Farmers Wife Quotes

What is the price of Experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy And in the wither'd field where the farmer ploughs for bread in vain It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted To speak the laws of prudence to the homeless wanderer To listen to the hungry raven's cry in wintry season When the red blood is fill'd with wine and with the marrow of lambs

Know a man's faith, and you knew at least half the man. Know his wife, and you knew the other half.

Students of public speaking continually ask, "How can I overcome self-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before an audience?" Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that some horses feed near the track and never even pause to look up at the thundering cars, while just ahead at the next railroad crossing a farmer's wife will be nervously trying to quiet her scared horse as the train goes by? How would you cure a horse that is afraid of cars—graze him in a back-woods lot where he would never see steam-engines or automobiles, or drive or pasture him where he would frequently see the machines? Apply horse-sense to ridding yourself of self-consciousness and fear: face an audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop shying. You can never attain freedom from stage-fright by reading a treatise. A book may give you excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in the water, but sooner or later you must get wet, perhaps even strangle and be "half scared to death." There are a great many "wetless" bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever learns to swim in them. To plunge is the only way.

Three blind mice, three blind mice, See how they run, see how they run, They all ran after the farmer's wife, Who cut off their tails with a carving knife, Did you ever see such a thing in your life, As three blind mice?

I'm just a candy corn farmer. My only part in this play was loving your mother and raising you, and I did both of them as well as I could, but that didn't make me worldly, and it didn't make me wise. It made me a man with a hero for a wife and a daughter who was going to do something great someday, and that was all I wanted to be. I never saved the day. I never challenged the gods. I was the person you could come home to when the quest was over, and I'd greet you with a warm fudge pie and a how was your day, and I'd never feel like I was being left out just because I was forever left behind.

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.

Thank you," Becky whispered... "I wouldn't have survived that stool. It would have been 'Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.'" With rings on your fingers and bells on your toes even, " he said. "Curious that meeting you is more nursery rhyme than fairy tale. If I see a farmer's wife with a butcher's knife, I'm running and not looking back." "And I'll have no nonsense from my dish and spoon.

Perhaps it was because of his wife that Pippo the farmer dreamt of becoming a sailor. There are certain people on this earth who make you want to sail very far away, and above all for a very long time.

...she lost twenty minutes sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees, smiling into the pretty glow and imagining herself a contented farmer's wife waiting for her man to come in from the fields.

My wife, Rohini, visits a lot of government schools as part of her NGO reach-out. One of the questions she most likes to ask the kids is what they would like to be when they grow up. The answers are varied--'engineer,' 'teacher,' 'policeman' and, increasingly, 'computer' [sic]. But even in the rural schools, one aspiration that they never express is 'farmer

the husband decides he will motivate his wife to become more respectful by acting in unloving ways. This usually proves about as successful as trying to sell a pickup to an Amish farmer.

A daffodil bulb will divide and redivide endlessly. That's why, like the peony, it is one of the few flowers you can find around abandoned farmhouses, still blooming and increasing in numbers fifty years after the farmer and his wife have moved to heaven, or the other place, Boca Raton. If you dig up a clump when no one is nearby and there is no danger of being shot, you'll find that there are scores of little bulbs in each clump, the progeny of a dozen or so planted by the farmer's wife in 1942. If you take these home, separate them, and plant them in your own yard, within a couple of years, you'll have a hundred daffodils for the mere price of a trespassing fine or imprisonment or both. I had this adventure once, and I consider it one of the great cheap thrills of my gardening career. I am not advocating trespassing, especially on my property, but there is no law against having a shovel in the trunk of your car.

As observers of totalitarianism such as Victor Klemperer noticed, truth dies in four modes, all of which we have just witnessed. The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts. The president does this at a high rate and at a fast pace. One attempt during the 2016 campaign to track his utterances found that 78 percent of his factual claims were false. This proportion is so high that it makes the correct assertions seem like unintended oversights on the path toward total fiction. Demeaning the world as it is begins the creation of a fictional counterworld. The second mode is shamanistic incantation. As Klemperer noted, the fascist style depends upon “endless repetition,” designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable. The systematic use of nicknames such as “Lyin’ Ted” and “Crooked Hillary” displaced certain character traits that might more appropriately have been affixed to the president himself. Yet through blunt repetition over Twitter, our president managed the transformation of individuals into stereotypes that people then spoke aloud. At rallies, the repeated chants of “Build that wall” and “Lock her up” did not describe anything that the president had specific plans to do, but their very grandiosity established a connection between him and his audience. The next mode is magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction. The president’s campaign involved the promises of cutting taxes for everyone, eliminating the national debt, and increasing spending on both social policy and national defense. These promises mutually contradict. It is as if a farmer said he were taking an egg from the henhouse, boiling it whole and serving it to his wife, and also poaching it and serving it to his children, and then returning it to the hen unbroken, and then watching as the chick hatches. Accepting untruth of this radical kind requires a blatant abandonment of reason. Klemperer’s descriptions of losing friends in Germany in 1933 over the issue of magical thinking ring eerily true today. One of his former students implored him to “abandon yourself to your feelings, and you must always focus on the Führer’s greatness, rather than on the discomfort you are feeling at present.” Twelve years later, after all the atrocities, and at the end of a war that Germany had clearly lost, an amputated soldier told Klemperer that Hitler “has never lied yet. I believe in Hitler.” The final mode is misplaced faith. It involves the sort of self-deifying claims the president made when he said that “I alone can solve it” or “I am your voice.” When faith descends from heaven to earth in this way, no room remains for the small truths of our individual discernment and experience. What terrified Klemperer was the way that this transition seemed permanent. Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant. At the end of the war a worker told Klemperer that “understanding is useless, you have to have faith. I believe in the Führer.

There once was a brown horse that was brown like a bean, and he lived in the home of a very poor farmer. And the poor farmer had a very poor wife, and they had a very thin chicken and a lame little pig. And so, one day the very poor farmer s wife said: We have nothing more to eat because we are very poor, so we must eat the very thin chicken. So they killed the very thin chicken and made a thin soup and ate it. And so, for a while, they were fine; but the hunger returned and the very poor farmer told his very poor wife: We have nothing more to eat because we are so poor, so we must eat the lame little pig. And so the lame little pig s turn came and they killed it and they made a lame soup and ate it. And then it was the bean-brown horse s turn. But the bean-brown horse did not wait for the story to end; it just ran away and went to another story. Is that the end of the story? I asked Durito, unable to hide my bewilderment. Of course not. Didn't you hear me say that the bean-brown horse fled to another story? he said as he prepared to leave. And so? I ask exasperated. And so nothing you have to look for the bean-brown horse in another story! he said, adjusting his hat. But, Durito! I said, protesting uselessly. Not one more word! You tell the story like it is

Maybe she’d overreacted to the farmer’s conversation with his wife. If his wings had been clipped, Greentop would have been one of the ducks. Perhaps she should have sent him along with the other ducks when the leader asked her to give him up.

As best I could I had answered their many questions. They were surprised when I told them that Europeans were, with minor differences, exactly like them, marrying and bringing up their children in accordance with principles and traditions, that they had good morals and were in general good people. "Are there any farmers among them?" Mahjoub asked me. "Yes, there are some farmers among them. They’ve got everything—workers and doctors and farmers and teachers, just like us." I preferred not to say the rest that had come to my mind: that just like us they are born and die, and in the journey from the  cradle to the grave they dream dreams some of which come true and some of which are frustrated; that they fear the unknown, search for love and seek contentment in wife and child; that some are strong and some are weak; that some have been given more than they deserve by life, while others have been deprived by it, but that the differences are narrowing and most of the weak are no longer weak. I did not say this to Mahjoub, though I wish I had done so, for he was intelligent; in my conceit I was afraid he would not understand.

I see a time when the farmer will not need to live in a lonely cabin on a lonely farm. I see the farmers coming together in groups. I see them with time to read, and time to visit with their fellows. I see them enjoying lectures in beautiful halls, erected in every village. I see them gather like the Saxons of old upon the green at evening to sing and dance. I see cities rising near them with schools, and churches, and concert halls, and theaters. I see a day when the farmer will no longer be a drudge and his wife a bond slave, but happy men and women who will go singing to their pleasant tasks upon their fruitful farms. When the boys and girls will not go west nor to the city; when life will be worth living. In that day the moon will be brighter and the stars more glad, and pleasure and poetry and love of life come back to the man who tills the soil.

I wish I could say courteous flatteries to you,” the farmer continued in an easier tone, “and put my rugged feeling into a graceful shape: but I have neither power nor patient to learn such things. I want you for my wife — so wildly that no other feeling can abide in me; but I should not have spoken out had I not been led to hope.

The old intergenerational give-and-take of the country-that-used-to-be, when everyone knew his role and took the rules dead seriously, the acculturating back-and-forth that all of us here grew up with, the ritual post-immigrant struggle for success turning pathological in, of all places, the gentleman farmer's castle of our superordinary Swede (a character). A guy stacked like a deck of cards for things to unfold entirely differently. In no way prepared for what is going to hit him. How could he, with all his carefully calibrated goodness, have known that the stakes of living obediently were so high? Obedience is embraced to lower the stakes. A beautiful wife. A beautiful house. Runs his business like a charm... This is how successful people live. They're good citizens. They feel lucky. They feel grateful. God is smiling down on them. There are problems, they adjust. And then everything changes and it becomes impossible. Nothing is smiling down on anybody. And who can adjust then? Here is someone not set up for life's working out poorly, let alone for the impossible. ... the tragedy of the man not set up for tragedy -- that is every man's tragedy.

Which is why, to this day, if you are passing the Fludd property on a morning, and you look into his apple orchard, you will see the diligent farmer, his wife, their three daughters, and their grandchildren, all squatting red-faced and bare-bottomed at the base of the accursed apple tree, thinking this will be the s—t that brings them fame at last.

Bessie- A man picking out a wife is like asking a cow to pick out a farmer.

I kept getting up earlier and earlier, hoping to escape before Ione could catch me. That was how I learned that you can’t get up earlier than a farmer’s wife.

And I remember that this busy life we have created grew out of the love we have for each other. I know that we can do hard things.

A traveling salesman was driving in the country when his car broke down. He hiked several miles to a farmhouse and asked the farmer if there was a place he could stay overnight. "Sure," said the farmer, "My wife died several years ago, and my two daughters are twenty-one and twenty-three, but they're off to college, and I'm all by myself, so I have lots of room to put you up." Hearing this, the salesman turned around and started walking back toward the highway. The farmer called after him, "Didn't you hear what I said? I have lots of room." "I heard you," said the salesman, "but I think I'm in the wrong joke.

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar—except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.

Three blind mice... three blind mice, See how they run, See how they runt They all run after the farmer's wife, She cut oft their tails with a carving knife, Did you ever see such a sight in your life, As three... blind... mice?

Sprout looked through the wide-open door, focusing on the world outside. It had been a while since she’d had an appetite. She had no desire to lay another egg. Her heart emptied of feeling every time the farmer’s wife took her eggs. The pride she felt when she laid one was replaced by sadness. She was exhausted after a full year of this. She couldn’t so much as touch her own eggs, not even with the tip of her foot. And she didn’t know what happened to them after the farmer’s wife carried them in her basket out of the coop.

What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children. Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy, And in the wither'd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.

When I got back to my billet I found my farmer at table with his wife and niece. “Tell me,” I said to him; “how many instruments do you think a pilot has to look after?” “How should I know? Not my trade,” he answered. “Must be some missing, though, to my way of thinking. The ones you win a war with. Have some supper?

I wish I could say courteous flatteries to you,” the farmer continued in an easier tone, “and put my rugged feeling into a graceful shape: but I have neither power nor patience to learn such things. I want you for my wife—so wildly that no other feeling can abide in me; but I should not have spoken out had I not been led to hope.

In the meanwhile Don Quixote was bringing his powers of persuasion to bear upon a farmer who lived near by, a good man-if this title may be applied to one who is poor-but with very few wits in his head. The short of it is, by pleas and promises, he got the hapless rustic to agree to ride forth with him and serve him as his squire. Among other things, Don Quixote told him that he ought to be more than willing to go, because no telling what adventure might occur which would win them an island, and then he (the farmer) would be left to be the governor of it. As a result of these and other similar assurances, Sancho Panza forsook his wife and children and consented to take upon himself the duties of squire to his neighbor.

I see a time when the farmer will not need to live in a cabin on a lonely farm. I see the farmers coming together in groups. I see them with the time to read, and time to visit with their fellows. I see them enjoying lectures in beautiful halls, erected in every village. I see them gather like Saxons of old upon the green at evening to sing and dance. I see cities rising near them with schools, and churches, and concert halls and theaters. I see a day when the farmer will no longer be a drudge and his wife a bond slave, but happy men and women who will go singing to their pleasant tasks upon their fruitful farms. When the boys and girls will not go west nor to the city; when life will be worth living. In that day the moon will be brighter and the stars more glad, and pleasure and poetry and love of life come back to the man who tills the soil.

In the weeks that followed, the girl learned about the many forms love could take. The Match Sticks made it clear that true love would not be defined by traditions or rules. One time, a middle-aged woman’s match even split in two to lead her to both her loves. And only a few days later, a farmer was tricked into taking a Match Stick by his wife. When it pointed at his best friend, she exclaimed: "See? I told you so! Now go kiss him and bring him over for dinner!

Sura 2:223 says that ‘your wife is as your farm to you, so treat her as you would your farm.’ The ulema have quoted this as if it meant you could treat women like the dirt under your feet, but these clerics, who stand as unneeded intercessors between us and God, are never farmers, and farmers read the Quran right, and see their wives are their food, their drink, their work, the bed they lie on at night, the very ground under their feet! Yes, of course you treat your wife as the ground under your feet!

Torrens kicked at the door until it was finally opened. The farm couple and three youngsters had been eating breakfast in the common room. The yard dog would have bounded in had not Torrens kicked the door shut. 'I want a bed. Quilts. A hot drink. I am a doctor. This woman is my patient.' The farm couple was terrified. The look on the face of Torrens cut short any questions. They did as he ordered. One of the children ran to fetch his medical kit from the cart. The woman motioned for Torrens to set Caroline on a straw pallet. The farmer kept his distance, but his wife, shyly, fearffully, ventured closer. She glanced at Torrens, as if requesting his permission to help. Between them, they made Caroline as comfortable as they could. Torrens knelt by the pallet. Caroline reached for his hand. 'Leave while you can. Do not burden yourself with me.' 'A light burden.' 'I wish you to find Augusta.' 'You have my promise.' 'Take this.' Caroline had slipped off a gold ring set with diamonds. 'It was a wedding gift from the king. It has not left my finger since then. I give it to you now - ' Torrens protested, but Caroline went on - 'not as a keepsake. You and I have better keepsakes in our hearts. I wish you to sell it. You will need money, perhaps even more than this will bring. But you must stary alive and find my child. Help her as you have always helped me.' 'We shall talk of this later, when you are better. We shall find her together.' 'You have never lied to me.' Caroline's smile was suddenly flirtacious. 'Sir, if you begin now, I shall take you to task for it.' Her face seemed to grow youthful and earnest for an instant. Torrens realized she held life only by strength of will. 'I am thinking of the Juliana gardens,' Caroline said. 'How lovely they were. The orangerie. And you, my loving friend. Tell me, could we have been happy?' 'Yes.' Torrens raised her hand to his lips. 'Yes. I am certain of it.' Caroline did not speak again. Torrens stayed at her side. She died later that morning. Torrens buried her in the shelter of a hedgerow at the far edge of the field. The farmer offered to help, but Torrens refused and dug the grave himself. Later, in the farmhouse, he slept heavily for the first time since his escape. Mercifully, he did not dream. Next day, he gave the farmer his clothing in trade for peasant garb. He hitched up the cart and drove back to the road. He could have pressed on, lost himself beyond search in the provinces. He was free. Except for his promise. He turned the cart toward Marianstat.

The next mode is magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction. The president’s campaign involved the promises of cutting taxes for everyone, eliminating the national debt, and increasing spending on both social policy and national defense. These promises mutually contradict. It is as if a farmer said he were taking an egg from the henhouse, boiling it whole and serving it to his wife, and also poaching it and serving it to his children, and then returning it to the hen unbroken, and then watching as the chick hatches.

THE WOMAN AND THE FARMER A Woman, who had lately lost her husband, used to go every day to his grave and lament her loss. A Farmer, who was engaged in ploughing not far from the spot, set eyes upon the Woman and desired to have her for his wife: so he left his plough and came and sat by her side, and began to shed tears himself. She asked him why he wept; and he replied, "I have lately lost my wife, who was very dear to me, and tears ease my grief." "And I," said she, "have lost my husband." And so for a while they mourned in silence. Then he said, "Since you and I are in like case, shall we not do well to marry and live together? I shall take the place of your dead husband, and you, that of my dead wife." The Woman consented to the plan, which indeed seemed reasonable enough: and they dried their tears. Meanwhile, a thief had come and stolen the oxen which the Farmer had left with his plough. On discovering the theft, he beat his breast and loudly bewailed his loss. When the Woman heard his cries, she came and said, "Why, are you weeping still?" To which he replied, "Yes, and I mean it this time.

The hours passed by in a series of clanking glasses and perfect card suites, group singing sessions and tales of lands far and near, and as the clock was silenced by the never-ending music, Celaena found herself leaning into Sam’s shoulder, laughing as Rolfe finished his crude and absurd story of the farmer’s wife and her stallions. She banged her fist on the table, howling—and that wasn’t entirely an act, either. As Sam slipped a hand around her waist, his touch somehow sending a bright-hot flame through her, she had to wonder if he was still pretending, too.

Mr. Britten is a farmer with substantial property, very prosperous,” she told me. “And since the death of poor Mrs. Britten, he is in sore need of a wife for himself and a mother for his little ones. You would be mother of six!” I tilted my head and regarded her thoughtfully as I considered my reply. In the end, I chose unvarnished truth. “Mrs. Clutterthorpe, I can hardly think of any fate worse than becoming the mother of six. Unless perhaps it were plague, and even then I am persuaded a few disfiguring buboes and possible death would be preferable to motherhood.

I long for a richer life with him. I know it's possible. People out there are living richer lives. Couples are making moussaka together while the Oscar Peterson channel plays on Pandora. They're shopping at farmers' markets. Of course they're shopping very slowly (slowness seems to be a key element in living a rich life),visiting all the stalls, sampling stone fruit, sniffing herbs,sitting on a stoop eating vegan scones. I don't mean rich in the sense of money. I mean rich in the ability to feel things as they're happening, to not constantly be thinking of the next thing.

Five months after Zoran's disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled continuously. There were severe food shortages. Infants, like the infirm and the elderly, were dying in droves. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade. "She was dying," Rosa Sorak said. "It was breaking our hearts." Fejzić, meanwhile, was keeping his cow in a field on the eastern edge of Goražde, milking it at night to avoid being hit by Serbian snipers. "On the fifth day, just before dawn, we heard someone at the door," said Rosa Sorak. "It was Fadil Fejzić in his black rubber boots. He handed up half a liter of milk he came the next morning, and the morning after that, and after that. Other families on the street began to insult him. They told him to give his milk to Muslims, to let the Chetnik children die. He never said a word. He refused our money. He came 442 days, until my daughter-in-law and granddaughter left Goražde for Serbia." The Soraks eventually left and took over a house that once belonged to a Muslim family in the Serbian-held town of Kopaci. Two miles to the east. They could no longer communicate with Fejzić. The couple said they grieved daily for their sons. They missed their home. They said they could never forgive those who took Zoran from them. But they also said that despite their anger and loss, they could not listen to other Sebs talking about Muslims, or even recite their own sufferings, without telling of Fejzić and his cow. Here was the power of love. What this illiterate farmer did would color the life of another human being, who might never meet him, long after he was gone, in his act lay an ocean of hope.

you bet yours on the gray!” Even in songs Ma did not approve of gambling, but her toe could not stop tapping while Pa played such tunes. Then every evening they all sang one round. Mr. Boast’s tenor would begin, “Three blind mice,” and go on while Mrs. Boast’s alto began, “Three blind mice,” then as she went on Pa’s bass would join in, “Three blind mice,” and then Laura’s soprano, and Ma’s contralto, and Mary and Carrie. When Mr. Boast reached the end of the song he began it again without stopping, and they all followed, each behind the other, going round and round with words and music. “Three blind mice! Three blind mice!              They all ran after the farmer’s wife               She cut off their tails with the carving knife, Did you ever hear such a tale in your life Of three blind mice?” They kept on singing until someone laughed and then the song ended ragged and breathless and laughing. And Pa would play some of the old songs, “to go to sleep on,” he said. “Nellie was a lady, last night she died, Oh, toll the bell for lovely Nell, My old—Vir-gin-ia bride.” And, “Oh, do you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?              Sweet Alice with eyes so brown,

We already have eight hundred million people living in hunger—and population is growing by eighty million a year. Over a billion people are in poverty—and present industrial strategies are making them poorer, not richer. The percentage of old people will double by 2050—and already there aren’t enough young people to care for them. Cancer rates are projected to increase by seventy percent in the next fifteen years. Within two decades our oceans will contain more microplastics than fish. Fossil fuels will run out before the end of the century. Do you have an answer to those problems? Because I do. Robot farmers will increase food production twentyfold. Robot carers will give our seniors a dignified old age. Robot divers will clear up the mess humans have made of our seas. And so on, and so on—but every single step has to be costed and paid for by the profits of the last.” He paused for breath, then went on, “My vision is a society where autonomous, intelligent bots are as commonplace as computers are now. Think about that—how different our world could be. A world where disease, hunger, manufacturing, design, are all taken care of by AI. That’s the revolution we’re shooting for. The shopbots get us to the next level, that’s all. And you know what? This is not some binary choice between idealism or realism, because for some of us idealism is just long-range realism. This shit has to happen. And you need to ask yourself, do you want to be part of that change? Or do you want to stand on the sidelines and bitch about the details?” We had all heard this speech, or some version of it, either in our job interviews, or at company events, or in passionate late-night tirades. And on every single one of us it had had a deep and transformative effect. Most of us had come to Silicon Valley back in those heady days when it seemed a new generation finally had the tools and the intelligence to change the world. The hippies had tried and failed; the yuppies and bankers had had their turn. Now it was down to us techies. We were fired up, we were zealous, we felt the nobility of our calling…only to discover that the general public, and our backers along with them, were more interested in 140 characters, fitness trackers, and Grumpy Cat videos. The greatest, most powerful deep-learning computers in humanity’s existence were inside Google and Facebook—and all humanity had to show for it were adwords, sponsored links, and teenagers hooked on sending one another pictures of their genitals.

I've been fighting to defend who I am all my life. I'm tired. I just don't know how to go on anymore. This is the only way I can think of I can still be me and survive. I just don't know any other way". Theresa sat back in her chair. "I'm a woman, Jess. I love you because you're a woman, too. I made up my mind when I was growing up that I was not going to betray my desire by resigning to marrying a dirt farmer or the boy at the service station. Do you understand?" I shook my head sadly. "Do you wish I wasn't a butch?" She smiled. "No, I love your butchness. I just don't want to be some man's wife, even if that man's a woman.

Your Eve was wise, John. She knew that Paradise would make her mad, if she were to live forever with Adam and know no other thing but strawberries and tigers and rivers of milk. She knew they would tire of these things, and each other. They would grow to hate every fruit, every stone, every creature they touched. Yet where could they go to find any new thing? It takes strength to live in Paradise and not collapse under the weight of it. It is every day a trial. And so Eve gave her lover the gift of time, time to the timeless, so that they could grasp at happiness. ... And this is what Queen Abir gave to us, her apple in the garden, her wisdom--without which we might all have leapt into the Rimal in a century. The rite bears her name still. For she knew the alchemy of demarcation far better than any clock, and decreed that every third century husbands and wives should separate, customs should shift and parchmenters become architects, architects farmers of geese and monkeys, Kings should become fishermen, and fishermen become players of scenes. Mothers and fathers should leave their children and go forth to get other sons and daughters, or to get none if that was their wish. On the roads of Pentexore folk might meet who were once famous lovers, or a mother and child of uncommon devotion--and they would laugh, and remember, but call each other by new names, and begin again as friends, or sisters, or lovers, or enemies. And some time hence all things would be tossed up into the air once more and land in some other pattern. If not for this, how fastened, how frozen we would be, bound to one self, forever a mother, forever a child. We anticipate this refurbishing of the world like children at a holiday. We never know what we will be, who we will love in our new, brave life, how deeply we will wish and yearn and hope for who knows what impossible thing! Well, we anticipate it. There is fear too, and grief. There is shaking, and a worry deep in the bone. Only the Oinokha remains herself for all time--that is her sacrifice for us. There is sadness in all this, of course--and poets with long elegant noses have sung ballads full of tears that break at one blow the hearts of a flock of passing crows! But even the most ardent lover or doting father has only two hundred years to wait until he may try again at the wheel of the world, and perhaps the wheel will return his wife or his son to him. Perhaps not. Wheels, and worlds, are cruel. Time to the timeless, apples to those who live without hunger. There is nothing so sweet and so bitter, nothing so fine and so sharp.

The reaction of the people below to this fantastic sight and sound was one of wild excitement. Details could be seen vividly from aloft. An elderly man and woman fell to their knees and prayed. People in the villages stood still and gaped upward. Most of them still had their Sunday finery on. "You could see people going to church...man, wife, and child walking along the country roads." Bombardier Herbert Light, through his binoculars, saw an open-air festival in progress, with the women dressed in colorful skirts and blouses. One of them threw her apron over her head in panic. As they roared over the wheat fields, the first unfriendly acts occurred: farmers threw stones and pitchforks at them. One farmer leading two horses was startled by the advancing planes and leaped into a nearby stream. A girl swimming in another river was reported by ten separate crews.

I hope you blow up and bust with your gluttony. You eat up our land like a filthy hog, you banks do. You and your flunky loan companies. I hope all the banks in America eat themselves to death. We poor people will then have to eat the corpse. We’ll be good and hungry by then. Understand? Good and hungry.” She moved toward him, shaking her finger. “You tell the rest of ’em that—all the banks in the big places, all your bosses. You tell ’em for a farmer’s wife who’s worked hard and honest.” Her weathered brown hand shook nearer his face. He flattened against the swinging gate and backed in. She stopped suddenly and laughed. She turned and walked out, still laughing, a great strong laugh that shook her body and echoed through the bank. She walked into the street and climbed into the old truck and drove off. Her hearty laughter trailed down the street above the sound of the motor.

If Bob envies Alice, he derives unhappiness from the difference between Alice’s well-being and his own; the greater the difference, the more unhappy he is. Conversely, if Alice is proud of her superiority over Bob, she derives happiness not just from her own intrinsic well-being but also from the fact that it is higher than Bob’s. It is easy to show that, in a mathematical sense, pride and envy work in roughly the same way as sadism; they lead Alice and Bob to derive happiness purely from reducing each other’s well-being, because a reduction in Bob’s well-being increases Alice’s pride, while a reduction in Alice’s well-being reduces Bob’s envy.31 Jeffrey Sachs, the renowned development economist, once told me a story that illustrated the power of these kinds of preferences in people’s thinking. He was in Bangladesh soon after a major flood had devastated one region of the country. He was speaking to a farmer who had lost his house, his fields, all his animals, and one of his children. “I’m so sorry—you must be terribly sad,” Sachs ventured. “Not at all,” replied the farmer. “I’m pretty happy because my damned neighbor has lost his wife and all his children too!

Why weep at strangers dead by the road? They resemble friends unseen in forty years. Why laugh when clowns are hit by pies? We taste custard, we taste life. Why love the woman who is your wife? Her nose breathes in the air of a world that I know; therefore I love that nose. Her ears hear music I might sing half the night through; therefore I love her ears. Her eyes delight in seasons of the land; and so I love those eyes. Her tongue knows quince, peach, chokeberry, mint and lime; I love to hear it speaking. Because her flesh knows heat, cold, affliction, I know fire, snow, and pain. Shared and once again shared experience. Billions of prickling textures. Cut one sense away, cut part of life away. Cut two senses; life halves itself on the instant. We love what we know, we love what we are. Common cause, common cause, common cause of mouth, eye, ear, tongue, hand, nose, flesh, heart, and soul. But...how to say it? “Look,” he tried, “put two men in a rail car, one a soldier, the other a farmer. One talks war, the other wheat; and bore each other to sleep. But let one spell long-distance running, and if the other once ran the mile, why, those men will run all night like boys, sparking a friendship up from memory.

Yet Laudan’s mother had no choice about whether to be a good cook or not. It was simply what was expected of her, and of every other farmer’s wife in England at that time. She did not cook because she ‘loved’ cooking but because this was the role that life had allotted her. There was nothing unusual in the way that Laudan’s mother cooked. If anything, her life in the kitchen was easy by the standards of the day. At least a farmer’s wife had access to plentiful meat and vegetables, whereas city cooks in early twentieth-century Britain were expected to produce the same quantity of meals but with meagre ingredients and limited equipment, often in single-room dwellings where there was no kitchen and no escape from cooking. We idealise the homespun meals of the past, imagining rosy-cheeked women laying down picturesque bottles of peaches and plums. But much of the art of ‘cooking’ in pre-modern times was a harried mother slinging what she could in a pot and engaging in a daily smoke-filled battle to keep a fire alive and under control, on top of all the other chores she had to manage. Before we offer too many lamentations for the cookery of the past, we should remember how hard it was – and still is, for millions of people – to cook when you have no choice in the matter.

But nothing encapsulated the subordinate status of wives more obviously than the fact that their domestic labour was unpaid. ‘They are excluded from the realm of exchange and consequently have no value,’ wrote Delphy. Even outside the home, women were more likely than men to work as volunteers. This couldn’t be explained by the nature of the work they were doing. It wasn’t that cleaning, cooking, caring, or doing agricultural work were always unpaid. People could be hired to do these jobs, and these workers would expect to receive wages. It wasn’t the case, either, that wives were getting nothing in return. It’s just that what they were getting in return was so little. The wife’s job was to work, honour, and obey, Delphy concluded. What she got in return was upkeep. This situation was so obviously exploitative that ‘when a farmer couldn’t afford to hire a domestic worker he took a wife’. Delphy’s argument was that, rather than her work being worthless in monetary terms, it was a wife’s relationship to production that gave her labour so little value. It was because she was a wife doing it, in the same way that if a slave were doing it, they wouldn’t be paid either. In the family, and by extension in wider society, the product of her labour was seen to belong to her husband.

Why did you come? Oh, I know what you are going to say. You felt that, cost what it might, you had to see me again, just once. You could not resist the urge to take away with you one last memory, which you could cherish down the lonely years. Oh, Bertie, you remind me of Rudel.” The name was new to me. “Rudel?” “The Seigneur Geoffrey Rudel, Prince of Blay-en-Saintonge.” I shook my head. “Never met him, I’m afraid. Pal of yours?” “He lived in the Middle ages. He was a great poet. And he fell in love with the wife of the Lord of Tripoli.” I stirred uneasily. I hoped she was going to keep it clean. “For years he loved her, and at last could resist no longer. He took ship to Tripoli, and his servants carried him ashore.” “Not feeling so good?” I said, groping. “Rough crossing?” “He was dying. Of love.” “Oh, ah.” “They bore him into the Lady Melisande’s presence on a litter, and he had just strength enough to reach out and touch her hand. Then he died.” She paused, and heaved a sigh that seemed to come straight up from the cami-knickers. A silence ensued. “Terrific”, I said, feeling that I had to say something, though personally I didn’t think the story a patch on the one about the travelling salesman and the farmer’s daughter. Different, of course, if one had known the chap.

Better if I do. The Nadir know me. "Death-walker." I'm part of their legends. They think I'm an ancient god of death stalking the world.' 'Are they wrong, I wonder?' said Rek, smiling. 'Maybe not. I never wanted it, you know. All I wanted was to get my wife back. Had slavers not taken her I would have been a farmer. Of that I am sure - though Rowena doubted it. There are times when I do not much like what I am.' 'I'm sorry, Druss. It was a jest,' said Rek. 'I do not see you as a death-god. You are a man and a warrior. But most of all, a man.' 'It's not you, boy; your words only echo what I already feel. I shall die soon . . . Here at this Dros. And what will I have achieved in my life? I have no sons nor daughters. No living kin . . . Few friends. They will say, "Here lies Druss. He killed many and birthed none." ' 'They will say more than that,' said Virae suddenly. 'They'll say, "Here lies Druss the Legend, who was never mean, petty, nor needlessly cruel. Here was a man who never gave in, never compromised his ideals, never betrayed a friend, never despoiled a woman and never used his strength against the weak." They'll say "He had no sons, but many a woman asleep with her babes slept more soundly for knowing Druss stood with the Drenai." They'll say many things, whiteboard. Through many generations they will say them, and men with no strength will find strength when they hear them.' 'That would be pleasant,' said the old man, smiling.

some older people who need to sit down, Barb. We can’t put chairs out. I don’t want them to get too comfy or we’ll never get rid of them.’ ‘Oh, you’re being ridiculous.’ Henry is thinking that this is a fine time to call him ridiculous. He never wanted the stupid vigil. In bed last night they had another spit-whispered row about it. We could have it at the front of the house, Barbara had said when the vicar called by. Henry had quite explicitly said he would not support anything churchy – anything that would feel like a memorial service. But the vicar had said the idea of a vigil was exactly the opposite. That the community would like to show that they have not given up. That they continue to support the family. To pray for Anna’s safe return. Barbara was delighted and it was all agreed. A small event at the house. People would walk from the village, or park on the industrial estate and walk up the drive. ‘This was your idea, Barbara.’ ‘The vicar’s, actually. People just want to show support. That is what this is about.’ ‘This is ghoulish, Barb. That’s what this is.’ He moves the tractor across the yard again, depositing two more bales of straw alongside the others. ‘There. That should be enough.’ Henry looks across at his wife and is struck by the familiar contradiction. Wondering how on earth they got here. Not just since Anna disappeared, but across the twenty-two years of their marriage. He wonders if all marriages end up like this. Or if he is simply a bad man. For as Barbara sweeps her hair behind her ear and tilts up her chin, Henry can still see the full lips, perfect teeth and high cheekbones that once made him feel so very differently. It’s a pendulum that still confuses him, makes him wish he could rewind. To go back to the Young Farmers’ ball, when she smelled so divine and everything seemed so easy and hopeful. And he is wishing, yes, that he could go back and have another run. Make a better job of it. All of it. Then he closes his eyes. The echo again of Anna’s voice next to him in the car. You disgust me, Dad. He wants the voice to stop. To be quiet. Wants to rewind yet again. To when Anna was little and loved him, collected posies on Primrose Lane. To when he was her hero and she wanted to race him back to the house for tea. Barbara is now looking across the yard to the brazier. ‘You’re going to light a fire, Henry?’ ‘It will be cold. Yes.’ ‘Thank you. I’m doing soup in mugs, too.’ A pause then. ‘You really think this is a mistake, Henry? I didn’t realise it would upset you quite so much. I’m sorry.’ ‘It’s OK, Barbara. Let’s just make the best of it now.’ He slams the tractor into reverse and moves it out of the yard and back into its position inside the barn. There, in the semi-darkness, his heartbeat finally begins to settle and he sits very still on the tractor, needing the quiet, the stillness. It was their reserve position, to have the vigil under cover in this barn, if the weather was bad. But it has been a fine day. Cold but with a clear, bright sky, so they will stay out of doors. Yes. Henry rather hopes the cold will drive everyone home sooner, soup or no soup. And now he thinks he will sit here for a while longer, actually. Yes. It’s nice here alone in the barn. He finds

Meanwhile, he continued to speak out on behalf of black citizens. In March 1846, a terrifying massacre took place in Seward’s hometown. A twenty-three-year-old black man named William Freeman, recently released from prison after serving five years for a crime it was later determined he did not commit, entered the home of John Van Nest, a wealthy farmer and friend of Seward’s. Armed with two knives, he killed Van Nest, his pregnant wife, their small child, and Mrs. Van Nest’s mother. When he was caught within hours, Freeman immediately confessed. He exhibited no remorse and laughed uncontrollably as he spoke. The sheriff hauled him away, barely reaching the jail ahead of an enraged mob intent upon lynching him. “I trust in the mercy of God that I shall never again be a witness to such an outburst of the spirit of vengeance as I saw while they were carrying the murderer past our door,” Frances Seward told her husband, who was in Albany at the time. “Fortunately, the law triumphed.” Frances recognized at once an “incomprehensible” aspect to the entire affair, and she was correct. Investigation revealed a history of insanity in Freeman’s family. Moreover, Freeman had suffered a series of floggings in jail that had left him deaf and deranged. When the trial opened, no lawyer was willing to take Freeman’s case. The citizens of Auburn had threatened violence against any member of the bar who dared to defend the cold-blooded murderer. When the court asked, “Will anyone defend this man?” a “death-like stillness pervaded the crowded room,” until Seward rose, his voice strong with emotion, and said, “May it please the court, I shall remain counsel for the prisoner until his death!

Our story begins on a sweltering August night, in a sterile white room where a single fateful decision is made amid the mindless ravages of grief. But our story does not end there. It has not ended yet. Would I change the course of our lives if I could? Would I have spent my years plucking out tunes on a showboat, or turning the soil as a farmer’s wife, or waiting for a riverman to come home from work and settle in beside me at a cozy little fire? Would I trade the son I bore for a different son, for more children, for a daughter to comfort me in my old age? Would I give up the husbands I loved and buried, the music, the symphonies, the lights of Hollywood, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who live far distant but have my eyes? I ponder this as I sit on the wooden bench, Judy’s hand in mine, the two of us quietly sharing yet another Sisters’ Day. Here in the gardens at Magnolia Manor, we’re able to have Sisters’ Day anytime we like. It is as easy as leaving my room, and walking to the next hall, and telling the attendant, “I believe I’ll take my dear friend Judy out for a little stroll. Oh yes, of course, I’ll be certain she’s delivered safely back to the Memory Care Unit. You know I always do.” Sometimes, my sister and I laugh over our clever ruse. “We’re really sisters, not friends,” I remind her. “But don’t tell them. It’s our secret.” “I won’t tell.” She smiles in her sweet way. “But sisters are friends as well. Sisters are special friends.” We recall our many Sisters’ Day adventures from years past, and she begs me to share what I remember of Queenie and Briny and our life on the river. I tell her of days and seasons with Camellia, and Lark, and Fern, and Gabion, and Silas, and Old Zede. I speak of quiet backwaters and rushing currents, the midsummer ballet of dragonflies and winter ice floes that allowed men to walk over water. Together, we travel the living river. We turn our faces to the sunlight and fly time and time again home to Kingdom Arcadia. Other days, my sister knows me not at all other than as a neighbor here in this old manor house. But the love of sisters needs no words. It does not depend on memories, or mementos, or proof. It runs as deep as a heartbeat. It is as ever present as a pulse. “Aren’t they so very sweet?

Meanwhile, Matthew took the empty place beside Daisy’s. “Miss Bowman,” he said softly. Daisy couldn’t manage a word. Her gaze lifted to his smiling eyes, and it seemed that emotions sprang from her in a fountain of warmth. She had to look away from him before she did something foolish. But she remained intensely aware of his body next to hers. Westcliff and Matthew entertained the group with an account of how their carriage had gotten stuck in mire. Luckily they had been helped by a passing farmer with an ox-drawn wagon, but in the process of freeing the vehicle, all participants had been covered with mud from head to toe. And apparently the episode had left the ox in quite an objectionable temper. By the time the story was finished, everyone at the table was chuckling. The conversation turned to the subject of the Shakespeare festival, and Thomas Bowman launched into an account of the visit to Stratford-on-Avon. Matthew asked a question or two, seeming fully engaged in the conversation. Suddenly Daisy was startled to feel his hand slide into her lap beneath the table. His fingers closed over hers in a gentle clasp. And all the while he took part in the conversation, talking and smiling easily. Daisy reached for her wine with her free hand and brought it to her lips. She took one sip, and then another, and nearly choked as Matthew played lightly with her fingers beneath the table. Sensations that had lain quiescent for a week kindled into vibrant life. Still not looking at her, Matthew gently slid something over her ring finger, past the knuckle, until it fit neatly at the base. Her hand was returned to her lap as a footman came to replenish the wine in their glasses. Daisy looked down at her hand, blinking at the sight of the glittering yellow sapphire surrounded by small round diamonds. It looked like a white-petaled flower. Her fingers closed tightly, and she averted her face to hide a betraying flush of pleasure. “Does it please you?” Matthew whispered. “Oh, yes.” That was the extent of their communication at dinner. It was just as well. There was too much to be said, all of it highly private. Daisy steeled herself for the usual long rituals of port and tea after dinner, but she was gratified when it seemed that everyone, even her father, was inclined to retire early. As it appeared the elderly vicar and his wife were ready to return home, the group dispersed without much fanfare. Walking with Daisy from the dining hall, Matthew murmured, “Will I have to scale the outside wall tonight, or are you going to leave your door unlocked?” “The door,” Daisy replied succinctly. “Thank God.

The process of receiving teaching depends upon the student giving something in return; some kind of psychological surrender is necessary, a gift of some sort. This is why we must discuss surrendering, opening, giving up expectations, before we can speak of the relationship between teacher and student. It is essential to surrender, to open yourself, to present whatever you are to the guru, rather than trying to present yourself as a worthwhile student. It does not matter how much you are willing to pay, how correctly you behave, how clever you are at saying the right thing to your teacher. It is not like having an interview for a job or buying a new car. Whether or not you will get the job depends upon your credentials, how well you are dressed, how beautifully your shoes are polished, how well you speak, how good your manners are. If you are buying a car, it is a matter of how much money you have and how good your credit is. But when it comes to spirituality, something more is required. It is not a matter of applying for a job, of dressing up to impress our potential employer. Such deception does not apply to an interview with a guru, because he sees right through us. He is amused if we dress up especially for the interview. Making ingratiating gestures is not applicable in this situation; in fact it is futile. We must make a real commitment to being open with our teacher; we must be willing to give up all our preconceptions. Milarepa expected Marpa to be a great scholar and a saintly person, dressed in yogic costume with beads, reciting mantras, meditating. Instead he found Marpa working on his farm, directing the laborers and plowing his land. I am afraid the word guru is overused in the West. It would be better to speak of one’s “spiritual friend,” because the teachings emphasize a mutual meeting of two minds. It is a matter of mutual communication, rather than a master-servant relationship between a highly evolved being and a miserable, confused one. In the master-servant relationship the highly evolved being may appear not even to be sitting on his seat but may seem to be floating, levitating, looking down at us. His voice is penetrating, pervading space. Every word, every cough, every movement that he makes is a gesture of wisdom. But this is a dream. A guru should be a spiritual friend who communicates and presents his qualities to us, as Marpa did with Milarepa and Naropa with Marpa. Marpa presented his quality of being a farmer-yogi. He happened to have seven children and a wife, and he looked after his farm, cultivating the land and supporting himself and his family. But these activities were just an ordinary part of his life. He cared for his students as he cared for his crops and family. He was so thorough, paying attention to every detail of his life, that he was able to be a competent teacher as well as a competent father and farmer. There was no physical or spiritual materialism in Marpa’s lifestyle at all. He did not emphasize spirituality and ignore his family or his physical relationship to the earth. If you are not involved with materialism, either spiritually or physically, then there is no emphasis made on any extreme. Nor is it helpful to choose someone for your guru simply because he is famous, someone who is renowned for having published stacks of books and converted thousands or millions of people. Instead the guideline is whether or not you are able actually to communicate with the person, directly and thoroughly. How much self-deception are you involved in? If you really open yourself to your spiritual friend, then you are bound to work together. Are you able to talk to him thoroughly and properly? Does he know anything about you? Does he know anything about himself, for that matter? Is the guru really able to see through your masks, communicate with you properly, directly? In searching for a teacher, this seems to be the guideline rather than fame or wisdom.

Five months after Zoran's disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled continuously. There were severe food shortages. Infants, like the infirm and the elderly, were dying in droves. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade. "She was dying," Rosa Sorak said. "It was breaking our hearts." Fejzić, meanwhile, was keeping his cow in a field on the eastern edge of Goražde, milking it at night to avoid being hit by Serbian snipers. "On the fifth day, just before dawn, we heard someone at the door," said Rosa Sorak. "It was Fadil Fejzić in his black rubber boots. He handed up half a liter of milk he came the next morning, and the morning after that, and after that. Other families on the street began to insult him. They told him to give his milk to Muslims, to let the Chetnik children die. He never said a word. He refused our money. He came 442 days, until my daughter-in-law and granddaughter left Goražde for Serbia." The Soraks eventually left and took over a house that once belonged to a Muslim family in the Serbian-held town of Kopaci. Two miles to the east. They could no longer communicate with Fejzić. The couple said they grieved daily for their sons. They missed their home. They said they could never forgive those who took Zoran from them. But they also said that despite their anger and loss, they could not listen to other Sebs talking about Muslims, or even recite their own sufferings, without telling of Fejzić and his cow. Here was the power of love. What this illiterate farmer did would color the life of another human being, who might never meet him, long after he was gone. In his act lay an ocean of hope.

This necessitated each village be self-supporting and self-sustaining. And, if you looked at 1100’s Europe, you would see that the types of jobs and professions the villagers took on reflected this fact. You had the butcher, the farmer, the blacksmith, the clothier, the knight, the baker, the goldsmith and of course the all-important grog maker. Everybody had a job or a task that carried their weight in the village. What you did NOT have was the professional activist, the social worker, the starving artist, the trophy wife, the socialite or the village welfare bum. Everybody had a job and everybody’s job provided vital and required services and products to the village. Now, the reason we understand this is because a village is a small enough entity for us to wrap our brains around. We see the little village with the little cows and the village people walking in the muddy streets. But ask yourself this question: How is a country any different than a village?

Monsieur Alfred Backert, a resident of Bischoffsheim, lived near the village center. He recalled the war years in Alsace-Lorraine and remembered the women from Mannheim who were sent to Bischoffsheim, ostensibly for their safety by the Nazi Regime. He later served in the French army and was stationed in Germany for a number of years. Frau Heinchen, the elderly woman with her dog, who talked to me on the windy hillside overlooking Überlingen on Sunday afternoon, December 1, 2002. She recalled the Polish and Russian prisoners, whom she called Cossacks, and vividly remembered the hanging of the Russian soldier, described in this book. According to her, it was the farmer’s wife Clarissa who was raped by the Russian soldier and later, bore his child. She remembered the lager (warehouse) that was used to house the prisoners, saying that it was located on a field near the municipal hospital. She also told us the location of where the one room schoolhouse had been. For the limited time that we talked, she glowed and became twenty-one years young again.

GRANBY’S GREEN ACRES, situation comedy. BROADCAST HISTORY: July 3–Aug. 21, 1950, CBS. 30m, Mondays at 9:30. CAST: Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet as John and Martha Granby, ex-bank teller and wife who moved to the country to become farmers. Louise Erickson as Janice, their daughter. Parley Baer as Eb, the hired hand. ANNOUNCER: Bob LeMond MUSIC: Opie Cates. WRITER-PRODUCER-DIRECTOR: Jay Sommers. Granby’s Green Acres grew out of characters played by Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet on the Lucille Ball series My Favorite Husband. The names were changed, but the basic characters remained the same.

Young Samuel Hamilton came from the north of Ireland and so did his wife. He was the son of small farmers, neither rich nor poor, who had lived on one landhold and in one stone house for many hundreds of years. The Hamiltons managed to be remarkably well educated and well read; and, as is so often true in that green country, they were connected and related to very great people and very small people, so that one cousin might be a baronet and another cousin a beggar.

We're very excited about our new line of products." John squeezed his wife's hand. "We produce churned butter with sea salt imported from France. And we just started a line of yogurt with cream on top that sold very well at the farmers market." "Try the milk. It's from Ollie, my favorite cow," Jenny interrupted, placing a tray and two glasses on the coffee table. "Did you milk her yourself?" James took a cookie and dipped it in the glass of milk. "My dad says I'm not old enough. Ollie is my best friend. Would you like to meet her?" "I'd love to meet Ollie." James stood up and brushed cookie crumbs from his slacks. "Some of my best friends growing up were cows." James followed Jenny to the barn and Cassie pored over brochures and marketing plans with John and Selma. She liked the design of their butter containers: ceramic pots with black-and-white labels and a cow's hoofprint on the bottom. "And I love the idea of selling your milk in reusable glass bottles." Cassie put down her pen. "We'll have a whole fridge of milk in colored bottles. And we'll put a display of the butter pots next to the bread oven. Customers can sample fresh baked bread with churned butter.

I was sleeping on the couch one afternoon when suddenly I sensed that someone was leaning over me. When I opened my eyes I saw the burly farmer standing there, unbuttoning his pants. Instinctively, I knew what he was up to! Hans wouldn’t be as easy to dissuade as the sturdy young man who had guided me up the mountain. With no time to think I let fly with my foot, kicking him in the groin. The force from the kick caused him to inadvertently fall forward, hitting a small end table with his mouth. When this happened he bit his lip and broke his dentures. A dreadful row ensued, especially when I assured him that I would tell his wife Clarissa that he was the one who hung her lover. Bleeding from his lip, he threatened me, shouting that he would throw me out into the snow along with my children. Determined, I ran out into the kitchen shouting for her. When Clarissa appeared, I turned, telling Hans that I would tell her what I had heard about this sordid mess; and tell her I did! Of course he instantly dismissed me and told me to get out, but his wife knew him for what he was. Clarissa knew that what I had said was true and sided with me. She added that the killing had been uncalled for and that in many ways what had happened between her and the Russian was her husband’s fault. This event seemed to have evened the score for them and she was pleased that a woman had stood up to her husband. Although in this instance she was the one who had played, it was Hans that had a reputation for being a well-known womanizer and bully. With Hans out of the room, she assured me that it would be all right to stay another night. Their relationship was very strange and I was certain that there was more to the story, but for me it was time to leave. The next morning she arranged for transportation down to Überlingen for me and my children, and was I ever glad!

the life-draining drought also killed the trees that Caroline Henderson, the college-educated farmer’s wife, had nurtured. “Our little locust grove which we cherished for so many years has become a small pile of fence posts,” Caroline wrote to a friend.

Working out in the fields, Gage rarely listened to the radio. He didn’t need music when he could hear a melody in the wind. Besides, the radio distracted him. The time he spent on the tractor helped him sort out the answers to life, answers he found in silence.

Her grandfather had spoken endlessly of fertile land and abundant crops, showed her photographs of a land with a huge expanse of sky above it and fields that stretched to the far horizon. What Lindsay remembered most were his stories of blizzards and his descriptions of the wind. He’d told her more than once that nowhere else in the lower forty-eight states did the wind blow as strong or as fierce as it did in the Dakotas.

She’d had no idea teaching would be this physically and mentally exhausting. One day in the classroom, and she was convinced America’s teaching professionals were grossly underappreciated, not to mention underpaid.

His half brother’s passion was farming, and Kevin had tried again and again to capture Gage’s look of pride, a look that said he was proud to be an American farmer, proud of who he was and what he did. To love this man was to love the sweeping land of the prairie.

I thought the Vedas were a load of humbug and it didn’t matter which way you recited them. Some jobless Brahmin like my father, created them thousands of years ago. Instead of making themselves useful, the Brahmins prayed to the Gods they themselves invented for the rain, the sun, horses, cows and money and many other things. It must have been very cold, from whichever cursed places they came. Otherwise, why would they croak like frogs and appeal to the Gods after putting hundreds of assorted twigs into the fire? Perhaps I was prejudiced. I shouldn’t think that the work they were doing, as Yajnas, was useless. In fact, it served as a perfect tool to mint money and gain material favours. They were no fools-these Brahmins. They knew how to project even the mundane tasks of burning twigs as earth-shaking, scientific discoveries and claimed to tame the forces that controlled the world. And it was funny that the majority of people like the carpenters, masons and farmers who were doing something meaningful, had become supplicant to these jokers croaking under the warm sun, sweat pouring from their faces in front of a raging fire and chanting God knows what. They had a Yajna or a Puja for everything under the sun. If you had leprosy or a common cold, there was a God to whom you had to offer a special puja to appease him. You wanted your pestering wife to elope with your bothersome neighbour, there was a puja for that too. You wanted your cow to have a calf or your wife to have son, the Brahmin would help you. He would just conduct a Puja and a divine calf or son would be born. You curried favour with the Brahmins and your son would become the biggest pundit in the world by the age of sixteen. If not, he would perhaps become rowdy like me, who did not respect Brahmins or rituals. He would become a Rakshasa. I think there are many more Rakshasas among us now. Perhaps, it was because the ‘why?’ virus spread. Couldn’t the Brahmins conduct a puja so that our heads were cleared of sinful thoughts? This is something I have to ponder over when I have time.

sometimes it requires as much courage to live as it does to die.

She was the window that allowed the light into his world.

The farmers had grown proud and haughty. They ate better than anyone else in Germany now. And, like Volkswagen and Siemens, they had slaves. All they had to do was feed the local Nazi power elite, and they could have all the slaves they wanted.

In 1782 J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, in Letters from an American Farmer wrote: “Whence came all these people? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes... What, then, is the American, this new man? He is neither a European nor the descendant of a European; hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. . . . The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared.

Rather than a state of equal brotherhood and sisterhood, Kim had introduced an elaborate social order in which the eleven million ordinary North Korean citizens were classified according to their perceived political reliability. The songbun system, as it was known, ruthlessly reorganized the entire social system of North Korea into a communistic pseudofeudal system, with every individual put through eight separate background checks, their family history taken into account as far back as their grandparents and second cousins. Your final rating, or songbun, put you in one of fifty-one grades, divided into three broad categories, from top to bottom: the core class, the wavering class, and the hostile class. The hostile class included vast swathes of society, from the politically suspect (“people from families of wealthy farmers, merchants, industrialists, landowners; pro-Japan and pro-U.S. people; reactionary bureaucrats; defectors from the South; Buddhists, Catholics, expelled public officials”) to kiaesaeng (the Korean equivalent of geishas) and mudang (rural shamans). Although North Koreans weren’t informed of their new classification, it quickly became clear to most people what class they had been assigned. North Koreans of the hostile class were banned from living in Pyongyang or in the most fertile areas of the countryside, and they were excluded from any good jobs. There was virtually no upward mobility—once hostile, forever hostile—but plenty downward. If you were found to be doing anything that was illegal or frowned upon by the regime, you and your family’s songbun would suffer. Personal files were kept locked away in local offices, and were backed up in the offices of the Ministry for the Protection of State Security and in a blast-resistant vault in the mountains of Yanggang province. There was no way to tamper with your status, and no way to escape it. The most cunning part of it all was that Kim Il-Sung came up with a way for his subjects to enforce their own oppression by organizing the people into inminban (“people’s groups”), cooperatives of twenty or so families per neighborhood whose duty it was to keep tabs on one another and to inform on any potentially criminal or subversive behavior. These were complemented by kyuch’aldae, mobile police units on constant lookout for infringers, who had the authority to burst into your home or office at any time of day or night. Offenses included using more than your allocated quota of electricity, wearing blue jeans, wearing clothes bearing Roman writing (a “capitalist indulgence”) and allowing your hair to grow longer than the authorized length. Worse still, Kim decreed that any one person’s guilt also made that person’s family, three generations of it, guilty of the same crime. Opposing the regime meant risking your grandparents, your wife, your children—no matter how young—being imprisoned and tortured with you. Historically, Koreans had been subject to a caste system similar to India’s and equally as rigid. In the early years of the DPRK, the North Korean people felt this was just a modernized revitalization of that traditional social structure. By the time they realized something was awfully wrong, that a pyramid had been built, and that at the top of it, on the very narrow peak, sat Kim Il-Sung, alone, perched on the people’s broken backs, on their murdered families and friends, on their destroyed lives—by the time they paused and dared to contemplate that their liberator, their savior, was betraying them—in fact, had always betrayed them—it was already much, much too late.

Frau Heinchen, was the elderly woman with her dog, who talked to me on the windy hillside overlooking Überlingen on Sunday afternoon, December 1, 2002. She recalled the Polish and Russian prisoners, whom she called Cossacks, and vividly remembered the hanging of the Russian soldier, described in “Suppressed I Rise”. According to her, it was the farmer’s wife Clarissa who was raped by the Russian soldier and later, bore his child. She remembered the lager (warehouse) that was used to house the prisoners, saying that it was located on a field near the municipal hospital. She also told us the location of where the one room schoolhouse had been. For the limited time that we talked, she glowed and became twenty-one years young again.

farmer, living with his wife, Reba, and one child, on land he owned. I

The first stacked dolls better known as Russian Nesting Dolls, matryoshka dolls or Babushka Dolls, were first made in 1890 by Vasily Zvyozdochkin. Much of the artistry is in the painting of the usual 5 dolls, although the world record is 51 dolls. Each doll, which when opened reveals a smaller doll of the same type inside ending with the smallest innermost doll, which is considered the baby doll and is carved from a single piece of wood. Frequently these dolls are of a woman, dressed in a full length traditional Russian peasant dress called a sarafan. When I served with the Military Intelligence Corps of the U.S.Army, the concept of onion skins was a similar metaphor used to denote that we were always encouraged to look beyond the obvious. That it was essential to delve deeper into a subject, so as to arrive at the essence of the situation or matter. This is the same principle I employed in writing my award winning book, The Exciting Story of Cuba. Although it can be considered a history book, it is actually a book comprised of many stories or vignettes that when woven together give the reader a view into the inner workings of the Island Nation, just 90 miles south of Key West. The early 1950’s are an example of this. At that time President Batista was hailed a champion of business interests and considered this a direct endorsement of his régime. Sugar prices remained high during this period and Cuba enjoyed some of its best years agriculturally. For those at the top of the ladder, the Cuban economy flourished! However, it was during this same period that the people lower on the economic ladder struggled. A populist movement was started, resulting in a number of rebel bands to challenge the entrenched regime, including the followers of autocrats such as Fidel and Raul Castro. Castro’s M 26 7 militia had a reputation of indiscriminately placing bombs, one of which blew a young woman to pieces in the once-grand theater, “Teatro America.” A farmer, who failed to cooperate with Batista’s army, was locked into his home with his wife and his daughter, which was then set on fire killing them all. What had been a corrupt but peaceful government, quickly turned into a war zone. Despite of Batista’s constitutional abuses and his alliance with the Mafia, the years under his régime were still the most prosperous ones in Cuba’s history. Of course most of the money went to those at the top of the economic ladder and on the lower end of the scale a house maid was lucky to make $25 to $30 a month.

listen to these words of Ann Griffiths, a humble Welsh Calvinistic Methodist who was a farmer's wife and who died in 1805 at the age of 29 when giving birth to her first child: Gladly

From here he could see the farmer's daughter in the yard, feeding the geese. Wasn't there a nursery rhyme in there somewhere? No, he was thinking of the farmer's wife, wasn't he?--cutting off tails with a carving knife. A horrid image. Poor mice, he had thought when he was a boy. Still thought the same now that he was a man. Nursery rhymes were brutal affairs.

There’s a story about President Calvin Coolidge and a chicken farm every evolutionary psychologist knows by heart. It goes like this: The president and his wife were visiting a commercial chicken farm in the 1920s. During the tour, the first lady asked the farmer how he managed to produce so many fertile eggs with only a few roosters. The farmer proudly explained that his roosters happily performed their duty dozens of times each day. “Perhaps you could mention that to the president,” replied the first lady. Overhearing the remark, President Coolidge asked the farmer, “Does each cock service the same hen each time?” “Oh no,” replied the farmer, “he always changes from one hen to another.” “I see,” replied the president. “Perhaps you could point that out to Mrs. Coolidge.

and I would love to see them. She’s really the one you should be discussing farming with.” She looked up at him—finally—and the blue of her eyes

suited to be a farm wife.” “Miss Moreno? You think she should be my wife?” His mouth wouldn’t close properly

In 1782 J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, in Letters from an American Farmer wrote:            “Whence came all these people? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes... What, then, is the American, this new man? He is neither a European nor the descendant of a European; hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. . . . The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared.

I joined the army to learn how to kill my father. An irony; the only time the old man ever showed a glimmer of satisfaction with me was when I announced I was dropping out of college and enlisting. He thought I wanted to make the world safe for democracy, when in fact I wanted to make it safe from him. I intended to sign up under a false name. Become competent with a rifle. Then one night, while my father slept, I would sneak away from basic training, press the muzzle to his head - Harry Hines the failed and violent Pennsylvania farmer, Harry Hines the wife abuser and son beater, laying into me with his divining rods till my back was freckled with slivers of hazelwood - and blast him to Satan's backyard while he dreamed whatever dreams go through such a man's mind.

Josh and his wife, Jacq, launched Bahen & Co. in 2011. Bahen handcrafts every bar of chocolate, using just two ingredients: cacao beans and cane sugar. The beans are sourced from a handful of farmers whom Josh has looked in the eye. The beans are ground

I’ve got a broken milking machine I can’t afford to fix, and I’ve already had to fire my farm hand! My wife had to quit the farm and take a job in town! I won’t let you do this to me, Hooper! It would be an insult to all my farming ancestors if I sold my goods to you at these rotten prices! I swear I’ll sell this farm before I do it! Farmer Ben’s outburst had been so loud that some of the cubs were left holding their hands over their ears. But Ed Hooper hadn’t so much as flinched. “Well, what you do with your farm is none of my business,” said Hooper. “It darn sure isn’t!” yelled Ben. “Because your business is robbery! You’re nothin’ but an old-fashioned highway robber! You put a supermarket out on the highway and use it to rob folks!” Hooper’s smug little smile got bigger. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Ben,” he said. “But I can get my farm goods elsewhere. I’ll be on my way now. Have a nice day, Ben.” Hooper turned to leave, but happened to glance back and see Farmer Ben reaching for a pitchfork stuck in the ground. “Have a nice day?” Ben cried. “Don’t you dare tell me to have a nice day!” And with that, Farmer Ben raised his pitchfork and chased Ed Hooper into the cow pasture. Hooper dashed across the pasture toward his shiny new car. He reached the car safely, but not before stepping in three cow pies.

The president and his wife were visiting a commercial chicken farm in the 1920s. During the tour, the first lady asked the farmer how he managed to produce so many fertile eggs with only a few roosters. The farmer proudly explained that his roosters happily performed their duty dozens of times each day. “Perhaps you could mention that to the president,” replied the first lady. Overhearing the remark, President Coolidge asked the farmer, “Does each cock service the same hen each time?” “Oh no,” replied the farmer, “he always changes from one hen to another.” “I see,” replied the president. “Perhaps you could point that out to Mrs. Coolidge.” Whether

Then in June Linda got sick. Word went around town that Roger was looking real serious 'cause his wife was 'took ill bad'. So my mother cooked up a big casserole to take up there; they could eat off it for says, she said. 'The poor young couple, with her sick I guess they must have to make do with canned pork and beans. Take this on over there,' she told me. 'She can't cook anyways,' I said. 'I told you that.' 'Nonsense. Every woman can cook, now go on.' I went on up there, carrying the heavy casserole. Even cold it smelled good and if it hand't been for Roger I would have sat down and eaten it on the ways. Waste of good food to take it to 'her', I thought; she'd probably preferred canned beans. I got up to the farm and found the door locked. That was strange, let me tell you. Around here nobody locks the door, even at night or when they're out. You just never know, a farmer or a kid like me might have to come in and use the phone in a hurry, or the bathroom, and everybody knows everybody anyway. But the door was locked. I put the casserole dish down on the front step and sat there on the steps awhile, to see if Roger or Linda came along. Nobody came and the June sun was hot. Roger doesn't have a brook up there, like we do, so I couldn't get wading. I looked around for a hose or something. I walked to the back of the house and decided to climb the apple tree there; that was something to do at least. Up in the apple tree I could see into the windows of the house; they were too high for me to see in from the ground. I was looking into the bedroom. There was Linda, sleeping. In the day! But she was supposed to be sick, so it was all right. Except that then I saw that she wasn't lying in that bed alone. There was another head there, on the pillow beside her. Roger has dark hair and this person didn't. This person was a man with blond hair. I didn't get a good look at his face. I was seeing the side of his head, then the head went over LInda's face and she was covered up by him.

men seem to use the word witch more than women. That’s because men have more power than women, and any threat to that power becomes a source of fear. When any person, man or woman, has wealth and influence, it tends to ensure a comfortable living for them and their families, and they will lash out at anyone who might try to take it from them.’ ‘I don’t understand how a witch having power means a man will lose his wealth,’ I said. Mother chuckled appreciatively. ‘Precisely. If a woman is called a witch, and ostracised and forced out of all good society, then other women won’t be influenced by her. Well, that’s what the men and sometimes women, think. Men see women as their property. They think to own them, and their bodies, like a horse, or a cow. Witches are often herbalists or nature worshippers who make their own coin, using knowledge of the lands to brew potions and remedies. There was an instance where a witch was drowned after being accused of planting bitter herbs in a farmer’s field which ruined his crops. The post-mortem found her with child, and the wife admitted to knowing it belonged to her husband.’ ‘So he lied.’ ‘Yes, and then in his defence stated the witch had used a powerful love potion to make him give her a child.’ ‘And they believed him?’ I said in astonishment.  ‘Unless it can be proved different, a man’s word is often taken over a woman’s, especially if that woman has a poor reputation.’ ‘Can

She swatted at a strand of beads that swayed into her eyes. “Did you sell your shirt, too?” Lorcan gave a feral grin. “Got ten coppers from a farmer’s wife for it.

The country had been in the grip of a terrible famine that had wiped out thousands of people, yet taxes were still being demanded from the barely recovering farmers to swell the coffers of the British government.

I should have known you would be a king,” she said quietly. Her eyes were steady on the Warder’s face, but her voice trembled slightly. Lan looked back at her just as intently. It seemed to Rand that the Warder’s face actually softened. “I am not a king, Nynaeve. Just a man. A man without as much to his name as even the meanest farmer’s croft.” Nynaeve’s voice steadied. “Some women don’t ask for land, or gold. Just the man.” “And the man who would ask her to accept so little would not be worthy of her. You are a remarkable woman, as beautiful as the sunrise, as fierce as a warrior. You are a lioness, Wisdom.” “A Wisdom seldom weds.” She paused to take a deep breath, as if steeling herself. “But if I go to Tar Valon, it may be that I will be something other than a Wisdom.” “Aes Sedai marry as seldom as Wisdoms. Few man can live with so much power in a wife, dimming them by her radiance whether she wishes to or not.” “Some men are strong enough. I know one such.” If there could have been any doubt, her look left none as to whom she meant. “All I have is a sword, and a war I cannot win, but can never stop fighting.

Remembering another farmhouse a mile or so in the direction of Black Horse Pike, Frank set off. He was faint from hunger and the drug, but he kept on. As he plodded up the lane, the farmer’s wife saw him coming and opened the door. She surveyed the disheveled boy skeptically. “May I use your telephone?” he asked. “I’m Frank Hardy, and I want to call Bayport.” On hearing the name Hardy, the woman readily consented. Frank put his call through. As he waited, he noticed that the hands on a mantel clock stood at eight twenty-five.

William Westcott: “American. Farmer. Independent in Politics. Comes to Congregational church. Not interested in religion. Married and second wife. Has not talked about the case.

When the farmer beats his wife who beats the dog who beats the cat who beats the mouse, who does the mouse beat? She does not beat her young. Maybe she beats the catskin drum.

Lincoln told Chauncey Depew the story of a farmer who consulted him about obtaining a divorce after he and his wife had quarreled over the color to paint their new house. His client explained, “I wanted it painted white like our neighbors’, but my wife preferred brown. Our disputes finally became quarrels. She has broken crockery, throwing it at my head, and poured scalding tea down my back, and I want a divorce.” Lincoln urged the couple to compromise their differences for the sake of their children. A month later the farmer reported that he and his wife had reached a compromise: “we are going to paint the house brown.”344 Lincoln was fond of quoting from his favorite poet, Robert Burns, these lines: “Sic a wife as Willie had, / I would no gie a button for her.”345

Madame Lorraine was a rich French woman who lived in an old mansion, which she inherited from her husband. The family had already had many possessions, however, they were ruined in the Revolution. For defending the monarchy, they lost their titles, lands and servants. Madame Lorraine's husband, the old Earl, died in the Reign of Terror, as did her children. The wife, however, had hidden the jewelry at the beginning of the revolution and had left in secret for Switzerland. After the restoration, she returned to France, but with few resources she had, she bought a house in Paris. She complained of loneliness and adopted a little orphan, named Juliette, who she used as a servant. When the girl complained about being overworked, as she had to take care of the entire house alone, her stepmother told her: “your complaints hurt me, you see, I lost everything and I only have you, your mother didn't want you, but I I adopted you and took care of you and you don’t even appreciate that.” The girl, then, victim of emotional blackmail, got used to serving, without complaining. The problem is that every day more and more was demanded – the girl never reached perfection, said Madame Lorraine: “look at the silverware, look at the floor, look at the walls, you will never be able to get married”. However, Madame Lorraine did not tell the girl that perfection is never achieved: it is just a resource to dominate the poor in spirit, who see in the light of their own craft a hope of transcendence. Another thing that Madame Lorraine had not taught the girl – even if the Revolution had taught humanity: that they were free. The girl then grew older and became an object of exploitation every day, her arms becoming weaker, her mind increasingly taken over by obedience. One day, the girl went to the market in the square, and hardly talked to anyone – Madame Lorraine told her that everyone wanted to abuse her and that she shouldn't trust anyone. That day, however, she was exhausted and stopped at a farmer's stand selling tomatoes and said to her: “young man, what's your name, I always see you running around here and you never talk to anyone”. She decided to talk to him: “I'm the old widow's daughter, she says that everyone wants to exploit me, that I shouldn't trust strangers”. The salesman, already aware of the girl's situation from the stories that were circulating in the village, said to her: “Isn't it just the opposite, girl, maybe you haven't learned a lie all your life and now you're trying harder and harder to keep this lie as if it were the truth – see, God made everyone free.” The girl then quickly returned to the house, but doubt had entered her heart and there she began to take root and grow. Until, one day, the old lady released the drop that would overflow her body and said to her: “Well, Juliette, you don't do anything right, look how my dresses are, you didn't sew them perfectly”. The girl then got up, looked the vixen in the eyes and said: “if it’s not good, do it yourself” and left. It is said that she married the farmer in the sale and, from that day on, she was the best wife in the world. Not because she did everything with great care, with an almost divine perfection, that she was modest or because she had freed herself from the shrew who exploited her, but simply because she recognized the value of freedom itself.

When breakfast was over you could tell by the long, long shadow of the fig tree that it was still very early in the morning. On sunny days Doña Teresa could tell the time almost exactly by its shadow, but on rainy days she just had to guess, because there was no clock in her little cabin. It was lucky that it was so early, because there were so many things to be done. The Twins and their mother were not the only busy people about, however, for there were two hundred other peons beside Pancho who worked on the hacienda, and each one had a little cabin where he lived with his family. There were other vaqueros besides [p 20 ] Pancho. There were ploughmen, and farmers, and water-carriers, and servants for the great white house where Señor Fernandez lived with his wife and pretty daughter Carmen. And there was the gatekeeper, José, 9 whom the Twins loved because he knew the most wonderful stories and was always willing to tell them. There were field-workers, and wood-cutters, and even fishermen. The huts where they all lived were huddled together like a little village, and the village, and the country for miles and miles around, and the big house, and the little chapel beside it, and the schoolhouse, and everything else on that great hacienda, belonged to Señor Fernandez. It almost seemed as if the workers all belonged to Señor Fernandez, too, for they had to do just what he told them to, and there was no other place for them to go and nothing else for them to do if they had wanted ever so much to change. [p 21 ] All the people, big and little, loved the fiesta of San Ramon. They thought the priest’s blessing would cause the hens to lay more eggs, and the cows to give more milk, and that it would keep all the creatures well and strong. Though it was a feast day, most of the men had gone away from their homes early, when Pancho did; but the women and children in all the little cabins were busy as bees, getting themselves and their animals ready to go in procession to the place where the priest was to bless them. As soon as breakfast was eaten, Doña Teresa said to Tonio: “Go now, my Tonio, and make Tonto beautiful! His coat is rough and full of burs, and he will make a very poor figure to show the priest unless you give him a good brushing. Only be careful