MUSHROOM GATHERING
JOZEF'S home was one of the high-roofed houses whose gable ends
faced the broad, whitish main street. It was made of unburnt bricks,
plastered outside, with hand-made shingles on the roof. Each window was
outlined in pale green and the entrance porch was quite ornamental,
having a pretty conventional design, also in green, painted around the
door. This, as well as the lines around the window, was the work of
Jozef's mother, who enjoyed a certain reputation in the village because
she had once been asked to paint some borders around the walls of the
rooms of a girls' school in the city of Brno, the capital of Moravia.
Behind the house were the stalls for the cattle and pigs, and, back
of all, a small vegetable garden, edged with sweet smelling herbs and
brightly colored flowers. This garden ended in an alley way by a brook,
surrounded by green meadows in which geese usually pastured.
In the center of the main street was the Church, a small whitewashed
building with a square tower. Next to it were a cross and a statue of
the village saint.
Through the middle of the street were rows of underground cellars, one
belonging to each family, in which it was possible to keep food and
milk ice cold. Vehicles made their way on each side of these cellars.
Around the village were meadows dotted with red poppies and blue
corn flowers. Some distance further were fields of potatoes, a few
vineyards, and a large, privately owned wood.
It was Helena, Jozef's cousin, who planned the day in the wood for a
mushroom hunt, and secured the necessary permission from the forester
in charge. She invited Jozef, his ten-year-old sister Ruzena, and two
of Ruzena's girl friends to go with her.
"Goody!" the little girls shouted, and ran for the permission which was
readily granted on the one condition that they do not spend all the
time in play but really bring home mushrooms, which are highly valued
as food.
First each little girl took her herd of geese to the meadow by the
brook, and left her flock in charge of an old woman who had nothing
else to do but tend geese. Then they met Jozef, who had finished his
chores of feeding the cattle and pigs, and Helena, who was older and
helped her mother at home. All were dressed in old but bright colored
clothes, and all were barefoot and bareheaded, the girls' corn-colored
hair hanging in long braids down their backs. All carried baskets in
which now lay a little lunch. When they started, Jozef did not walk
beside the others, but ran on ahead or lagged behind. He was afraid,
since this was a girls' party, that some of his boy friends might call
him a "sissy." He wouldn't have been left out, however, for the world.
It was still early in the morning, but there was already a heavy warmth
in the air, so that the coolness they found underneath the tall trees
when they reached them, was very welcome. The road had been dusty,
but here the moss and grass were still wet with dew and gave forth a
fragrant, pungent odor.
The owner did not live in the wood, the only buildings in it being the
picturesque log cabin of the forester or caretaker, and a beautiful
hunting lodge.
Soon the fun began.
"Hurrah!" shouted Jozef, discovering two mushrooms, or champignons,
showing a brown and a red head above the moss.
Such a scampering as there was among the trees until every basket was
filled to overflowing.
Here Etelka, the youngest of the party, found one that she thought the
prize of all. It was red with white raised spots.
"Come here!" she cried. "I have found a new kind. Shall I taste it?"
Helena took two rapid leaps toward her.
"Drop it! Drop it!" she exclaimed. "That's a poison muchomurka. Never,
never taste anything of which you are not certain if you don't wish to
die."
"I thought it prettier than the red ones you found," said Etelka,
somewhat abashed.
"It is entirely different," and then Helena showed her how it differed
and again impressed on all to confine themselves to those they knew.
Then the baskets were put down in a circle and the children played
hide-and-seek among brown trunked firs with long gray mosses festooned
from branch to branch, knotted larch trees, and pines dripping with
balsam. At last, tired, they sank down on some netted roots and ate
their lunch of thick slices of rye bread spread with goose fat.
"I found some sweet-root here once," Jozef volunteered when they had
eaten every morsel.
"Where?" the girls asked eagerly.
Jozef had very vague notions as to where.
"Let's agree," suggested Helena, "each to give a nice mushroom to the
one who finds some sweet-root first."
All were willing, and with shouting, laughter and song the search
began. Several times Jozef was quite certain that the prize was his,
but it was little Etelka who actually found some underneath some
blackberry leaves.
"I'm going exploring," Jozef now announced, somewhat nettled that a
girl should have been the discoverer. Leaving the pathways, he made
his way down a long incline. Not wishing to have the party separated,
Helena led the others as best she could after him.
It was a merry chase Jozef gave them, now to the right, now to the
left, then back in a crazy circle. So intent were they in making their
way through some underbrush that they were unprepared when, at a sudden
turn, they found themselves on the brink of the river that they knew
flowed through an edge of the wood.
Out of breath, they seated themselves in a row on the bank and watched
the waters glide past. Then they threw in twigs, which they called
boats, and grew quite excited when some of these became entangled in
water washed grasses.
"Oh, Helena," at last Etelka begged, as she nibbled at her portion of
the sweet-root, "please tell us a story."
"A really truly Slovak fairy story," seconded Ruzena.
"Have it exciting," demanded Jozef.
"And true," put in quiet, blue-eyed Marouska.
Helena laughed. "Very well," she said, "it'll be truly Slovak, and
exciting, and as true as any fairy tale can be."