“Take no thought as to that. If ye get money, pay what ye choose; if not, then aid us in our work, or simply say, Thanks; ’twill do. Why, the room stands empty! Most heartily do I invite you; and the priest sends you this bit of paper for present necessities.”
She unfolded a three-rouble note.
“May the Lord grant him health!” Veronka exclaimed, kissing the gift.
“There’s not another man on earth so kind as he!” Hanka said; and old Bylitsa added:
“In the priest’s byre, our cow will not be so very badly off!”
The removal took place at once.
The Sikoras’ cabin was by the roadside, not far off; and they carried there such articles as they had managed to get out of the ruins on so short a notice. Hanka ordered Pete to lend a hand, and Roch came a little later, helping them at such a rate that Veronka was settled in her new lodgings before the midday Angelus had rung.
“Now I am next door to a beggar-woman!” she complained bitterly, with a glance round her. “Four corners and a hearth: not one image! not one unbroken dish!”
“I shall fetch you a holy image,” Hanka said, soothingly. “Also, any vessels that I shall be able to spare.—And soon Staho will be back, and get men to restore the cabin with him.—Where is Father?”
She wanted him to go to Boryna’s with her. But the old man had stayed at the ruined hut, sitting on the threshold binding up a wound in the dog’s side.
“Come ye with me,” she said; “Veronka’s lodgings are not large, and we shall find a corner for you at our place.”
“Nay, nay, Hanka; I remain here: here was I born, and here will I die.”
No arguments, no entreaties, could shake his determination.
“I shall make myself a straw bed in the passage … and if you will have it so, I’ll tend the little ones and eat my meals at your home in payment. … But take the dog with you: it is wounded. … It will take care of the house.—A good watchdog.”
“But,” she pointed out, “the passage walls may fall upon you!”
“No, no; they will stand longer than many a man shall live. … Do take the dog.”
She yielded at last. There was really but little room at Boryna’s, and the old man would have been hard to lodge.
She told Pete to slip a string through Kruchek’s collar, and take it to the cabin.
“Burek has fled somewhither: Kruchek will fill its place well.—O you good-for-nothing fellow!” she cried, seeing that Pete could not manage the dog.
Old Bylitsa helped to drag it away, chiding it severely. “You foolish Kruchek! Here, there’s naught to eat; there, you’ll get plenty, and a warm place to lie in!”
But she went before them, in order to look in at her sister’s new abode, before going home.
To her surprise, she found Veronka again in tears, and several women with her.
“How have I ever deserved such kindness from you?” she sobbed.
“ ’Tis but little we can give; we too are poor: but take what we bring you, it is given with goodwill.” So said Klembova, putting a large parcel in her hands.
The others chimed in:
“Such a mishap!”
“We know what it means to you, and our hearts are not of stone.”
“And your goodman is away too, as ours are.”
“And that makes it so much harder for you!”
“Our Lord has sent a far heavier trial to you than to us.”
They had put their heads together to bring her what they could: peas, pearl barley, flour … and so forth.
“O kind goodwives, dear to me as ever my own mother was!” And she embraced them fondly, with many a sob, whilst they wept with her.
But Hanka had no time to stay; so, glad that there were still good people in the world, she hurried back to her cabin.
Though there was no direct sunlight, it was a pretty fine day, and plenty of sun filtered through the clouds. The sky rose above, like a great sheet of bluish canvas, with white ragged kerchiefs of cloud laid out upon it. Beneath, the fields expanded unendingly, distinctly seen, verdant in places, and in others tawny with stubble or with bits of fallow land, or bright with streams, glittering like windowpanes.
Larks sang loud. From the plain was wafted the fresh odour of springtime, redolent with moist warmth, and the honey-sweet aromas of poplar-buds.
There was a breeze, but so soft that the down of the first verdure on the boughs was all but motionless.
About the church were congregated sparrows in such countless multitudes that the wide-spreading branches of the maples and lindens were black with them as with soot, and the deafening din of their chirping was heard throughout the village.
On the smooth lustrous pond, the ganders screamed, watching their goslings, while the sharp squattering of the washerwomen’s beaters told that a good deal of linen was being bucked.
Rooms and passages stood wide open from one end of the huts to the other, the wash was drying on the hedges, bedding was being aired in the orchards, and in some places they were whitewashing the walls. Swine, much vexed by dogs, sniffed about in the ditches; and here and there a few cows, lifting their horned heads from behind the fences, would utter a plaintive bellow.
Many a wagon, too, was rolling along to town to make purchases for Eastertide; but, immediately after noonday, there came the old pedlar Yudka in his long cart, with his wife and a young olive-branch.
With a following of unfriendly dogs, they were driving from hut to hut, and seldom did old Yudka leave with empty hands. For he was no cheat, such as the tavern-keeper and many another: he gave good prices, and, if anyone needed a loan till harvest-time, would grant one on easy terms: a shrewd man, who knew all the folk in the village, and how to deal with them. Often enough he had a calf trotting after his wagon, or half a
