“I would rather work day and night, father, than see my mother and sister in the fields.  I will do it, too, if only you will not make them go!”

The old man, irritated by the secret knowledge that he had nobody but himself to blame for the present dilemma, still more irritated, also, by this proof of what was always exceedingly displeasing to him,—­his son’s having adopted American standards and opinions,—­broke out furiously with a wrath wholly disproportionate to the occasion,—­

“You be tam, Johan Weitbreck.  You tink we are fine gentlemen and ladies, like dese Americans dat is too proud to vork vid hands.  I say tam dis country, vere day say all is alike, an’ vork all; and ven you come here, it is dat nobody vill vork, if he can help, and vimmins ish shame to be seen vork.  It is not shame to be seen vork; I vork, mein vife vork too, an’ my childrens vork too, py tam!”

John walked away,—­his only resource when his father was in a passion.  John occupied that hardest of all positions,—­the position of a full-grown, mature man in a father’s home, where he is regarded as nothing more than a boy.

As he entered the kitchen and saw his pretty sister Carlen at the high spinning-wheel, walking back and forth drawing the fine yarn between her chubby fingers, all the while humming a low song to which the whirring of the wheel made harmonious accompaniment, he thought to himself bitterly:  “Work, indeed!  As if they did not work now longer than we do, and quite as hard!  She’s been spinning ever since daylight, I believe.”

“Is it hard work spinning, Liebchen?” he asked.

Carlen turned her round blue eyes on him with astonishment.  There was something in his tone that smote vaguely on her consciousness.  What could he mean, asking such a question as that?

“No,” she said, “it is not hard exactly.  But when you do it very long it does make the arms ache, holding them so long in the same position; and it tires one to stand all day!”

“Ay,” said John, “that is the way it tires one to reap; my back is near broke with it to-day.”

“Has no one come to help yet?” she said.

“No!” said John, angrily, “and that is what I told father when he let Alf go.  It is good enough for him for being so stingy and short-sighted; but the brunt of it comes on me,—­that’s the worst of it.  I don’t see what’s got all the men.  There have always been plenty round every year till now.”

“Alf said he shouldn’t be here next year,” said Carlen, each cheek showing a little signal of pink as she spoke; but it was a dim light the one candle gave, and John did not see the flush.  “He was going to the west to farm; in Oregon, he said.”

“Ay, that’s it!” replied John.  “That’s where everybody can go but me!  I’ll be going too some day, Carlen.  I can’t stand things here.  If it weren’t for you I’d have been gone long ago.”

“I wouldn’t leave mother and father for all the world, John,” cried Carlen, warmly, “and I don’t think it would be right for you to!  What would father do with the farm without you?”