There were plenty of fruit-trees, too, in Rossbach, growing along the road, and, strange to say, unmolested by the youngsters.  The trees appear to belong to the municipality, and the crop is sold by auction each year to the highest bidder.  They are quite ornamental, too, standing in a straight row on each side of the road.

The farmers who lived in this village followed the oldest methods of farming I had ever seen, though I saw still more primitive methods in Hanover.  Vegetables, particularly potatoes and mangels, were grown in abundance, and I saw small fields of stubble, though what the grain was I do not know.  I saw a threshing-machine drawn by a tractor going along the road, and one of the girls told me it was made in England.  The woman who had the farm next to the one I was on was a widow, her husband having been killed in the war, and she had no horses at all, and cultivated her tiny acres with a team of cows.  It seems particularly consistent with German character to make cows work!  They hate to see anything idle, and particularly of the female sex.

Each morning we rode out to the field, for the farms are scattered over a wide area, and three-acre and five-acre fields are the average size.  The field where we went to work digging potatoes was about a mile distant from the house, and when I say we rode, I mean the brother and I—­the girls walked.  I remonstrated at this arrangement, but the girls themselves seemed to be surprised that it should be questioned, and the surly young brother growled something at me which I knew was a reflection on my intelligence.

When we got into the field and began to dig potatoes, good, clear-skinned yellow ones, Lena Schmidt, one of the girls, who was a friend of the family, though not a relation, I think, began to ask me questions about Canada (they put the accent on the third syllable).  Lena had been to Sweden, so she told me proudly, and had picked up quite a few English words.  She was a good-looking German girl, with a great head of yellow hair, done in braids around her head.  The girls were all fairly good-looking though much tanned from outdoor work.  Lena had heard women worked in the house, and not outside, in Canada—­was it true?

I assured her it was true.

“But,” said Lena, “what do they do in house—­when bread is made and dish-wash?”

I told her our women read books and played the piano and made themselves pretty clothes and went visiting and had parties, and sometimes played cards.

Of course it was not all told as easily as this sounds.

I could see that Lena was deeply impressed, and so were the two others when she passed it on.  Then she began to question me again.

“Are there many women in Canada—­women in every house—­like here?”

I told her there were not nearly so many women in Canada as here; indeed, there were not enough to go around, and there were lots of men who could not get married for that reason.