Baron Corner of Akford, Akerry Village is 17 degrees northwest, 35 kilometers, and Florland Village.

The sun's light gradually faded. During the summer service, the muddy roads that people and animals frequently stepped on became muddy and became more and more difficult to find a hard ground.

Compared to most of the rude and frigid mud legs in the village, they were all cowherds for generations. Alves/Antoine and his son Dean/Antoine were a little educated. They stopped when they were still more than ten steps away from the master's residence and stood properly where the lower-class man should stand, without stepping on the land that should not have been settled.

Because of this, Baird/Barron, the manager of Florent Village, just after eating the hearty dinner of two bowls of mud and three eggs, he made an exception and did not serve another glass of bad beer before he could even give it a rotten dark beer.

"master."

"master."

The figure of the manager appeared at the door, and Alves and his son Dean hurriedly took off their hoods and saluted deeply.

"Well, get up..." Frowning at the mud-stained wooden shoes of the cowherd and his son, the manager slowly walked to the side of the road: "Yalves, I've been waiting for a long time... You came here as soon as the sender entered the village. I was staring so tightly, why are you afraid that the sheep you brought over a few days ago will be given away for nothing?"

"No, how dare you... Who in the village doesn't know that the master never lies..." Alves raised his head, and the flattery he tried to squeeze out on his face was a bit sincere.

While talking, Alves pulled the rope hard, and the two goats immediately protested, "I just wanted to send these two other beasts here as soon as possible. Master, you know that life is longer than one day, and these two beasts will have to eat more food for another day."

"Hahaha..." The manager laughed, "Okay, OK, Alves, you cunning miser, don't guess what I meant so carefully! I have already told the farming officer about you! The master already knows! Your son..."

Speaking of this, Mr. Baird/Barron turned his head and looked at the eldest son of the cowherd in the village of Florent: "Your son, Little Dean! When the brightest star on the sky disappears tomorrow, the lucky Little Dean can go to Akerry's village."

"Ah..." This time, the surprise smile on Alves's face was no longer a disguise. He quickly patted his son's back with his rough palms: "Thank you so much! Hurry... Thank you for the manager!"

"Well, okay..." Waving your hand to stop the cowherd and the cowherd's son bent over and thanked him repeatedly. Baird suddenly sighed and pointed at the two goats held by Alves: "You can take these two goats back first."

"Ah... how can this be! This... this is our whole family's thanks! Master, please accept it!"

"Hey, don't think so well! I didn't say I don't want it!"

Baird sighed again: "...ah, Alves, the cunning Alves, the stingy Alves, this time I've really been fooled by you!"

"Do you know how many people have found a farmer's official job in Akerry's village this time? Thirteen villages! Thirteen villages! Well, I know you don't know how many, so let me tell you that thirteen villages mean all the villages, all the villages, and every village, want their cowherds to go to Los/More to help!"

"Ah..." Alves opened his eyes wide and was stunned.

"What are you two sheep?" Bairdes curled his lips, "For the sake of helping...well, in fact, it was to get the skills of cattle treatment. Darcy Village got three cans of honey from somewhere, and Bazer Village was even willing to produce a cow!

"Ah..." Alves' eyes widened even more.

"Fortunately, Mr. Barrez... Well, he is very fair, the farming officer. I know that I don't lie normally, and that your family's work in caring for livestock is really good. Little Dean is lucky! I'll let your family go, but..."

Baird pointed at the two goats again: "The farming official is fair, that is the master of mercy! We can't just pretend that we don't know anything! Take these two goats back first... When the autumn tax is over, we will send them to the farming official's house together... Well... and my two remaining goats, let's take them together to your place together, so that you can't worry about my pasture all day long!"

"ah……"

"Well...Yalves, it seems you don't like it..."

"No, I'm very happy! I'm very happy! I'm as happy as the sun at noon! Master, don't worry, I will feed you and the goats of the farming officer, every day!"

"Well... Alves, do it well. You are attentive in your work. I also told the farming officer... Well, Dean, you do it well too. When you arrive in Akerry's village, you have to listen to Los/More, Florent Village is still counting on you..."

"Yes...yes, thank you, I must follow your instructions." Alves hurriedly pulled his son and bowed to thank him.

"Well...then that's it." Byld waved his hand and kindly asked the inferior man in front of him to do his own work.

"Thank you, Master." Pulling his son and holding the goat, Alves bent down again, walked a long way before he put on his hood with his son again.

———————

The sun fell behind the mountains, the thick night sky covered the earth, and the tall and spacious house of the manager also fell far behind him.

"The two goats in charge of the master, the two goats in charge of the master of the farmer, and the two goats that had been sent over the past few days. There are so many livestock at home, so there will be much less cheese this winter." Little Dean suddenly said this when he was walking through the stream on the logs.

"Yes." The father nodded and responded vaguely.

"The summer service will be several days before it is finished, and the work in autumn is very heavy. If I leave, those work will be even more difficult." As I walked past the old Cole family, Little Dean spoke again.

"Yes." The father nodded and responded vaguely.

"The wasteland on the mountain has not yet been leveled, and the ditch at the door of the house is also very silted. Father, there is still a lot of work left to me..." As I passed several difficult thorns near the carpenter's house, Little Dean had new questions.

"Yes." The father nodded and responded vaguely.

"Do you really want this?" The house was already vaguely visible. Time was tight, and Dean gave up the idea of ​​knocking on the side: "Father, I can't understand... Why am I going to Akerry Village? Is it good to be a helper? I saved so much wheat from my family, I can get it back in one summer..."

This time, my father didn't even have a "yes" answer.

After walking silently for a long time, walking through the long ridge of his own family, standing on the fork road home, my father suddenly spoke: "This is the second time I have sent sheep to the manager..."

"Hmm?" Dean had never heard of this.

"When I first sent sheep..." The father stopped and looked up and down at his son: "I am about the same age as you now."

"The first time I sent sheep?" Dean looked at his father in confusion, "My father had also sent sheep before? Why did he send sheep?"

"Why..." The father sighed deeply, and did not directly answer his son's question. Instead, he pointed to a wooden house not far away: "Did you see that wooden house? Do you know whose house it is?"

"Of course I know this." The village is only so big, and almost every household in the village knows Dean.

What's more, the position my father pointed to at the moment was Deen's relative: "This is uncle's house, what's wrong with you, Father?"

"Yes... it's your uncle's house..." My father gently patted the big tree beside him, and suddenly grabbed it quickly with his left hand. When it opened again after a while, a firefly flickered from his tail was spinning in circles in his palm.

"When I'm younger and your uncle is younger, every summer evening, we will come here, catch a lot of such bugs, put them in small straw cages, and go home until my mother shouts many times."

A smile appeared on Dean's face.

As the sons of the cowherd's family, Dean and Dean's younger brother are among the few children in the village who can have "play" time when they were young. The situation described by his father at this moment is the game that Dean and Dean's younger brother once enjoyed.

The father said again: "I was so happy at that time. I always wanted to keep playing... and I always felt that good life would be like this day by day until... until Dean, your uncle's house is like this now. Do you think he is doing well?"

"Uh... compared with other free people, can you pass by?"

"Yes, you can still live! You can live well, even better than other free people!" The smile on Alves' face was full of bitterness: "How many people can't eat enough to plant wheat, and you uncle... and two other uncles' houses can all make a place to grow peas and cabbage, and occasionally you can get some pumpkin leaves..."

Speaking of this, Alves pointed to his own wooden house, "What about us? Look at our family. After the master's favor tax every year, we can always keep a few geese. When we are lucky, we can even leave a sheep, let alone wheat. You and your brother have never been hungry... Do you know why this is the case?"

“…Because you are a cowherd, my father…”

"Your uncle can raise cattle, and your other uncles can do it too. Why am I a cowherd? They are not?"

"This..." The son never thought about this question carefully, or in other words, he never got an answer from his father.

"Because, father... the night when my father suddenly fell into the water and died, when your uncles were still crying, quarreling, and fighting for farm tools, my eldest son, who was the first to separate, immediately took all the livestock in the family - three sheep, two geese, and a few chickens, and gave them all to the manager...

...That was the first time I sent livestock to the manager, and then...and I became a cowherd."
Chapter completed!