SUMMER
"WE'RE off! Good-by!" cheerily called out four sturdy, red-cheeked
girls, early one morning. They were walking in pairs, with bundles in
their hands and their shoes slung over their backs. They belonged to
some of the poor families of the village, and intended tramping it
to the richer plains to work on two of the farms there, where their
help would be very welcome and well paid. Each had taken food for the
journey; rye bread, bacon, and a cheese called _brindza_, made from
sheeps' milk by Slovaks in the mountains.
Everybody waved to the girls or had a pleasant word for them as they
passed by. When the last house had been reached, their voices rang out
sweetly in song.
In vain is not thy toil,
In vain is not thy faith;
The Lord God in the Heavens
Gathers all of labor's sweat.
And again:
Songs, songs, whence come ye?
Descended from the heavens
Or grown in the woods?
Not down from the heavens
Nor grown in the woods,
But born in the hearts
Of maidens and youths.
Then the more melancholy strain:
My lips are singing,
My eyes are smiling,
But tears stream from my heart.
Ruzena half envied them as she listened. Everybody at her house, except
her baby brother and herself, had left for the hay-field to help with
the mowing. She had not yet taken the geese to pasture, and as she
started off, brother tried to toddle after her.
"Come, you may go with me to-day," she said good-naturedly, lifting him
up in her strong arms and carrying him to the alleyway. But it is not
easy herding geese that try to stray and carrying a heavy baby at the
same time. Although the distance was not great, Ruzena found that it
was more than she could do.
"I must leave you here," she said, panting, and put baby down by the
roadside. "Now be good and play and sister will hurry back."
Juraj was always good, and although he looked a little wistful, made
no complaint. Perhaps he was used to being left in that fashion. He
had nothing on his little body except a short shirt; but on his head,
according to custom, he had a most elaborately embroidered cap or
rather hood. He sat patiently still for a while; then a big black
beetle made him struggle to his feet. He reached forward to get it,
turned a summersault, and by the time he had straightened himself up,
the beetle had disappeared in the grass.
Juraj looked around for it and then catching sight of the brook near
by, half walked, half crawled to it. There were all sorts of things to
interest him here, and, without a moment's hesitation, he walked right
into the middle and sat down with something of a thump on the stony
bottom. Even then he did not cry, but tried to reach the funny little
water insects that scurried so fast everywhere about him.
"Juraj, Juraj, why, you're all wet!" exclaimed Ruzena, snatching him
up when she returned. Then Juraj for the first time cried, just a
plaintive little cry that seemed to ask why he must give up so innocent
a pleasure.
He was tight asleep in his own little cradle, that had served two
generations of children, when Ruzena heated some food that her mother
had prepared, put it into a pail, filled a jug with fresh water, and
started with these for the hay-field.
Some of the mowers were still being followed by barefoot women and
girls in bright-colored skirts, who tossed the hay over their heads and
shoulders. Others were already sitting and lunching in the shade of the
lumbrous wagons. Large cream-colored oxen, with very long horns, stood
unyoked near by.
Ruzena's mother returned home with her daughter, for neighbors had come
over to help, and although she had baked all the day before, she felt
anxious lest something should be lacking on the supper table.
It was just getting dusk when the sound of singing, not boisterous,
but low and sweet, came from the road and announced the hay-makers.
With their heads crowned with grain, they walked beside or stood in
the clumsy wagons drawn by sleepy-looking oxen with poppies and corn
flowers wound around their horns.
How good the things did taste after the hard work! Ruzena helped her
mother wait on the guests, and as a treat, was allowed to go with them
to the tavern where they danced their own national dances until the
church bell rang out midnight.