeves, and could not raise her eyes to his
face. Ivo asked again,--

"Don't you sometimes think how wonderful it is that God causes the seed
which man throws out to bear sevenfold, and that the young crop sleeps
under the snow until the sun wakes it in spring? How many millions of
men have already lived upon the juices of the earth, and yet have not
exhausted them!"

"Oh, yes, I often think that, but it wouldn't have occurred to me of my
own accord: the parson says it often in sermons and in the catechism.
You see, when you have to work at all these things yourself you don't
find time for such reflections, but only think, 'Will it be ripe soon?'
and 'Will it bear much?' The parsons, who don't work in the field,
don't carry out the dung, and don't do any threshing, have more time
for such thinking."

"Bu