Part 7

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.’

Michael entered, tracking in much mud, which didn’t really matter, for the floor was of beaten earth. He spread his hands to the fire. ‘What have you there?’ he asked, man-like.

‘Potatoes,’ said Helen, and lifted the lid to show the silky skins bursting like milkweed pods about to loose their fleece.

‘But we mustn’t eat the potatoes,’ cried Michael sharply; ‘we’ve got to save them for seed.’

‘What shall we eat, then?’ asked Helen.

‘Isn’t there any flour?’

Helen poked the meal-bag, which hung from the rafters to keep it from the rats. It was nearly empty.

Michael’s kind eyes were sombre as the family gathered at the table. ‘Is there anything we can sell?’ he asked.

‘Nothing but the goose,’ said Helen.

They looked at one another with troubled faces. If they sold the goose, what about the goslings that they hoped for in the spring?

‘I’ll go over to see the Friends after supper,’ said Michael. ‘Perhaps Mr. Hall will buy the goose.’ The four children had been in so many tight places that they were not easily discouraged. Basil and Katherine were soon frolicking merrily, but Michael and Helen took counsel together like old people.

There was little in the room that Michael had not made with his own hands--the rough table, the two benches, even the stove of stones and plaster, and the beds, which were boxes built against the wall and filled with straw. There was one bed in the kitchen for Helen and Katherine, and another for Michael and Basil in the recess, which had once been a cow stall; for the cabin was a part of what had been their father’s barn before the war.

When supper was over, the candle-stump was transferred to the lantern. Michael, cutting across lots, would need a light, for the fields were full of ditches and shell-holes.

The farm lay in the eastern part of Poland, near the Russian border. During the war it had been a battlefield, and when, after a year’s wandering, the children, orphaned, had struggled back to it, they had found everything except one corner of the barn swept away. Michael had made it weatherproof with timbers and stones pulled from the rubbish, and the neighbors, though shattered and poor themselves, had helped him. The land was good. Michael knew that in time he could make a living from it. But he was only fourteen, and in the meantime there were so many of them to be fed! The Friends had lent him a horse and cart the first season, and the community had given him seed. From the sale of his harvest and by working as house boy for Mr. Hall, Michael had been able to buy the horse and was now the proud owner of Boro.

The Society of Friends were a group of people who had come to Poland from America after the war to help those whose farms and homes had been destroyed. They ploughed and built, and they lent horses and tools and sold seed and supplies at a low figure. In fact, they were Friends in a very noble sense.

Michael entered the warm room where Mr. Hall sat writing in the lamplight. ‘Hello, Michael,’ he said. ‘How is business?’

‘Not so good,’ answered the boy soberly. ‘You want to buy a goose, Mr. Hall?’

‘No, I don’t believe I do, Michael. I should like to sell some goose eggs, instead.’ Then, seeing Michael’s blank face, he added, ‘Sit down and tell me why you wish to sell your goose.’

Mrs. Hall brought in a bowl of apples, and while Michael ate one he told about the seed potatoes and the empty meal sack.

‘It would be very foolish to sell your goose, though,’ said Mr. Hall. ‘If you set her on a dozen eggs they will be worth ten times as much as she is worth, by Christmas.’

‘I know,’ said Michael, heavy with misery. ‘I could get along, myself, but there are the children.’

‘You have your horse, haven’t you?’

‘Oh, yes, old Boro. He’s good and strong. I have been ploughing with him all day.’

‘How long shall you need him?’

‘To-morrow I shall finish all the land I can plant this year.’