cheese and some cold potatoes. These he tied into a clean handkerchief.
Then he took a long look about the room. There were the pendulum clock,
the shelves crowded with gayly painted china, his mother’s distaff
in the corner, the carved chairs and the green porcelain stove, and
on a painted chest several rude little figures modeled in clay and
faintly streaked with color. They were so old that no one knew who had
made them. Some many-times great-grandmother or great-grandfather had
fashioned them centuries and centuries before, and had placed them on
the hearth to bring good luck to the family. They were called _dedky_,
or forefathers. Though no one believed in them any more, yet no one
would think of destroying them or giving them away. They belonged in
the family. When Jaroslav grew up and married he would take them with
him to his new home, and perhaps for a time he might keep them on the
hearthstone. He looked at them curiously now. What if he should take
them in his pocket? They might bring him good luck.--But no, they might
also be broken or lost, and that would be dreadful! He did not know
exactly why, but he felt that he would rather leave the _dedky_ safely
at home and trust to his own luck.
He touched the money in his pocket and felt sure of success. Then it
occurred to him that his mother would need the money more than ever if
he were not there to earn something the next week. So he took it from
his pocket and put it on the table. ‘I have my violin; I shall not need
anything else,’ he said proudly.
On a piece of paper he wrote: ‘Dear Mother: Do not worry if I don’t
come back for several days. It’s all right. You will be glad in the end
that I went.’
He turned for his cap, and Flick sprang to the door. But when Jaroslav
stopped for one last look at the baby be realized that he ought not to
leave him alone. Flick must stay on guard. This was harder than leaving
the money, for Flick and he always did things together, and Jaroslav
had counted on his company as much as if Flick had been another boy.
‘Here, Flick,’ he said softly, ‘on guard!’ But Flick could not believe
it. He waved his tail frantically, snorting and scratching the door.
‘No, no, Flick, come back!’ said his master, and Flick, puzzled, and
crestfallen, crept back with drooping tail and stretched himself
beside the cradle. Then Jaroslav picked up his violin and went out
alone.
In a little while his mother and Lidka came home from church. The baby
was safe in his cradle, but there was only Flick to greet them. Not
until she found Jaroslav’s note did his mother know what to make of his
absence.
‘He must have gone to Aunt Ancha for the festival at Buchlovy,’ she
said to Lidka. She was rather vexed that Jaroslav should have run off
like that, for she would have to tell the neighbors that he would not
be there to take the cows out the next day, and they would be very
cross about it. She made cherry dumplings, as usual on Sunday, but
neither she nor Lidka had much appetite. After dinner, hearing that the
miller was to drive in the direction of Buchlovy, she decided to go
with him and bring Jaroslav back.
So, while the boy was plodding along the highway, his mother arrived at
Buchlovy and learned that he had not been there.
‘He is probably walking slowly on account of the heat,’ said Aunt
Ancha. ‘By the time you have rested and had a cup of coffee he will be
here.’
About six o’clock Jaroslav came to a small town through which a river
flowed. On one side of the river was a hill crowned with an old
castle. By the river were factories, and since the people who worked in
them were free on Sunday, the streets were full of life and movement.
Jaroslav had eaten his luncheon long ago and was hungry again, but he
was too shy to play to the crowd. It was quite different from the quiet
of the woods and fields, where the only listeners were the rabbits and
the cows. But at last on a corner of the square he stopped and raised
his bow bravely. The strains of the Hillside Song rose faintly above
the clatter of the street, for the pavement was of cobbles, and people
hurried by noisily. Jaroslav changed from the Hillside Song to dance
tunes and folk-songs, but the crowd were going to a moving-picture show
where there was a band and a gramophone, so no one paid any attention
to the child fiddling on the corner. At last he stole away unnoticed,
with big unshed tears in his eyes. He did not so much mind being
hungry, but no one had cared for his song and that made him feel very
lonely.
It was twilight on the road when he passed out of the town. He thought
sharply of his mother and Lidka, of Flick and the baby, and all the
dear familiar objects in the room. ‘I’ll walk all night, so that I can
get back sooner,’ he thought, and quickened his pace and went bravely
on. As darkness came down he began to feel very tired. His feet burned
and his eyes were heavy with sleep. Besides, he had begun to have
misgivings about his quest. The farther he got from home, the less real
the quest seemed. Those of whom he asked directions had shaken their
heads and said they knew nothing of the Great Amber Road.
In the blue distance a rapidly moving light appeared. It must be an
automobile. There had been few automobiles during the war, but now
and then one passed through the village, and Jaroslav had an almost
terrified interest in them. He stepped aside into the bushes to see
this one pass. Just before it reached him there was a report like the
crack of a pistol; the great machine gasped and sighed helplessly, and
then slowed down to a stop. Jaroslav stood in the shadow and watched
breathlessly. He saw a man get out of the car, open a box at the side
and take out a lantern. After lighting it, with much grunting and some
angry muttering he proceeded to jack up a wheel and put on a new tire.
All this was of the most vivid interest to Jaroslav. He had never seen
a man quite like this one, and he was a little afraid. The man looked
like one who _knew_ things, and Jaroslav longed to go forward and ask
him about the Great Amber Road and what he thought of the whole plan;
but he did not know how to speak to this stocky, gray-haired figure in
the linen duster. Nevertheless, when he saw the man begin to put up his
tools, Jaroslav realized that if he did not make the effort he would
soon have lost his chance forever. An idea came to him. Putting his
violin to his shoulder, he began softly to play the Hillside Song. This
seemed the right time and place for it, and Jaroslav put his whole soul
into it.
At the first notes the man started and stood up. He neither moved nor
spoke, but stared in the direction from which the sound came until it
floated away over the lonely road to the dark woods.
‘Hello, there!’ he cried in a strong voice, ‘come out here!’ He held
the lantern at arm’s length and Jaroslav emerged timidly from the
darkness into the circle of light. What the man saw was a very dusty,
tired little boy with big circles round his eyes and damp dark hair
falling over his forehead. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded shortly.
‘Sir,’ faltered Jaroslav, ‘are we on the Great Amber Road?’
‘Great-Grandmother!’ snorted the man, ‘we are on the road to Brno!’
‘Then I am not going north, after all,’ stammered Jaroslav, startled
by the thought that he would have to begin his journey all over again.
‘Where do you want to go?’ asked the man.
‘To the Baltic.’
‘To the Baltic! What’s the matter, son?’ he asked, looking more
closely, and then, seeing that the hand which held the violin trembled,
he added kindly, ‘Jump up and tell me all about it.’
So Jaroslav, who had never been in an automobile, climbed in,
awestruck, and sat down on the soft leather cushions. Instead of
starting the car, the man lighted a cigar. ‘Run away from home, have
you?’ he asked as he blew out the match. Then Jaroslav began at the
beginning, and told of his father’s illness and death, of the loss of
the cow, the birth of the baby, and the necessity of his earning enough
to help his mother at once without waiting to grow up; of the amber
treasure which seemed to him the only resource, and of the doubts of
his ever finding it that had come to him as he walked that night.
‘Did you ever hear of the Great Amber Road, Sir?’ asked Jaroslav
eagerly.
‘Oh, yes, I’ve heard of it,’ answered the man with a chuckle, ‘and
I know lots of men who are walking up and down it wearing out shoe
leather trying to get rich quick. But you keep off that road, son! What
you need is to learn to do something well. The world doesn’t want
amber cups nowadays, and in order to make money you must give people
what they do want, whether it is bricks or hats or music.’
‘But I don’t know how to make anything,’ said Jaroslav sadly. ‘I would
be willing to wait until I was grown up if only I could get a cow now.’
The man puffed silently for some time. Then he startled Jaroslav by
asking abruptly, ‘Any rabbits where you live?’
‘Oh, yes,’ cried Jaroslav, ‘millions of them. They get into the gardens
and they----’
‘That’s good,’ said the man, cutting him short. ‘Now, I’ll tell you
what I’ll do. I have a hat factory in Brno, and I need all the rabbit
skins I can get. I’ll buy the cow and you can catch rabbits for me
until she’s paid for. I’ll take the skins on account. My agent goes
through your part of the country twice a month and he will collect
them. What do you think of that plan, son? Beats amber, doesn’t it?’
‘Can I really catch enough rabbits to pay for a cow?’ gasped Jaroslav.
‘Then I don’t need to go to the Baltic!’ he cried, shrilly, as the
truth burst upon him. ‘I can go home!’ and seizing his cap he jumped
wildly out of the car.
‘Hold on!’ shouted the man, astonished. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to walk all night so that I can begin catching rabbits
to-morrow.’ Then, remembering that he had not thanked his friend, he
began to stammer his happiness.
‘Get in,’ said the man tersely, ‘where do you think this car is going?’
As they sped through the night on that wonderful ride, the man told
Jaroslav of a school in Brno where boys learned all sorts of trades,
and not only to run cars like the one they were in, but even to make
them. When Jaroslav got out on the edge of the village, and panted home
in the starlight, his life had taken a definite turn.
But this story is not to tell of how the cow really arrived in two
weeks’ time, or of how Jaroslav gradually paid for it in rabbit skins,
or of how at last he went to the technical school in Brno. It is to
tell only of his home-coming, of how he reached the house about the
same time as his mother, coming from Buchlovy; of how she forgave him
at sight of his radiant face; of how Lidka brought him the first summer
apples in her apron, and of how, as he sat on the bench which was built
around the porcelain stove, he told them of his great adventure. And
all the while the baby slept, and Flick lay on the floor with his nose
between his master’s feet, and the _dedky_ winked at one another in the
candlelight.
_Note_: It is a fact that an ancient road led from Pressburg (now
the capital of Slovakia) to the Baltic. It was also called Great
Amber Road and was used chiefly by Wendish Traders. The swamp west
of Pressburg marked the No Man’s Land between Roman Pannonia and the
realm of Slavs.
THE LOST BROOK
When Masha came to visit her cousins in the mountains, Treska thought
she had never seen such beautiful clothes as those that Masha wore, and
Masha thought she had never seen so sad a village as the one in which
Treska lived.
She herself came from a land bright with wheat fields, where the pink
and white poppies grow shoulder high, and where the little plastered
houses are painted gayly and have red tiled roofs.
Here a cold rain was falling, and the mist swept low over the forests
of black fir. Masha did not know that the clouds hid beautiful
mountains. She saw only their gray edges, caught and torn on the tops
of the dark trees. The houses were all of wood, unpainted and built
like log cabins, except that they had broad eaves and high shingled
roofs. The battened chinking between the logs was whitewashed, so that
looking down upon the village as the girls came over the hill it seemed
like a collection of striped black-and-white boxes with pointed covers.
Once inside Treska’s house it was as cosy as possible, with geraniums
in the windows, a pendulum clock, bright plates on the wall, and
blue-and-red checkered coverings over the feather beds, which were
piled nearly to the low-beamed ceiling. There were benches on two sides
of the room, and a table set with soup plates. From the oven came the
delicious smell of huckleberry buns, which Treska’s mother was baking
in honor of Masha’s coming.
Masha was in holiday costume because she had come on the train. Treska
looked her over with envy. She wore a white linen cap with a broad band
of brocaded ribbon, and a frill of lace round her face. Her collar and
full white sleeves were edged with black embroidery, and her bodice of
crimson and green silk was trimmed with gold lace. There were bunches
of yellow flowers on her short orange skirt, and with her dark blue
apron heavily embroidered, and a golden and green ribbon tied about her
waist and falling to the hem of her dress in front, she looked like a
big bouquet.
Treska had fine clothes, too, but they were more sober in color
and pattern than Masha’s, and she never wore them except on grand
occasions. Rather shyly she opened the big painted chest, which stood
against the wall, to show Masha her own pretty things--the gold beads
and netted cap, worked with disks of bright silk, and the dark cambric
handkerchief, which she wore over it when she went to church, and which
was so long that it covered her flowered bodice like a shawl, and
reached to her scarlet skirt and deep blue apron.
[Illustration: RATHER SHYLY SHE OPENED THE BIG PAINTED CHEST]
Though Treska went barefooted, her father was by no means a poor man.
He owned large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. During the summer
months he lived in a shepherd’s hut across the valley, where he had a
great sheepfold on the edge of the forest. Sometimes the whole family
went to the hut and camped out there for days at a time. Treska loved
that.
The next morning Masha’s aunt suggested that the two girls should go
mushroom hunting for the day and spend the night at the hut. She gave
them a lunch of black bread and smoked sheep’s-milk cheese and some
poppy-seed cakes. They started off merrily, each carrying an earthen
pot for strawberries.
It was a glorious day. Masha stood speechless at sight of jagged
mountain peaks, glistening with snow in all their crevices. She had
never seen anything so beautiful, so mysterious and terrible.
Below them spread the blue-black forests, reaching down to the fields
where the patches of grain and corn and ploughed ground looked like a
rag carpet spread over the hills. The fields were full of flowers and
the mushrooms grew thickly among them along the edges of the wood.
The pack on Treska’s back began to fill out. At night the girls would
sit by the fire and split the mushrooms and string them in festoons to
dry.
Passing through the fields they met Janko, Treska’s brother, guarding
sheep, and with him Suzanne, a little girl from their own Village.
‘Come on,’ called Treska. ‘We’re going up the hill to pick
strawberries.’
Janko shook his head. ‘I can’t leave the sheep,’ he said, swinging his
feet as he sat on the fence rail. He was a licensed shepherd now, and
very proud of the brass badge, which he wore pinned to the front of his
tunic with a long thorn.
But Suzanne joined them and together the three girls climbed slowly up
to a high, cleared piece of land where the strawberries grew thick and
red around the old gray stumps. Across the clearing slipped a little
brook as clear as the sky, but so hidden that Masha nearly stepped into
it before she saw it. Along its border forget-me-nots spread a faint
blue network over the grass.
Stopping to take a drink, Masha was startled to see that the brook came
suddenly to an end. It did not spread into a pool, for the grass was
quite dry all about it, and there was no hole visible in the ground.
The brook simply disappeared! Dipping her hand into the water, Masha
felt it drawn gently downward, so it must be that the brook went
underground.
‘Oh! girls,’ she cried, ‘come here! The brook has come to an end!’
‘I know,’ said Treska wisely; ‘it must have run into an underground
river. They say there are such rivers in these mountains--perhaps
lakes, too.’
‘Why, it’s like a fairy tale!’ cried Masha, her eyes bright with
excitement. ‘To think of rivers and lakes and perhaps whole countries
underground! I wish we could go down, too, with the brook.’
After a while they wandered slowly down the hill, the sun beating hot
on their shoulders.
‘Let’s go into the woods and eat our lunch,’ said Treska.
A path, which came up through the forest, led toward deep shade, and
they followed it. And then something happened that made them forget all
about their lunch, for turning a bend in the path they came abruptly
upon a tiny hut in the woods, and close to it, in a bare wall of rock,
a deep black cavern.
‘A cave!’ they cried together.
Cautiously they turned toward the entrance. They saw a vaulted space
like the porch of a church, and beyond it a high wooden gate, which
stood ajar. Peering between the bars they could make out a long
hallway in the rock, which vanished into darkness, but which had, as
far as they could see, a walk of planks.
‘Why,’ said Treska, ‘this must be the famous cave in the mountain that
people come to see. Suzanne, we ought to show it to Masha. I’m sure
you’ve never seen anything like it, have you, Masha?’
Masha, who came from a flat and rockless country, never had.
‘But it’s too dark to go far,’ she objected, shrinking back.
‘Just to the end of this hall,’ coaxed Suzanne. ‘If there’s a gate and
sidewalls there must be something beyond.’
The three girls slipped through the gate and pattered timidly into
the darkness. A continuous dropping from the roof wet their shoulders
as if they had been caught in a shower, and their bare feet were soon
covered with mud in spite of the board walk. It was very cold. For a
time the light from the mouth of the cave served to show them the rocky
walls. Then they turned a corner and felt rather than saw that they
had entered a vast room, for they were staring into a darkness thicker
than that of night. It was warmer here, and the ground was firm and dry
under their feet, but somewhere there was a dropping of water with
never a splash. Except for the sound, a terrible silence seemed to
close in on them.
At last Suzanne could bear it no longer.
‘Hello!’ she cried nervously.
And instantly from all sides came a chorus of voices: ‘Hello! hello!
hello!’
‘Oh, don’t!’ gasped Masha.
And ‘Don’t! don’t! don’t!’ cried the walls.
‘Oh, let’s get out,’ whispered Suzanne.
And from the darkness came the startled whisper: ‘Get out! Get out!’
Caught in a nameless terror, the girls fled down the dark passage,
panting for the sunlight, which they could see glimmering in the
distance through the bars. As they ran their courage mounted until they
threw themselves breathless and laughing against the gate. It held
fast! They jerked. It was locked! Panic-stricken, they gazed at one
another. Then they began to shake the gate and to scream frantically
for help. There was no answer. The gate had been built to keep people
out of the dangerous cave. It reached to the roof, and someone had
locked it while the girls had been exploring.
‘Let’s go back to the end of the passage, where it is dry,’ said
Treska sensibly. ‘There may be a party of people in the cave now,
and if there is they must come out this way. Or others will come this
afternoon.’
Treska tried hard to believe what she said, but how could she tell
whether anyone would come that day or indeed for many days?
‘Of course those were only echoes back there, weren’t they?’ asked
Masha fearfully.
‘Of course,’ said Treska.
At the end of the passage all huddled together to keep warm. In one
direction they could look toward the patch of light; in the other,
into the fathomless blackness of the cave. As their eyes grew used to
the darkness, they could dimly make out the walls nearest them, all of
white rock, clean and dry as if freshly cut.
Suddenly a sound deep in the cave caught their attention, and then
a faint glow appeared, like a little cloud at a great distance. As
it rapidly increased, the girls realized that a procession of people
carrying lighted tapers was approaching. They came slowly along a ledge
of rock so high above the girls that it seemed like an upper floor of
the cave. The flickering candles lighted up glistening walls, sparkling
pendants of rock and strange forms, which struggled out of the shadow;
but the height of the cave was so vast that the top still hung in
darkness. Was the whole mountain hollow, then, like a melon? The
procession wound slowly down a slippery staircase of wood, the guide
leading the way with a big torch.
Even Masha knew that it was a party of everyday people, wrapped in warm
coats and furs, who had been visiting the far interior of the cave. As
they came forward, holding their lighted tapers high, more and more of
the wonders of the cave were revealed; gleaming columns, low-hanging
arches and lofty vaulting grew out of the darkness like parts of a
fairy palace.
Clinging together at the entrance, the three little girls gazed
breathlessly at their undreamed-of surroundings, and Masha, spellbound,
saw what looked like a little frozen brook. It flowed down the wall
spreading out in beautiful seaweed forms along its edges as if carved
in white stone, and from the tip of each leaf hung a drop as white as a
pearl--hung and then, with a tiny sigh, fell into the shadows below.
‘The lost brook!’ gasped Masha. ‘There it is!’
In her excitement, she had forgotten the strange people, but her voice
startled them, and the guide turned quickly, throwing the light of his
torch full upon the girls. Shy as wood birds, they stood dumb, and took
the scolding of the astonished guide without trying to explain. Nothing
mattered now. They would be out in the sunlight in a few minutes, and
they were thrilled at the revelation of the vast and beautiful room,
on the threshold of which they had sat unknowingly but a little while
before.
But as the people moved on, the children hurried with them, forgetting
the frozen brook and their own dark hour in their haste to get back to
their world in the sun.
They shot into the light and scampered like rabbits through the woods.
The crickets were chirping in the grass and the birds in the forest,
and the fir trees smelt like incense in the warm sunshine.
‘Why, we are sitting on top of the cave now,’ cried Masha, as they sat
down to their lunch.
‘Oh! the poor little brook!’ she sighed. ‘I wish we could let it out.’
That evening Treska’s father made a fire on the earthen floor of the
hut, and Janko brought water to fill the black pot, which hung above
it. Masha and Treska peeled potatoes and spread mushrooms to toast on
the hot stones. From the rafters hung bunches of red peppers and golden
corn, and right over the fire, tied in a white cloth, was a big cheese
in process of being smoked.
‘You mean to say that you have been inside the cave?’ cried Janko,
enviously, when the girls had told him of their adventure. ‘Why, it
costs fifteen crowns to enter, and I have never seen it!’
Masha told him of the lost brook, and of how they had found it again
inside the cave.
‘We heard the dropping of its tears long before we saw it,’ she said.
‘I suppose it went down to explore, just as we did, and couldn’t get
out.’
‘Oh, no, it didn’t,’ answered Janko stolidly. ‘It was just running
across the field trying to get down to the big stream in the valley
when it came to the hole and fell in. But,’ he added kindly, seeing
Masha’s face fall, ‘if you feel so badly about it, we’ll go up there
to-morrow and turn the course of the brook.’
Masha sprang to her feet.
‘Why, what a splendid idea, Janko!’ she cried. ‘How did you ever think
of it?’
Janko glowed. ‘That’s what we’ll do,’ he said, grandly, ‘I’ll drive the
sheep up there to pasture, and we’ll build a dam and make the brook run
down hill on the outside instead of on the inside.’
And then, because the hut was so small, they all rushed outside, and
joining hands, danced wildly in the starlight while the potatoes bobbed
in the pot and the sheep bleated drowsily from the fold and the shadows
of the forest crowded closer and closer around them.
_Note_: Masha and Treska were Czecho-Slovak girls. Masha lived in
Southern Moraira, Treska in the Carpathians of northern Slovakia.
MICHAEL MAKES UP HIS MIND
Across the darkening furrows a boy leading a farm horse plodded home
through the twilight. His shoes were heavy with mud, and his thumbs
were so cold that he blew on them to warm them; for though it was April
there was snow in the air.
Far down on the horizon a tiny light shot out into the dusk. Michael
said to himself that Helen was getting supper and had just lighted the
candle.
When he had stabled the horse in the lean-to, he opened the door of the
shack. A breath of warmth and three young voices rushed out to greet
him. ‘Hello, Michael!’ ‘Come to supper!’ ‘We’re waiting.’