"Now as to your work. If you do your tasks properly, all will be well; if not, remember that I have taken others by the ears. So make your plans accordingly."
After these preliminaries the woman told him what his duties would be. That very evening he was sent out to the fields with supper for the men, and the dog went with him, never for a moment stirring from his side. Renti saw that there would be no more chance of running away.
The following week was a hard one for the boy. But he himself had now grown hard. He never was so stubborn before. At Lindenhof he had never felt like being insolent; but now, when the woman would say to him, "Why do you stand there staring into space? why don't you go on with your work?" he would answer sullenly, "Because." And when she called out to him, "Be quick, or I will come and help you!" he would say, "Who cares!"
One day, when she had set him to weeding the garden, he went about it so fiercely that she stopped to watch him. He drove his hoe into the ground so hard that he could scarcely pull it out, thus giving vent to his inner rage. She called to him to be careful, or he might be sorry. He muttered angrily that he didn't care what happened.
More than once he was taken by the ears for his saucy answers. It was a week full of secret rage on the boy's part, and of indignation and angry outbursts on the woman's part.
On Sunday morning after church, when her acquaintances gathered about her, all anxious to hear how she was getting on with the boy, she exclaimed over and over: "He drives me frantic! I don't wonder that no one would take him. Such a sulky, impudent rascal—you wouldn't believe it unless you heard him. And his work doesn't amount to anything. But I will not give in until I master him."
Then the women all agreed among themselves, "He must be a bad one," and told their husbands when they got home, "If she succeeds in bringing him to time it will be a miracle."
In the afternoon Renti was told to carry some tools that needed repairing down to the smithy. "As it is Sunday, you may stay out until five o'clock; but see that you get home in time. If you are not here at five, you will regret it."
Renti took the tools and went. He had but to leave them at the smithy, so that they might be repaired in the morning, and thus no precious time would be taken from the working hours for this errand.