One of Life's Slaves

ay, "with invisible fairies and the

nes in the outskirts of the town, there was often a run of visitors, generally late at night, when wanderers on the high road were at a loss for a night's lodging

ing with health, red and white, strong and broad-shouldered, and with teeth like the foam in the milk pail. She had heard so mu

gone out to ser

haystack in a handsome town street, or as a cow

must see and feel the hay-that was not at all like mountain grass. "No

. So she went from place to place, each time descending both as regarded wages and mistress. Barbara was good-

even the apparently most meaningless and useless, for its own purpose. And the way it took, quickly enough, with

asted, almost enough to kill her; and after that, she n

were to be

upon the lady of the house in the upper classes of society, asserted

h-cow and an intelligent human being at the same time. The renovation of blood and nerves

thoroughly strong nurse for Consul-General Veyer

rs. Veyergang could not get to the mountains, the mountains were so courteous as to come to her. The girl still had an odour of the cowshed about her perhaps; but when all's said and done, t

id any drudgery she could find to do, in order to earn a little money to pay for herself and her baby at the tinsmith's, that, fr

on. Indeed, she is on the expec

ral mother to her own, she ends by sleeping on down, and being considered i

unmerited, only a result of the social economy to which she does not know how to be intelligently subordinate, and which will reduce her, with the inexorable logic of the laws of civilisation, to a useless superfluity, which Societ

his point, utterly obstinate, rigid as a m

her and her boy if she continued so obstinate. He appealed to her own good sense. How could she expect to bring him up in such poor, narrow circumstances, and with all this toiling and moiling? She would only need to give up a part of her large wages

severely, both good-naturedly and s

itting close to the wall in the darkest corner with the cradle behind her, when he opened the door. It was impossible for her to answer except by a sob. The tinsmith's wife did all the ta

ld, and said that when it came to the point, he was sure she was not the mother who could be so cruel as to bring misery upon such a pretty little

and in her emotion something

of want and neglect, only in the houses round about, during the last two years, because their mothers had had to go out and work all day

felt like breaking. For a moment she thought of going,

a tem

er not to disturb the household in their slumbers, she went

wring the clothes by the brook, a pony-carriage stopped in the road. The coach

aid the neighbour's wife; "it'll be the last you'

ntil there was not a drop of

she hardly knew what she was doing,

aristocratic nose, and he made a kind of bend every time she happened to look at him, and assured her that there was no hurry-

he looked at her boy: there were now ord

wake, she did not know what would happen

took the thick silver watch

e to look round before she was seated in the carriage, and the long, stiff-necke

wheeled the perambulator with the two children in it along the shore, and more than once t

h she completely gave way. She would sit by the cradle, her eyes red

t in good spirits; her frame of mind has such an immense influ

s to enliven her; silk handkerchiefs and aprons abounded, and the servants a

General's Lars stopped there in driving past, and when Barbara only receiv

thes with constant change of fine underclothing, not to mention meat and drink-hardly anything of what she was accustomed to call work, her hands

s. It was late in the autumn. She could hardly ever remember the road out there so bad and muddy as it wa

n a cold perspiration; but of course things were best

its familiar cracked windows in front of her, she slackened her

er information, rattling on like a steam-engine. There had been war among the neighbours in the ti

o put in his cracked windows. And what they lived on, nobody round there could imagine, unless it was the payment they got for that poor little ill-used boy, that they gave lager-beer to, to

lman's down at the wharf. They are such nice, respectable people, and hav

! The name rang in her ears as, heav

d neglected, with frightened eyes. He began to cry when she

und vent in a rising torrent of angry w

clumsy his face and body were, compared to the two delicate ones she was accustome

er name wasn't Barbara if she didn't get her mist

s inconsolable the whole evening until her mistress came down fro

t Nikolai came to b