oots--that looked as real as though they were
fighting one another, thought the Child.

She gathered the potatoes into her skirt, choosing big ones with few
eyes because they were easier to peel, and bending over the dull heap in
the silent cellar, she began to nod.

"Here, you, what are you doing down there?" cried the Frau, from the top
of the stairs. "The baby's fallen off the settle, and got a bump as big
as an egg over his eye. Come up here, and I'll teach you!"

"It wasn't me--it wasn't me!" screamed the Child, beaten from one side
of the hall to the other, so that the potatoes and beetroot rolled out
of her skirt.

The Frau seemed to be as big as a giant, and there was a certain
heaviness in all her movements that was terrifying to anyone so small.

"Sit in the corner, and peel and wash the vegetables, and keep the baby
quiet while I do the washing."

Whimpering she obeyed, but as to keeping the baby quiet, that was
impossible. His face was hot, little beads of sweat stood all over his
head, and he stiffened his body and cried. She held him on her knees,
with a pan of cold water beside her for the cleaned vegetables and the
"ducks' bucket" for the peelings.

"Ts--ts--ts!" she crooned, scraping and boring; "there's going to be
another soon, and you can't both keep on crying. Why don't you go to
sleep, baby? I would, if I were you. I'll tell you a dream. Once upon a
time there was a little white road--"

She shook back her head, a great lump ached in her throat and then the
tears ran down her face on to the vegetables.

"That's no good," said the Child, shaking them away. "Just stop crying
until I've finished this, baby, and I'll walk you up and down."

But by that time she had to peg out the washing for the Frau. A wind had
sprung up. Standing on tiptoe in the yard, she almost felt she would be
blown away. There was a bad smell coming from the ducks' coop, which
was half full of manure water, but away in the meadow she saw the grass
blowing like little green hairs. And she remembered having heard of a
child who had once played for a whole day in just such a meadow
with real sausages and beer for her dinner--and not a little bit of
tiredness. Who had told her that story? She could not remember, and yet
it was so plain.

The wet clothes flapped in her face as she pegged them; danced and
jigged on the line, bulged out and twisted. She walked back to the house
with lagging steps, looking longingly at the