ducks, the way they pick it up!” he added, pointing to the growing haycocks. “Since dinner time they’ve carried a good half of it.”
“The last load, eh?” he shouted to a young peasant, who drove by, standing in the front of an empty cart, shaking the cord reins.
“The last, dad!” the lad shouted back, pulling in the horse, and, smiling, he looked round at a bright, rosy-cheeked peasant girl who sat in the cart smiling too, and drove on.
“Who’s that? Your son?” asked Levin.
“My baby,” said the old man with a tender smile.
“What a fine fellow!”
“The lad’s all right.”
“Married already?”
“Yes, it’s two years last St. Philip’s day.”
“Any children?”
“Children indeed! Why, for over a year he was innocent as a babe himself, and bashful too,” answered the old man. “Well, the hay! It’s as fragrant as tea!” he repeated, wishing to change the subject.
Levin looked more attentively at Ivan Parmenov and his wife. They were loading a haycock onto the cart not far from him. Ivan Parmenov was standing on the cart, taking, laying in place, and stamping down the huge bundles of hay, which his pretty young wife deftly handed up to him, at first in armfuls, and then on the pitchfork. The young wife worked easily, merrily, and dexterously. The close-packed hay did not once break away off her fork. First she gathered it together, stuck the fork into it, then