Like many others in the world, there lived a mother with her three
sons. They were not rich, but lived by their work. The eldest son
said one day to his mother--
"It would be better for us if I should go out to service."
The mother did not like it, but at last she let him go. He goes off,
far, far, far away, and comes to a house, and asks if they want a
servant. They say "Yes," and they make their agreement.
The master was to give a very high salary--100,000 francs--but the
servant was to do everything that the master ordered him, and, if he
did not do it, the master was to tear the skin off his back at the
end of the year, and to dismiss him without pay. [17]
The servant said to him,
"All right; I am strong, and I will work."
On the morrow the master gives him a great deal of work, but he does it
easily. The last months of the year the master presses him much more,
and one day he sends him into a field to sow fourteen bushels of wheat
in the day. The lad goes sadly, taking with him a pair of oxen. He
returns to the house very late in the evening. The master says to him,
"Have you done your work?"