VILLAGE INCIDENTS
"R-R-R-RUB-RUB-RUB!" went the little drum beaten by the bailiff as he
stalked through the village. Every one hurried to door or window to
learn what the news might be. It would not have created much stir in a
city, but it did create quite a stir in the double row of houses.
"Beran's cow, in your very next village," announced the bailiff,
"stepped into a hole and broke her leg at noon to-day, so that she had
to be killed. If you want fresh meat, here's your chance."
When the bailiff had gone from end to end of the street and back
again shouting the news, he was surrounded by people anxious to know
the particulars: just where the accident had occurred; how the cow
happened to step into the hole; who first found it out; who killed her;
and many other things.
Almost every one wanted some of the meat, and several of the men set
out that very evening to secure a share.
The next day Ruzena drove the geese to pasture in the hay stubble
where they were always taken that no grain might be wasted, when the
hay was already in the barn waiting to be threshed. When she returned,
she found that a wandering tinker with mousetraps, rolls of wire and
mending material slung over his back, was making his yearly visit.
The tinker's native place, like that of many another Slovak tinker,
was Kysuca, near the Silesian border. It was not from there, however,
that he had just come, but from Nytra, a place of twelve thousand
inhabitants, once the capital of the great Moravian Kingdom under
Svatopluk, of which Slovakia was an important part. There was scarcely
a door at which he did not stop, not merely to do some tinkering but to
deliver messages from distant friends or relatives, or to relate what
was going on in the greater world. He had been as far as Bohemia in his
year's travels, and had much to say of that prosperous and progressive
country. His opinions, though sometimes crude, were listened to with
respect.
"When I first started making my rounds twenty years ago," he said, "I
used to stop for a day or two with my wife's cousin in Praha (Prague).
Then the Germans had succeeded in getting all the business into their
hands; but now the Czechs have got it all back again. The banks,
too, are almost all Czech. There is hardly a German sign to be seen
anywhere. Every street has its own Czech name; but how the Czechs had
to fight for this, and how sore the Germans are over it! The Czech
believes in fighting for the right, he believes in educating his
children, he is willing to make any sacrifice that will make Bohemia
his own again. We're a different people; we are too ignorant to know
how to go about things, and when we do know we're so mild we don't do
it."
"Much good fighting would do us!" remarked Stefan the blacksmith. The
other men laughed. "Come and show us how," they said.
"I don't mean fist fighting," the tinker returned half angrily. "I mean
fighting with brains. Why can't we--"
"That's all right," interrupted a young man, his face all aflame, as
he stepped into the ring. "But what chance have we to develop our
brains when we haven't a single Higher School where the Slovak language
is taught? When every opportunity is cut off from one if he somehow
manages to educate himself, unless he turns traitor to his mother
tongue and swears that he is a Magyar? Don't I know? Didn't I hope to
work myself up into a position where I could serve my nation? And you
know my record. Imprisonment and imprisonment and imprisonment. The
Czechs are helping themselves, but no progress will come for us until
the world at large will awaken to its duty of preventing tyranny and
exploitation."
"True!" muttered many of the men; and then slipped away one by one as
some one pointed out the Notary approaching in the distance.
An old woman now engrossed the tinker's attention. She was quite a
character in the village and some of the people would have agreed that
she was the chief character. No one called her by her name. She was
"Aunty" to everybody for miles around. In sickness and death, in birth
and rejoicings, her advice was sought, even sometimes before that of
the village priest. She generally carried a basket of herbs on her arm,
for she was always hunting for some or ready to distribute some to
others. She knew their virtues as no one else did.
Ruzena chose that moment to bring out an earthen pot to be wired. She
hoped the tinker would be so busy talking to "Aunty" that he would
forget to indulge in his favorite pastime of teasing.
But no sooner did she come up than he looked at her seriously to ask:
"Have you caught any birds this year by sprinkling something on their
tails?" And when Ruzena smilingly shook her head and said shyly,
"None," he wanted to know where a dog goes when he follows his nose.
When at last he handed back her pot so skillfully mended that it was,
as he claimed, as good as new, he said more seriously than before:
"His lordship in the next village has commanded me to bring him a
new kind of strap, and I think that one of your braids of hair will
be just the thing for it. Stand still just a moment while I find my
shears."
But instead of standing Ruzena was running home, half afraid that the
funny tinker might really cut off the hair. And as she ran she heard
him sing the first part of a folk song that he had just learned from
some peasants in the neighboring brother land of Moravia:
"M--m, m--m, two mosquitoes married to-day;
M--m, m--m, not a drop of wine have they."
"Does the tinker go all over the world?" Ruzena asked her mother,
humming the tune that her quick ear had caught.
"M-mm, yes," her mother answered rather absent-mindedly. She was busy
preparing the supper which the tinker was to eat with them.
"He does his wiring well," she said as she put down the pot he had
fixed. "He's somewhat rattle-brained, I think sometimes, but he learns
a lot more going around than if he stayed here. He hasn't come from any
distant country to us. Only from Nytra. You might ask him about that
place. If we don't get him started on something else he will bring up
the Czechs again and what they're doing and what we're not. Since we
can't do anything, it's no use repeating all that."
Ruzena remembered when all were seated at the table, and asked the
tinker if he would tell them something about Nytra.
"I learned in school," she concluded proudly, "that it was the capital
of the great Moravian Kingdom."
The tinker looked pleased. "Yes, under Svatopluk," he said. "Then we
had nothing of which to be ashamed. But do you know anything about that
Svatopluk?"
Ruzena shook her head.
"Never mind," said the tinker kindly. "There's some grown people in
this village that don't know any more. Do you know?" and he turned to
Jozef.
Jozef hurried to swallow the food in his mouth.
"I know the kingdom all went to smash after he died," he shouted more
loudly than he intended.
His father and mother exchanged pleased looks.
"Do you know why?" asked the tinker. "You don't? Well, I'll tell you as
I heard a priest tell it to some boys.
"When Svatopluk knew he must die, he called his three sons to him. He
selected the eldest to rule after him. The two younger to whom he left
large estates, he bade be loyal to their brother.
"At his orders, a servant brought in three stout twigs fastened tightly
together. 'Break this,' he said, handing the twigs to his oldest son.
But the Prince found it impossible. Then he handed it to the second son
and then to the third, but the twigs remained unbroken.
"'Cut the cord,' he ordered the servant.
"This was done and Svatopluk handed a twig apiece to each of the
princes.
"'Now break it,' he commanded. This each one easily did.
"'Here you see,' he said, 'that when three stick closely together
nothing can injure them, but when they fall apart it is easy to
destroy them entirely. So will it be with you. Remain united, working
in harmony and forgiving one another, and your enemies will find it
impossible to overcome you. But live divided, and you will not only
fight among yourselves but your neighbors will master each of you.'
"Alas, what he foretold would come with dissensions, did come. Foolish,
selfish ambition destroyed the foundations of this mighty kingdom which
included Moravia, Slovakia, Poland, Silesia, northern Bohemia, and a
large part of northern Germany."