Page:Famous stories from foreign countries.djvu/147

 pastor of the parish to which Matti’s “hunger-field” belonged, and it was because of him that Matti was trying to get to the city with two barrels of tar.

When I arrived the pastor was having a set-to with the clerk.

“You act like an honest man according to your own reckoning, and you have never once told me how many cows each person owns, and I know perfectly well that you have the number on most of the farms,” declared the pastor.

“Who? I?” answered the clerk.

“Of course—you,” was the reply, looking sharply at the clerk.

“How could I know just how many cows each one has?” objected the clerk. He seemed to wish to escape a violent attack of temper on the part of the pastor.

“You know well enough; and I know you do. But you try to conceal it from me. The wretches are all stealing from me—and who shields them shares the sin. Do you know clerk, what the punishment for theft is?” shrieked the pastor in a rage.

Red, of indignation and wounded honor dyed his cheeks, and he replied to this accusation, which according to my opinion had gone too far.

“I don’t think it my duty to run about the village, and count the cows, in order to report to the pastor. Neither do I think it my duty—to God or man— to report cows that do not exist. To be sure, upon earth there are two kinds of people; they who make their incomes as large as possible, and they who make it as small a possible. Who has visited the homes of the