ng, as he had something to talk with her
about. At the right time she laid aside her hoe, tied on a clean apron,
and said:

"Finish the hoeing, Toni; then you can milk the goat and give her some
fresh straw, so she will have a better bed. Then I will be back again."

She went up to the Matten farm. The farmer was standing in the open
barn-door gazing with satisfaction at his beautiful cows, wandering in a
long procession to the well. Elsbeth stepped up to him.

"Well, I am glad you have come," he said, holding out his hand to her. "I
have been thinking about you on account of the boy's welfare. He is now at
an age to do some light work and help you a little, at least to take care
of himself."

"I have already been thinking about that," replied Elsbeth, "and wanted to
ask you, if you could give him a little light work in the fields?"

"That is fortunate," continued the farmer. "I have a little job for him,
healthy and not very hard, that is to say not hard at all. He can go up to
the small mountain with the cows. The herdsman with his boys is on the big
mountain and a man is also there to come every morning and evening for the
milking, so the boy will not be entirely alone and will have nothing to do
but watch the cows so that none wander off, that they don't hook each
other or do anything out of the way. While he sits there on the mountain
he is master and can have all the milk he wants. A king couldn't have
anything better."

Elsbeth was a little frightened by the offer. If Toni had been more with
the farm men, and had been with cows, or if he had naturally a different
disposition, wilder and more roving and commanding-but as he was so quiet
and shy, and besides without any knowledge of such things, to be for the
first time all alone for several months, away from home, up on the
mountains, watching a herd of cows, this seemed to her too hard for Toni.
What would the poor boy, who was not particularly strong, do if anything
happened to him or to the herd? She expressed all her thoughts to the
farmer, but it made no difference; he thought it would be good for the boy
to get out for once, and up on the mountain he would be much stronger than
at home, and nothing could happen to him, for he would be given a horn and
if anything went wrong he could blow lustily, and immediately the farm man
would come from the other mountain; in a half hour he would be there.

Elsbeth finally thought the farmer understood it much bett