VI
“Lie still once for all, and trouble me not!” Matthew growled, rolling over on the other side in a bad temper.
Simon was quiet for a minute; but as soon as ever Matthew was snoring again, he slipped away behind the corn-bin; for they were sleeping in the barn, and he fancied he could see the first faint streaks of morning light.
He got at the tools that had been laid ready the evening before, groping for them in the dark; and he made such haste that some fell to the floor with a loud thud, and Matthew swore in his sleep.
Darkness still reigned over the land, though the stars were paling, and a little light glimmered in the east, and the first cocks were crowing, flapping their wings.
Simon carried off all his belongings in a wheelbarrow and, creeping stealthily by the hut, made his way round the pond, where all was still, save for the bubbling of the water through the lifted sluices.
The roads lay in the shadows of the orchards, so dark that scarcely a white wall was visible in places, and the millpond could only just be made out by the reflected stars.
As he passed his mother’s cabin, he went slower, listening intently. Someone was going to and fro in the enclosure, muttering incessantly.
“Who’s there?” He recognized his mother’s voice.
He stood mute, with bated breath, not daring to stir until the old woman began to move once more, without waiting for his answer.
“She prowls by night, like a tormented soul!” he thought with a mournful sigh, and glided past in dread.
He could just see her—a shadow gliding on from tree to tree, feeling her way with her stick, and mumbling some litany as she went along.
“The wrongs she has done me is gnawing, gnawing at her heart!” he said, with a strange sense of relief at the bottom of his soul, and went out into the broad road, all ruts and hollows. Once there, he walked on speedily, as if driven onwards, caring nothing either for ruts or for holes.
He never stopped till he got to the cross where the two roads leading to Podlesie met. It was too dark to do anything yet; so he sat down by the crucifix to wait and breathe a little.
“Plague on the hour, that lets one not distinguish field from wood!” he grumbled, casting his eyes around him. All about him was palpitating darkness: only above were there a few pale gold streaks.
Waiting was irksome, so he tried to say his morning prayer, but ever and anon, laying his hand upon the dew-drenched soil, forgot what words to say because of the pleasant thought which then would rush in upon him—that he was now on his own land, his own farm!
“I hold you now, nor ever will let you go!” he thought; and full of the courage and joy and infinite determination given by love, he let his ardent glances wander over the dark blurred expanse by the forest, where the six acres the Squire had sold him awaited his tillage.
“Dear orphan land, I will take you unto my heart, and never, whilst I have life, will I forsake you!” And as he spoke, he wrapped his sheepskin closer over his ragged garments. The cool of the night had been somewhat penetrating: he leaned back against the cross, and soon fell into a sound but noisy slumber.
When he leapt again to his feet, the fields were just growing visible, though yet indiscernible from a grey sheet of water, and the corn dripping with dew had touched him with its drooping wavy ears.
“ ’Tis broad day!—To work!” he said, stretching his limbs and kneeling down for a prayer before the cross; but this time not mechanically, as he usually did, to get it over speedily. Today it was otherwise, and he most fervently besought the Lord’s help. With all his soul, embracing the feet of the Crucified Jesus, he entreated Him, his eyes earnestly fixed upon that sacred suffering face.
“Help, O merciful Jesus! My own mother has wrought me grievous wrong. I am Thine, I, a poor destitute orphan: come Thou to mine aid! Yes, I am sinful; but succour me, O Lord of mercy!—I shall order a Mass to be said—nay, two! Also I shall bring tapers; and—if I do well enough—will have a baldachin constructed for Thy service!” So he vowed, pressing his lips lovingly to the crucifix; and then walked round it on his knees and kissed the earth humbly—to rise up unspeakably refreshed and fortified.
And then, to the holding he was now entering upon, he cried out joyfully: “You shall see! Ha! You shall see!” It was situated at the edge of the wood, one side of it joining the fields of Lipka. But, Lord! what land! what land! A mere stretch of desolate wilderness, pitted all over with hollows from disused clay and sandpits, and overgrown with wild pear-trees, surrounded everywhere with thorns and brambles. On each eminence, torchweed, wild camomile, and dockweed grew in rank abundance, with (in places) a scraggy stunted pine-tree, or a clump of alders or juniper-bushes. On the lower grounds and in the swampy parts, there were reeds and bulrushes in luxuriant growth. In short, it was a piece of land that, as the saying is, “a dog might weep over.” Even the Squire himself had advised Simon not to buy. He, however, had stood firm.
“ ’Tis just the thing for me! I shall make something of it!”
Matthew too, appalled at the sight of the bleak dreary waste, dissuaded him from purchasing it. “It was a bit of sterile moorland, fit only for the farmyard dogs to celebrate their nuptials upon.”—But Simon held out stubbornly, and ended the matter by saying:
“I have decided. Any soil is good, when there’s a good pair of hands to work at it!”
He had taken it because of the low price—only sixty roubles per acre—and the Squire had promised besides to help him both with timber and otherwise.
“And what I said then, I stand by now!” he cried, and gazed round with beaming eyes. Setting the barrow down on the pathway, he walked round the borders of his territory, marked off by branches stuck into the ground.
Pacing on slowly, full of deep joy, he settled in his mind the order of his work: what to do, and with what to begin. It was for himself, for Nastka, for the whole future race of Paches, that he was about to work, and he felt as fiercely ravenous to begin as the wild wolf that has just seized a lamb and tasted its quivering flesh.
He then proceeded to choose carefully the situation of his cabin.
“Best build it over against the village, with the forest close on one side of it: so, ’twill be storm-protected, and the timber not so far to bring.”
Having decided this, and marked the place of the four corners with stones, he threw off his sheepskin, crossed himself devoutly, spat on his hands and set himself to level the ground and fill the hollows left by the uprooted trees.
And now the day had risen, golden: cattle bellowed, well-sweeps creaked, and the fresh breeze, running over the corn, brought with it as usual the clatter of carts and the hum of voices. To none of these things did Simon pay any heed, but plunged furiously into his work, only at intervals stopping to straighten his back for a moment and wipe the sweat from his forehead. … Then he repeated his onset, with the clinging and insatiable pertinacity of a leech: all the while, according to his custom, talking to each object as if it were animated.
If he had to get a rock out of the earth:
“You,” he would explain to it, “have lain and rested long: come, help to sustain my hut, ’tis high time.”
Cutting down a blackthorn bush, he would remark, with a jeer:
“No use resisting, foolish one: you cannot withstand me. What, should I leave you standing here to tear my galligaskins?”
And to the wild old pear-trees he would say:
“Ye grow too close together, and must be moved; but ye shall make a floor for my byre, as good as Boryna’s!”
Sometimes, stopping to breathe, he would gloat over the land with eyes of love, and whisper to it: “My own—oh, my own!”
For that soil, so weedy and barren, uncultivated and forsaken by all, he was full of pity, and would say caressingly, as though speaking to a child:
“Patience, have patience yet awhile: I’ll till you, I’ll make you fat, and you’ll bear fruit like the other lands around you. Fear not: you shall be satisfied and rejoice.”
The sun, now rising, shone straight into his eyes.
“Thanks, O Lord God!” he exclaimed, blinking; and added: “We shall still have dry hot weather for some time!” For the sun rose as red as red could be.
Far away, the Mass-bell rang, and the chimneys of Lipka were crowned with plumes of blue smoke.
“Have you a good appetite, eh?” he said to himself, and drew his girdle tighter, sighing mournfully. “But Mother will never bring you your breakfast any more!”
Other parts, too, of the Podlesie farm were now swarming with people, like him at work on their newly bought lands; and he saw Staho Ploshka, ploughing with a couple of strong horses.
“Oh,” he thought; “dear Lord! if I could but have one of them!”
Joseph Vahnik was carting stones to lay the foundation of his hut; Klemba and his sons were digging a ditch round their holding; and Gregory, the Voyt’s brother, was busy measuring something with a pole near the highway cross.
“That,” Simon observed, “would be the very best place to build a tavern.”
Gregory, having driven in stakes to mark off the places he had in mind, came up to greet Simon.
“Ho, ho!” he cried, his eyes round with amazement; “you’re working as hard as ten, I see!”
“Can I do otherwise? what have I in the world? One pair of breeches and these two bare hands!”
He was surly, and would not interrupt his labours to talk. Gregory gave him some advice and went back to his own ground. After him came others, some to encourage him, some to gossip, some merely to smoke a cigarette and have a laugh; but they made Simon impatient, and he ended by flying out at Prychek:
“Ye might as well do your own work and not hinder others! Holiday-making on workdays—too much of a good thing!”
So they came no longer, and he remained alone.
It was blindingly bright, broilingly hot; and the sun had wrapped the world in a shimmering haze of light.
“Oh, but ye’ll not drive me away so easily!” he said, addressing the sun; and then, perceiving Nastka, who was coming with his breakfast, he went to meet her, and pounced on the porringer with greedy hands.
Nastka, very far from cheerful, surveyed the fields.
“Why, what can ever grow on such wastes and moorlands?”
“Everything!—As you’ll see. There will even be wheat for you to bake cakes of!”
“Oh, yes!—‘While the grass grows, the steed starves!’ ”
“It will not, Nastka. We have our own land now; ’tis easier far for us.—Six whole acres!” he reminded her, eating away at full speed.
“Can we eat the earth?—How shall we get through the winter?”
“That’s my affair: do not trouble. I have thought it all out, and shall find means.”
He thrust away the empty pot, stretched himself, and led her off to see all and hear his explanations.
“This,” he cried out gaily, “shall be the site of our cottage.”
“Our cottage? Built of mud, perchance, like a swallow’s nest?”
“Of wood and branches, and clay and sand, and whatsoever we can get: to last for a couple of years, till we are better off.”
“Quite a Manor house, I see, you have in mind!” she replied in an unpleasant tone.
“Better dwell in one’s own hovel than live in another man’s house.”
“Ploshka’s wife desires us to spend the winter with her: she has offered us a room with a willing heart.”
“A willing heart!—Willing, I know, to do anything to spite my mother, with whom she is always at odds.—Fear nothing, Nastka; I’ll build you a hut, with window and fireplace all that is needful. You shall see: in three weeks from now, had I to work my arms to the stumps, it shall stand there, like Amen at the end of ‘Our Father’: yes, stand it shall.”
“And, of course, you’ll have to work by yourself?”
“Matthew will help: he has promised.”
“Would not your mother,” she faltered, “come in any way to your aid?”
“I would die rather than ask her!” he burst out; but at once, seeing how dejected she looked, he felt sorry and, sitting down at her side by a rye-field, stammered an explanation.
“How can I, Nastka? Me she has thrust out, and you she loads with curses!”
“But, good God! if she would but let us have one cow! We are like the very lowest of dziads: with naught in the world! ’Tis fearful to think of.”
“But, Nastka, there will be a cow: I have one already in mind.”
“No hut … no cattle … nothing whatsoever!” she wailed, with her head upon his bosom, while he wiped her eyes and stroked her hair. All the time, he felt so sad that it was a wonder he himself could keep back his tears.—All at once he seized his spade, sprang to his feet, and cried in feigned anger:
“Woman, fear God! There’s so much work to do—and you do nothing—only complain!”
She, sorely troubled, rose with him, but care was gnawing at her heart, and made her say:
“Even should we not quite starve, the wolves will eat us in this wilderness.”
This time, he felt seriously angry. Turning away to work, he threw her these sharp words:
“Better stay at home than come here to talk nonsense and whimper!”
She wanted to appease him, but he pushed her away.
“Dear Lord!” he thought. “Indeed, a woman is of the some blood with a man; but she hath not reason such as a man hath. Wealth falls from heaven, not by lamenting and wailing, but by working with our hands.—They are all like children, now weeping, now laughing, or drooping, or full of malice.—Dear Lord!”
He went on grumbling thus, till his work had absorbed him so that he forgot all else on earth.
And so things went with him day by day. He would rise at grey dawn, and go home late in the evening, and many was the day when he exchanged no word with any living soul. Teresa or someone else now brought him his meals; for Nastka was working at the priest’s potato-field.
People came to see how he worked; but at a distance, for he disliked talking. His unwearied activity made them wonder.
“There’s plenty of grit in the fellow: who’d have thought it?” Klemba grunted.
“And is he not of the seed of Dominikova?” someone replied with a laugh. But Gregory, who had watched him all along closely, observed:
“True it is, he works like an ox; but we, we ought to make things easier for the man.”
“We ought,” they assented; “and we must, for he deserves help.” But no one put himself forward, everyone waiting for him to ask them first.
That Simon would not do, nor had even thought of doing. And so he was one morning in much amazement, seeing a cart come his way.
It was driven by Andrew, who called out merrily:
“Aye, it is I. Tell me where I am to plough!”
It was some time before Simon could believe his eyes.
“You, to have dared so greatly!—But you’ll get beaten, poor fellow!—You’ll see!”
“I care not. And if she beats me, I will come over to you for good.”
“Did you get this thought all by yourself?”
“All by myself! For a long time I had been fain, but they watched me at first.—Yagna too advised me not to come.”
He told him the whole affair in detail, while preparing to work; then they ploughed all day together; and, on going, he promised to return the next day.
So he did, with the rising sun. Simon noticed some slight discoloration on his brother’s cheeks, but only questioned him after the day’s work was done.
“Did she hurt you very much?”
“Oh, she’s purblind, and cannot catch me easily; and then I do not put myself in the way of her claws,” he answered, somewhat ruefully.
“And Yagna … she did not give you away?”
“Indeed no; she is not that sort.”
“Ah, can anyone make out what a woman may take it into her head to do?” He sighed deeply, and told him not to come again.
“I can manage alone now. Later, at sowing-time, you will help me.”
So he was alone again, working out his days one after another, like a horse turning a threshing-machine, and heedless both of the dreary solitude and the heat. For now it was growing hotter than it had ever been—a glow like hell, a conflagration. Scarcely anyone could work in the fields: the skies poured down living fire. They were one sheet of scorching incandescence: no breeze blew, no birds sang, no human voice resounded, while the sun went steadily on from east to west, raining down heat and drought.
Yet Simon worked every day just as at the beginning; even sleeping afield of nights to lose no time in coming over. Matthew endeavoured to restrain him, but to no purpose. He replied, curtly:
“I shall rest on Sunday.”
On Saturday evening he went home, but was so tired out that he fell asleep over his meal; and he slept almost the whole of the next day. He did not rise from his straw bed till the afternoon, when, dressing very finely, he sat down to a dinner of plentifully heaped-up dishes, with all the women in attendance about him, as about some grand personage, attentive to his least sign, and ever supplying him with more and more to eat; then he, having filled himself to the utmost, loosened his girdle, stretched his limbs in lordly fashion, and cried merrily: “Many thanks, good Mother!—And now, let us go and enjoy ourselves in some measure!”
So he started for the tavern with Nastka; and Matthew went too, along with Teresa.
Before him, the Jew bowed down to his waist, set vodka on the table without being asked, and called him “Master!” which puffed Simon up not a little. He drank as much as behoved him to drink, thrust himself amongst the foremost men there, and gave his opinion about everything.
The tavern was full, and the band playing to increase the enjoyment; but dancing had not as yet begun. They only drank one to another, and complained of the drought, of the hard times, and so on, as usual.
Even the Borynas and the smith and his wife came; but these engaged the private bar, where they must have enjoyed themselves pretty well; for the Jew was again and again taking vodka and beer in to regale them.
“Antek is staring at his wife today like a dog at a marrowbone: he’s not the same man any more!” Ambrose grunted sullenly, glancing towards the parlour bar, from whence there arose a pleasant sound of joyful voices.
Yagustynka’s reply came pat: “Because he prefers his own clog to a boot that goes on all men’s feet!”
“Aye,” someone returned; “but such boots do not pinch!” And the whole tavern was in a roar; they all knew well who was meant.
Simon had not heard and did not laugh. Somewhat the worse for liquor, he was putting his arms round Andrew’s neck, and saying to him:
“And you must now remember what I am, and be obedient to me!”
“I … I know well,” the other stammered, with maudlin tears. “But then, Mother commands … commands. …”
“Mother counts no longer! I am a landholder: hearken unto me!”
But now the band had struck up a dancing-tune; and as heels began to stamp and boards to resound and couples to spin, Simon seized Nastka by the waist, threw his capote open, set his cap at an angle, and, bawling “Da dana!” with the best of them, and stamping the loudest of all, he launched into the dance, whirling giddily and rolling along, blithe, noisy, clamorous—like a torrent in spate!
But, after a dance of two, he let the women take him home, where—presently completely sobered—he sat down outside the cabin. Yagustynka joined him and had a good long talk with him; and it so fell out afterwards that, although the hour was late, and Simon had thought of returning, he was no longer in any hurry, but waited, hovering and dangling about Nastka, and sighing like a furnace.
At last her mother said to him!
“Stay with us, spending the night in the barn: whereunto should you trudge about by night?”
“I’ll make him a shakedown in the shed,” said Nastka.
“Do not be so hard on him, Nastka!” Yagustynka said with a leer.
“What … what are ye thinking of? What next, I wonder!” she rapped out, greatly troubled.
“Heyday! Is he not your swain? To forestall the wedding a day or two is no harm. … And then, the poor man, who works for you like an ox, ought surely to have some reward!”
“Oh, how true! Nastka! Nastka!” he cried, as she fled, and leapt after her and caught her, with many a kiss and entreaty, and held her fast.
“Would you drive me from you, Nastka darling? drive me away on such a night?”
Her mother had suddenly something to do in the passage; and Yagustynka withdrew, saying:
“Forbid him not, Nastka! There’s so little happiness on earth: what comes—rare as the grain of corn a blind hen finds—pass it not by!”
In the enclosure she crossed Matthew, who, making a shrewd guess, called out to Simon within:
“I should never have had your patience!”
But next daybreak saw Simon hard at work again, and indefatigable. Only, when Nastka brought him his breakfast, he was even more greedy for a kiss from her cherry lips than for the porringer.
“If you do betray me, you’ll be scalded soundly!” But while she threatened so, she was nestling to his bosom.
“Nastka, mine you are, and never will I let you go!” he bleated earnestly; and, looking into her eyes, added in a low voice: “The first must be a boy!”
“A simpleton you are! But who put all these naughty thoughts into your head?”—And, pushing him away, she ran off, her face all scarlet. Not far off, Mr. Yacek had appeared, pipe in mouth and violin tucked under his arm. He came up, “praised God,” and asked him a few questions. Simon, much elated, bragged about what he had achieved, but stopped all at once, rolling the eyes of bewilderment. Mr. Yacek had laid down his violin, taken off his coat, and set to work, stirring and softening a mass of clay! Simon’s shovel fell and his jaw dropped.
“What is’t ye wonder at?”
“What, shall Mr. Yacek work with me?”
“I shall, and will help you to build your hut. Think you I cannot?—You will see.”
Henceforth they worked together. The old man had indeed not much strength, and was little wont to labour; but he had such ingenious ways that the work went on far better and more swiftly. And Simon obediently followed all his directions, now and then muttering:
“Heavens! this is unlike anything ever seen! A Squire!”
Mr. Yacek only smiled, and then, entering into talk with him, told him such wonderful things about this world of ours that Simon, had he only dared, would have fallen at his feet in wonder and gratitude. And in the evening, he ran to tell Nastka all about it, concluding:
“Folk call him silly: yet he is as full of wisdom as any priest!”
“There be some that talk wisely, yet act foolishly. What, would he come peradventure to aid ye if he had all his wits? And would he tend Veronka’s kine?”
“That, indeed, I cannot make out.”
“Save by saying he has lost his senses.”
“At any rate, he is the best man in the world.”
Simon was immeasurably grateful to him for his kindness. Yet, for all their working together, and eating from the same vessel, and sleeping beneath the same covering, there was nothing of familiarity in their fellowship.
“He always belongs to the race of the Squires,” Simon said to himself, with profound respect and thankfulness. With his help the hut rose up, even as a loaf rises which has been leavened; and when Matthew had likewise come to assist them, and Adam, son of Klemba, brought all they required from the forest, the building was soon to be seen distinctly from Lipka, so splendidly did it get on. Matthew worked hard for nearly the whole week, directing the others’ toil; and when (on Saturday afternoon) it was quite finished, he put up a cluster of green boughs on the chimney-top, and went off to some other work of his own.
Then Simon whitewashed the cottage, and swept the shavings and rubbish away. And Mr. Yacek came with his violin under his arm, saying with a smile:
“The nest is ready: bring the mother-bird!”
Simon answered: “Our wedding is tomorrow after evensong,” and fell at his feet to thank him.
“Oh, but I have not worked for nothing! When they send me away from the village, I come to lodge with you!” And, lighting his pipe, he strolled away to the forest.
Simon, though all was finished, still pottered about the hut, stretching his weary limbs, and gazing upon it with an unexpected intensity of joy.
“Mine! Aye, mine!” he repeated; and, apparently not believing his own eyes, he would touch the walls, walk round, peep in at the window, and sniff the raw pungency of the whitewash and the clay. It was late in the evening when he returned to Lipka to get ready for the next day.
Everybody knew about his wedding, and Dominikova had been informed by a neighbour, though she made out not to have caught what was said.
Early on Sunday morning, Yagna several times slipped away from her mother’s hut, carrying various articles in bundles quietly out through the garden, and taking them over to Nastka. The old dame, though quite conscious of what was going on, did nothing at all to prevent it, but went to and fro in silence, with so sombre an air that Andrew only ventured to approach her after High Mass. Which he did with great caution, and not very close.
“Mother, I am going out.”
“Better drive the horses to clover!”
“Know ye not? … ’tis to Simon’s wedding.”
“Praised be to God, ’tis not yours!” she answered bitterly. “—Well, but only get tipsy, and you’ll see what I’ll do to you!” With that threat, she groped her way out to a neighbour’s, while the young man put on all his finery.
“Yes, I will! … I will get tipsy, if only to spite her!” he growled, scurrying fast to Matthew’s cottage, just as they were all setting out for church. But it was a very quiet wedding: neither songs nor shouts nor music. In the church, too, there were only a couple of tapers: Nastka shed many a tear of shame, and Simon shot angry challenging glances round him at the few that were present. Luckily, when it was all over, the organist played them out with such a strain of music as almost set their feet a-dancing, and made their souls within them merry and jocund.
The wedding over, Yagna went back at once to her mother, and only looked in from time to time; Matthew performed on his fiddle, Pete accompanied him on the flute, and another beat the kettledrum for them with fierce energy. They began to dance, even within the little cabin, and so many of the guests as felt inclined tripped it also to and fro outside, amongst the tables that had been set up. There was some eating, some healths drunk and conversation enough. All was quiet, though; for in broad daytime and with unflustered heads, they felt in no mood for noise.
Simon clung close to his wife, taking her into corners and kissing her so violently that they made fun of him; and Ambrose, in a bad temper, grunted:
“Poor fellow! enjoy yourself today; tomorrow you shall have to pay your score.” And as he spoke, his greedy eyes followed the glass as it went round.
There was really no great life in the party; besides, no considerable merrymaking could be expected, since many, having taken a little and sat for some time, as the rules of good breeding demanded, retired to their homes as soon as sundown set the sky on fire. Matthew, however, was very blithe and jolly, playing, singing, pressing girls to dance with him, and passing the vodka round; and when Yagna showed her face, he was her constant companion, ogling her, and talking, and utterly careless of the tears that glistened in Teresa’s eyes.
Yagna, indifferent to the man, had no reason to hold off. She merely listened patiently to him, while on the watch for the coming of the Borynas, whom she wished not to meet. Fortunately they did not come; nor, indeed, did any of the first-class landholders. These, nevertheless, not having refused the invitation, had (as was proper) sent various presents in aid of the wedding-feast. Their absence being remarked upon, Yagustynka made a characteristic reply:
“Had there but been dainties in plenty, and a cabin all reeking with vodka, there would have been no keeping them out, even with a stick! But dry tongues and empty paunches please them not.”
She was by this time somewhat elevated and mischievous: so, having noticed Yasyek Topsy-turvy sitting in a corner by himself, sighing miserably, wiping his nose, and eyeing Nastka from a distance, she drew him out to address her and so make sport.
“Dance with her, and take what may be had! Your mother would not let you marry her; but frisk around her now she has a goodman, and she may requite your love!”
Then she poured forth such talk as made the ears tingle; and when Ambrose, having got enough to drink by now, began to wag his tongue likewise, they set the ball rolling together, and made everybody shake with mirth, till the short summer night, spent in fun and frolic, came unexpectedly to an end.
And now no one remained but the family (and Ambrose, bent on draining the very last drop left in the bottles). The young couple decided to start at once for their new home. Matthew wished them to stay a little longer; but Simon, who had borrowed a horse and cart of Klemba, would not hear of it. So he bundled lockers and vessels and bedding into the cart, seated Nastka in state on the top, knelt down for her mother’s blessing, and, with a kiss for his brother-in-law and a profound salute to the others, crossed himself, whipped up the horse, and started off: the whole family accompanying him.
They walked on in silence, till, close to the mill, a couple of storks were seen circling high in air above their heads. The old dame clapped her hands at the sight, and said:
“Knock on wood! Here’s the best foreboding for you, and ye shall have children in plenty!”
Nastka, reddened slightly; but Simon, who was pushing behind the cart, whistled jauntily, and threw exultant glances around him.
When at last they were alone, Nastka, looking at her new home, burst into tears at the sorry sight. But Simon cried:
“No crying, silly! Other folk have still less: they are envying you!”
He was very much worn out, and somewhat in his cups. So he flung himself down on some straw in a corner, and was soon snoring loud … while she, sitting near the window and looking down at the white cottages of Lipka, went on shedding tears.
This melancholy state of mind did not, however, last very long. All the village folk seemed to have plotted together to come to her aid. Klemba’s wife came first, with a hen under her arm, and a brood of little chickens in a basket. It was a good beginning; and almost daily one of the goodwives looked in, and never a one of them empty-handed.
Their kindness touched her heart.
“Dear people,” she said, “how can I ever repay you?”
“A word of hearty thanks will do,” replied Sikora’s wife, who had brought her a piece of linen cloth.
“When ye are at your ease, ye can pass it on to someone that is also in want,” added Ploshkova, producing a goodly piece of bacon from under her apron.
So many presents did she receive that she had enough for a long, long time. And one evening, at dusk, Yasyek Topsy-turvy brought her his dog Kruchek, which he tied up close to her hut, and then took to his heels, as if in fear of some harm that might come.
They laughed heartily, as they told Nastka about this; but she curled a disdainful lip.
“At the noonday rest, Nastka, he had been gathering berries for you; and his mother took them away from him!”