“I am nearly seventy years old and have got on until now without the friendship of a farmer; and it’s not worth while to make a change now.”

Naturally enough Damie was often with his sister.  But young Farmer Rodel objected to this, alleging, not without reason, that it would result in his having to feed the big boy; for in a large house like his one could not see whether a servant was not giving him all kinds of things to eat.  He therefore forbade Damie to come to the house, except on Sunday afternoons.

Damie, however, had already seen too much of the comfort of living in a wealthy farmer’s house; his mouth watered for the flesh-pots, and he wanted to stay there, if only as a servant.  Stone-chipping was such a hungry life.  But Barefoot had many objections to make.  She told him to remember that he was already learning a second trade, and that he ought to keep at it; that it was a mistake to be always wanting to begin something new, and then to suppose that one could be happy in that way.  She said that one must be happy in the place where one was, if one was ever to be happy at all.  Damie allowed himself to be persuaded for a time.  And so great was the acknowledged authority of Little Barefoot already, and so natural did it seem that she should dictate to her brother, that he was always called “Barefoot’s Damie,” as if he were not her brother, but her son.  And yet he was a head taller than she, and did not act as if he were subordinate to her.  Indeed, he often expressed his annoyance that he was not considered as good as she, merely because he did not have a tongue like hers in his head.  His discontent with himself and with his trade he always vented first on his sister.  She bore it patiently, and because he showed before the world that she was obliged to give him his way, she really gained more influence and power through this very publicity.  For everybody said that it was very good of Amrei to do what she did for her brother, and she rose in the public estimation by letting him treat her thus unkindly, while she in turn cared for him like a mother.  She washed and darned for him at night so steadily, that he was one of the neatest boys in the village; and instead of taking two stout pairs of shoes, which she received as part of her wages every half year, she always paid the shoemaker a little extra money to make two pairs for Damie, while she herself went barefoot; it was only on Sunday, when she went to church, that she was seen wearing shoes at all.

Little Barefoot was exceedingly annoyed to find that Damie, though no one knew why, had become the general butt of all the joking and teasing in the village.  She took him sharply to task for it, and told him he ought not to tolerate it; but he retorted that she ought to speak to the people about it, and not to him, for he could not stand up against it.  But that was not to be done—­in fact, Damie was secretly not particularly annoyed by being teased everywhere he went.  Sometimes, indeed, it hurt him to have everybody laugh at him, and to have boys much younger than himself take liberties with him, but it annoyed him a great deal more to have people take no notice of him at all, and he would then try to make a fool of himself and expose himself to insult.