'...All this time the dough was forgotten, and it was getting sour and heavy. At last, when the woman went away, the lump of sour "leven" was put down to bake. The neglected child got troublesome, and as Jan would be home early to supper, Betty was in a great hurry to get things done. To quiet the child, she gave it Jan's watch; and, that it might be the better pleased, she opened it, "that the dear chield might see the pretty little wheels spinning round." In a short time the "machine" was thrown down in the ashes, and it, of course, stopped. Betty, at last, wished to know the time; she then found the watch clogged full of dirt. To put the thing to rights she washed it out in the kettle of dish-water, which had not been changed for two or three days, and was thick with salt pilchard-bones, and potato-skins. She did her best to clean the watch, for she was now terribly afraid of Jan, and she wiped all the little wheels, as far as she could reach, with the corner of the dishcloth, but the confounded thing would not go. She had to bake the bread by guess; and, therefore, when she took it up, it was as black as soot, and as hard as a stone.
Jan came home; and you may judge the temper he was in at finding things as they were, and his watch stopped. Betty swore to the deepest that she had never taken the thing into her hands. Next morning Jan got up early to go to Bal; and taking the burnt loaf, he tried to cut it with a knife, but it was in vain--as well try to cut a stone; next he tried the dag (axe), and Mounster said it strook fire, and the dag never made the least mark in the crust...' [cont.]
Hunt 1903
