“Really!” said the frog; but the expression in each voice was different.
So she stuck the fork into the ground, and found it took a great deal of strength to make any impression upon the surface. But once having put her shoulder to the plough, as it were, there was nothing for it but to go on, for the old voice kept ringing “Go on! go on!” and consequently on she went.
The frog, for some considerable period, watched her from the side, but finally hopped away into the hut. At noonday it appeared again, and summoned her to dinner, which was already prepared in the little living-room.
“Who prepared my dinner?” asked Rosalie, after she had washed her hands and settled to the meal.
“I did,” it replied. “It’s a woman’s work certainly, but if you waited for a woman to do it for you, you’d come badly off. No; I’m a frog, but when there’s no one else by I can do other work besides my own. How do you like digging?”
“It makes me very tired, and the inside of my hands are quite sore.”
“Are they? Well, you’ve got to go on again this afternoon, you know. If you don’t get the seeds in before very long they’ll wither.”
She answered nothing, but after the customary hour of rest returned again to the hard labour.
It was slow work and very hard, and not a soul came near all the day long. In fact, during the afternoon even the frog seemed to have deserted her, and it was not till the first faint tinge of evening crossed the sky that she again heard the familiar voice calling from the wooden doorstep:
Rosalie let the fork drop on the ground, and turned round as eagerly as her tired body would allow.
Whilst she ate her tea, this new friend sat upon the hearth.
“I shall be as stiff as a board to-morrow,” said Rosalie, laying her tired arms upon the arms of the chair.
“No; my master sent down that little bottle on the mantelpiece for you. You must take it before you go to bed, and you will be all right in the morning—so far as stiffness is concerned, anyway. We don’t go in for torture here, but we believe in hard work—very hard work sometimes.”
When the meal was finished the frog said:
“Now, if you will take this arm-chair by the fireplace, I will remove the table.”
She did so, and was surprised to see that when the frog pulled a small knob in the wall the whole table, which, however, was not large, disappeared through an opening partition, and left the room clear.