We have to do certain chores for Grandmother, otherwise she doesn't give us anything to eat and leaves us to spend the night outdoors.

At first we refuse to obey her. We sleep in the garden, we eat fruit and raw vegetables.

In the morning, before daybreak, we see Grandmother leave the house. She says nothing to us. She goes and feeds the animals, milks the goats, then takes them to the bank of the stream, where she ties them to a tree. Then she waters the garden and picks the vegetables and fruit, which she loads into her wheelbarrow. She also puts in a basket full of eggs, a small cage with a rabbit, and a chicken or duck with its legs tied together.

She goes off to market pushing her wheelbarrow, with the strap around her scrawny neck, which forces her head down. She staggers under the weight. The bumps and stones in the road make her lose her balance, but she goes on walking, her feet turned inwards, like a duck. She walks to the town, to the market, without stopping, without putting her wheelbarrow down once.

When she gets back from the market, she makes a soup with the vegetables she hasn't sold, and jams with the fruit. She eats, she goes and has a nap in her vineyard, she sleeps for an hour, then she works in the vineyard, or if there is nothing to do there, she returns to the house, she cuts wood, she feeds the animals again, she brings back the goats, she milks them, she goes out into the forest, comes back with mushrooms and kindling, she makes cheeses, she dries mushrooms and beans, she bottles other vegetables, waters the garden again, puts things away in the cellar, and so on until nightfall.

On the sixth morning, when she leaves the house, we have already watered the garden. We take heavy buckets full of pigfeed from her, we take the goats to the bank of the stream, we help her load the wheelbarrow. When she comes back from the market, we are cutting wood.