She did not revolt. She did what he bade her do swiftly and well. There was no fault to find in any of her labors.
When the last sack was carried, the last sod turned, the last burden borne, the sun was sinking, he bade her roughly go indoors and winnow last year's wheat in the store chambers till he should bid her cease.
She came and stood before him, her eyes very quiet in their look of patient strength.
"I have worked from daybreak through to sunset," she said, slowly, to him. "It is enough for man and beast. The rest I claim."
Before he could reply she had leaped the low stone wall that parted the timber-yard from the orchard, and was out of sight, flying far and fast through the twilight of the boughs.
He muttered a curse, and let her go. His head drooped on his breast, his hands worked restlessly on the stone coping of the wall, his withered lips muttered in wrath.
"There is hell in her," he said to himself. "Let her go to her rightful home. There is one thing——"
"There is one thing?" echoed the old woman, hanging washed linen out to dry on the boughs of the half-bloomed almond-shrubs.
He gave a dreary, greedy, miser's chuckle:
"One thing;—I have made the devil work for me hard and well ten whole years through!"