At that moment Slimakowa tapped at the window. 'Josef, come quick, something has happened to the new cow, she's staggering.'
Slimak let go of Jendrek and ran to the cowshed. The three cows were standing quietly chewing the cud.
'It has passed off,' said the woman; 'but I tell you a minute ago she was staggering worse than you did yesterday.'
He examined the cow carefully, but could find nothing wrong with her.
Jendrek had meanwhile slipped away, his father's temper had cooled, and the matter ended as usual on these occasions.
CHAPTER V
It was the height of summer. The squire and his wife had gone away, and the villagers had forgotten all about them. New wool had begun to grow on the shorn sheep.
The sun was so hot that the clouds fled from the sky into the woods, and the ground protected itself with what it could find; with dust on the highroads, grass in the meadows, and heavy crops in the fields.
But human beings had to toil their hardest at this time. At the manor they were cutting clover and hoeing turnips; in the cottages the women were piling up the potatoes, while the old women were gathering mallows for cooling drinks and lime-blossoms against the ague. The priest spent all his days tracking and taking swarms of bees; Josel, the innkeeper, was making vinegar. The woods resounded with the voices of children picking berries.
The corn was getting ripe, and Slimak began to cut the rye the day after the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He was in a hurry to get the work done in two or three days, lest the corn should drop out in the great heat, and also because he wanted to help with the harvesting at the manor.