ld be all right for a long while. And the carter
stepped up to Uli, crying, "Shall we have a try at each other--if you
dare?" Uli's blood boiled, for he saw that it was a put-up job; yet he
could not well refuse. Sooner or later, he well knew, he would have to
stand up to them and show his mettle. And so he said to himself, let it
be now; then they would have his measure.

"Ho, if you want to try it, I'm willing," he replied, and twice running
he flung the Carter on his back so that the floor cracked. Then the
milker said he would like to try too; to be sure, it was scarcely worth
while to try falls with a walking-stick, with legs like pipe-stems and
calves like fly-specks. With his brown hairy arms he grasped Uli as if
he would pull him apart like an old rag. But Uli held his ground and the
milker made no headway. He grew more and more angry, took hold with ever
greater venom, spared neither arms nor legs, and butted with his head
like an animal, until at last Uli had enough of it, collected all his
strength, and gave him such a swing that he flew over the grain-pile
into the middle of the floor and fell on the further side; there he lay
with all fours in the air, and for a long time did not know where he
was.

As if by chance Freneli had brought food for the hogs and had seen Uli's
victory. In the house she told her godmother that she had seen something
that tickled her. They had wanted to give Uli a beating; he had had to
wrestle with them, but he was a match for them all. He had thrown the
hairy milker on his back as if he had never stood up. She was glad that
he could manage them all; then they would be afraid of him and respect
him. But Uli, interrupted in his examination of the calves, seized a
flail and merely told the milker that he had no time for the calves
today; they would look to them another day. The cleaning of the grain
took more time than usual, and yet they were through quicker and the
grain was better cleaned; but they had exerted themselves more, too, and
in consequence had felt the cold less. When Uli told the master how much
grain he had obtained, the latter said that they had never done so much
this year and yet today they had been threshing the fallen grain.

In the evening, as they sat at table, the master came and said he
thought it would be convenient to cut wood now; the horses weren't
needed, the weather was fine, and it seemed to him that the threshing
and the wood-cutting could go on to