The cowherd girls, picking up their petticoats, ran splashing through the mud with bare legs, still white, not yet brown from the sun, waving brush wood in their hands, chasing the calves that frolicked in the mirth of spring.

After admiring the young ones of that year, who were particularly fine--the early calves were the size of a peasant's cow, and Pava's daughter, at three months old, was as big as a yearling-- Levin gave orders for a trough to be brought out and for them to be fed in the paddock.

But it appeared that as the paddock had not been used during the winter, the hurdles made in the autumn for it were broken.

He sent for the carpenter, who, according to his orders, ought to have been at work at the thrashing machine.

But it appeared that the carpenter was repairing the harrows, which ought to have been repaired before Lent.