CHAPTER XIII
HOW ULI INSTALS HIMSELF AS OVERSEER
Calmly, with resolution taken, he joined the workers; it was afternoon,
shortly after dinner. They were threshing by sixes. The milker and
carter were preparing fodder; these he joined and helped. They did not
need him, they said, and could do it alone.--He couldn't do anything on
the threshing-floor, he said, until they started to clear up, and so
today he would help them prepare fodder and manure. They grumbled; but
he took hold and with his wonted adroitness mixed the fodder and shook
the dust from it, and so silently forced the others to work better than
usual. Below in the passage he shook out the fodder again, and made the
fodder piles so fine and even along the walls, sweeping up with the
broom the path between the horse-fodder and the cow-fodder, that it was
a pleasure to see him. The milker said that if they did it that way
every day, they couldn't prepare in two days what the stock would eat
in one. That depended, said Uli, how one was accustomed to prepare, and
according to how the stock treated the fodder.
When they went at the manure he had his troubles with the milker, who
wanted to take only the coarsest stuff off the top, as it were the cream
from the milk. It was nice and warm outside, said Uli, and the stock
wouldn't get cold; they would work thoroughly this time. And indeed it
was necessary, for there was old stuff left that almost required the
mattock before they could get to the stone floor of the stable.
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