Yet there were not many workers to be seen in the fields. Only a few women, close to the village, were scattering dung about, and stray whiffs of its sharp pungent smell came to her nostrils.
“The lazy fellows! What can they be about on such a day as this, when the land is simply begging to be tilled? … Why are so few at work?” she muttered, in no good humour.
To approach the fields yet nearer, she left the road for a narrow path that crossed a ditch where the grass grew lush, and plenty of daisies already opened their pink eyelashes to the sun. She well remembered how, in former years, the fields were at that season all dotted over with red petticoats, and echoing to the lasses’ songs and cries; and she knew well that in such weather it was just the time to manure and till and sow the land. What, then, could the matter be? Why, she saw only one single peasant, standing somewhere in the fields and walking along, throwing grain broadcast in a semicircular sweep.
“He must be sowing peas, so early in spring. … One of Dominikova’s lads, no doubt,” she said, and added, with all her heart: “May God in His mercy grant you a bountiful harvest, O dear sower!”
The path was rugged and uneven, full of fresh molehills and many a puddle. But, absorbed as she was in every bit of land she saw, she paid no heed to these.
“This is the priest’s rye-field. How well it grows! I remember, when I started on my wanderings, the farm-servant was ploughing here, and his Reverence sat close by.”
Again she crawled on painfully, breathing hard and looking round with tearful eyes.
“This is Ploshka’s rye … but it must have come up late, or rotted somewhat in the ground.”
She bent down—no easy task for her!—to stroke the moist blades lovingly, as she would have stroked a child’s head, with tremulous withered fingers.
“Ah, here is Boryna’s wheat! A magnificent piece of ground. Of course: is he not the first farmer in Lipka?—A little frostbitten, though; the winter has been very severe,” she thought, looking out over the flat expanse of fields ploughed last autumn, and the blades sunk deep in the earth and soiled with mire, testifying to the heavy winter snows and floods.
“Oh,” she sighed, “the folk here have suffered not a little.” And she shaded her eyes to look at a couple of lads who were coming by from the village.
“The organist’s pupil, and one of his sons. … What large baskets! Ah, no doubt they are going to Vola with their annual list for confession. Yes, that is what they are about.”
She greeted them as they went by, and would have chatted with them willingly; but they only mumbled a reply, and hurried on, deep in conversation with each other.
“And I have known them ever since they could walk!” she said, disappointed and out of sorts. “Ah, well! how should they know a beggar like me?—But Michael has grown up finely, and will surely now be playing the organ for his Reverence.”
She was presently close to Klemba’s property. “Lord! there is not one man to be seen!” she cried.—She was now so near the village that she could smell the smoke of the chimneys, and see the beds and cushions laid out to air in the orchard. Her heart was brimming over with thankfulness for having been spared till now, and allowed to come back to her people. In this hope she had been able to live through the winter: it had upheld and strengthened her against cold and want and death itself.
She sat down under some bushes, to arrange her dress a little, but could not. Joy made her limbs quiver and her heart flutter like a strangled bird.
“There are still some good kind people here,” she whispered, looking hard at her wallet. She had put by, she knew, quite enough for her burial.
For many a year she had set her heart upon one thing: to die (when our Lord should call her) in her own village, lying in a cottage, on a featherbed, and beneath a row of holy images upon the wall: as all goodwives die. And for many a year she had been saving against that last, that sacred hour!
Now at the Klembas’, up in the loft, she had a chest, and within that chest a great featherbed, with sheets and pillows, and new pillow-covers: all clean, and none of them ever used, in order to be always in readiness. There was no other place to put that bedding, for she never had a room or a bedstead to herself, but was used to sleep in some corner, on a litter of straw, or in the cow-house, according to circumstances, and as the people of the house allowed her. For she would never assert herself, nor make any complaints, being well aware that things take place in this world according to God’s will, and are not to be changed by sinful man.
And yet—in secret, silently, and asking to be forgiven for her pride—she had dreamed of this one thing: to be buried like a village goodwife. For this she had long prayed in fear and trembling.
Naturally,
