In vain is not thy toil,In vain is not thy faith;The Lord God in the HeavensGathers all of labor's sweat.
And again:
Songs, songs, whence come ye?Descended from the heavensOr grown in the woods?Not down from the heavensNor grown in the woods,But born in the heartsOf 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 thetime 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 ajug 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.
"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 hadoccurred; 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 importantpart. 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 educatinghis 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 Ihope 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 alwayshunting 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 willbe 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 distantcountry 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."
Itwas Saturday and Ruzena had just returned to the village from some distance outside of it. She brought back some of the red sand that was prized highly for sprinkling over the hard earthen floors of the house. She spread it carefully and then went into the kitchen to help her mother with the baking for the morrow.
Sunday was a blessed day in more ways than one for the villagers. No matter how hard the work of the week had been, the Sabbath afforded relaxation. Everybody who could went to church, and exceedingly attractive did they look when they trooped out in twos and threes after the service. The women especiallylooked like a bevy of bright flowers in their gay attire.
There is no one national costume in Slovakia. It varies from district to district. Here the women wore a snowy chemise with short puffed sleeves ending in a wide ruffle. Above this ruffle was a pretty band of hand embroidery in orange-colored silk. Over this chemise was a bodice. The heavily starched skirt was full of tiny carefully arranged pleats with another skirt of transparent flowery material, also pleated, worn over, each pleat in this upper skirt being fitted into that of the skirt beneath.
The men were quite as picturesque in high boots, and close-fitting trousers of black cloth embroidered in black and yellow. Over the shirt, a short sleeveless waistcoat was worn, fastened with one button. The two rooster feathers at the back of the men's hats gave them something of a dashing air.
The young men and boys always took theirseats near the door. The older men sat at the right of the aisle, the older women at the left. The finery of the young married women and of the girls did not allow them to be seated. The former stood in the aisle, the latter in rows near the altar. When they knelt down their skirts stood out so far on every side that no one could come near.
In the afternoon the young people paired for a dance at the pavilion in the tavern grounds; the children wandered off for play, while the older folks visited at one another's houses or met in the tavern to talk over the little happenings of the week.
Wherever Ruzena was, Etelka and Marouska were also apt to be. On this particular Sunday the three had an adventure that gave them all, but especially Etelka, who was the most imaginative, quite a little thrill.
It was all because Jozef and one of his friends, Janik, had insisted on following thelittle girls about, twitching their long hair and playing all sorts of tricks on them. When something called the boys away for awhile, Ruzena exclaimed:
"I wish we could hide from them!"
"I'll tell you a good place," suggested Etelka; "let's go into our storeroom. Father put a lantern down there and we can light it and wait until the boys give us up."
Marouska and Ruzena thought this just the thing, and away the three hurried to the underground cellars. Every one was busy with his own affairs, so no attention was paid to them, and they climbed down the ladder into the dugout belonging to Etelka's parents, without being seen. Etelka lit the lantern and then propped up the door slightly as she had seen her mother do. The girls stood waiting and listening.
At last they heard boys' voices. "It's Jozef and Janik," whispered Ruzena. Whether itwas or not, the voices grew fainter and soon could not be heard.
"They've passed, but if we go out they'll find us," said Marouska in her quiet, sad little voice.
Her two friends agreed. "But," asked Ruzena, "what can we do here?"
Etelka's eyes sparkled. A bold plan had occurred to her.
"Let's explore the secret passages," she exclaimed.
"Let's!" echoed her companions delightedly yet fearfully.
"We won't go far," continued Etelka, knowing that such explorations were considered dangerous and forbidden. "Just a little ways."
"Just a little ways!" Ruzena and Marouska again echoed breathlessly.
These so-called secret passages were very old and no one seemed to know for certain why theyhad been built. The story generally accepted was that they belonged to the time immediately following the Hussite Wars, when many Czechs were forced to emigrate to Slovakia. While they were allowed to come, meetings to study the Bible had to be held in secret. These passages, connected with several of the cellars, made such meetings possible. Although the Slovaks in the village were now Catholics, they had not forgotten stories of martyrdom and courage handed down from those times. They told how a pastor had traveled from village to village hidden in a load of hay; of how a Bible was once saved by being thrown down into a well, and many other tales.
Taking the lantern, Etelka led the way into a little opening. It did not go far, for the earth had fallen down from the side walls, partially blocking it.
The girls looked at one another.
"I know what we can do," suggestedRuzena. "I saw an old board in the cellar. We can dig some of the earth away with that," and she ran to get it. She also brought back a big wooden ladle, and with these unusual implements, Marouska and Ruzena dug, while Etelka held the lantern, until the obstruction could be passed. There was comparative freedom after that for quite a distance. At one point the passage divided into three parts. The girls chose to go into the broadest, but scarcely had they gone twenty steps when the light in the lantern went suddenly out.
Girls in carvern see men with light in distance"THE GIRLS HUDDLED TOGETHER, TOO MUCH FRIGHTENED TO MOVE"
"THE GIRLS HUDDLED TOGETHER, TOO MUCH FRIGHTENED TO MOVE"
"Oh, dear, now we're in for it," burst from Ruzena, as she felt Marouska catch tight hold of her sleeve.
"Let's keep hold of one another and go back," suggested Etelka, her voice trembling slightly.
It was not easy, for they had to feel their way along the wall. They became conscious, too, that the air was bad. Once quite a bit ofearth fell down before them, but, fortunately, not enough to hurt or stop them. It seemed to them that they had been walking very, very long, when Ruzena broke the silence that had fallen, by volunteering:
"We must have come to where the passage divides."
"Yes, and I wonder—" Etelka did not finish, for Marouska clutched her wildly by the arm.
"Oh, look back," she whispered fearfully.
The girls turned. Coming behind them but from another direction were two red lights evidently carried by some person or persons.
The girls huddled together, too much frightened to move.
Suddenly Ruzena gave a funny, relieved, nervous laugh. "Why, if it isn't Jozef and Janik!" she exclaimed aloud and then ran forward and threw her arms about the astonished boys.
"Oh, you dears, how did you know that we were lost?"
Jozef and Janik were surprised. They had had no idea that the girls were in the cellar. They had gone into Janik's storeroom for some raw sour-kraut, and Janik had related how his big brother had ventured quite a distance into one of the passage-ways the week before. "Let's go, too," had suggested Jozef. Both boys had run home for some lanterns, never dreaming that they should meet the girls.
"Huh," grunted Jozef, after Ruzena's embrace, not yet comprehending. And when the boys did comprehend, well—it was rather nice to be treated like heroes! They listened to the girls, but although they glanced sideways now and then at each other, offered no explanations.
Then Jozef and Janik quarreled and while waiting to make up, Jozef had an inspiration.
"The girls won't try this again," he communed with himself, "and sometime I'll giveJanik a scare by going through our passage to his. Perhaps I'd better store a little food in it, for I might ask some of the other boys to come in with me, and it'd be nicer to have some food and play we're those old Hussites."
So, little by little, Jozef smuggled in food of all kinds; some sugar, more wheat than several boys could eat, sunflower and pumpkin seeds,—the latter considered a particular delicacy,—a small bag of raisins and nuts, a handful of dried mixed fruit in a preserve jar, and various other things.
Otherthings occurred so unexpectedly and rapidly that boylike, Jozef forgot all about his store of hidden food. Late in the Fall, most of the children under twelve were back in school.
Their home chores now had to be done on Wednesdays, which, instead of Saturdays, were their holidays, or before or after school hours. Ruzena's favorite studies were embroidery, drawing and painting, for, like most of the peasants, she had inherited a decided art instinct. Even her mother, who had never had any lessons, had painted without patterns pretty borders around the guest and living rooms; while her father, also untaught, had made and carved the two pretty chairs in the latter, andalso the long shelf on which stood a fine array of village pottery. Besides the work at school, Ruzena also had crocheting, knitting, and embroidery at home. It was mostly for herself, for her mother had her follow the local custom of beginning in childhood to work on her trousseau.
There were other holidays from school work besides the Sundays and Wednesdays, such as Dusickovy Vecer, which comes in November, the Slovak Memorial Day.
It was frosty and cold on this particular memorial day; there were even some icicles hanging from trees and bushes. A few flowers, from indoor window gardens, and hundreds of candles, had been placed and lit on the rude graves. In their dim light, figures could be seen kneeling and praying. Here the light fell on an old man with a patient, gentle face, and there on a young girl, her red skirts adding color to the scene. Children were about, too,most of them in fur coats, and none of them quiet for long. In the middle of the cemetery a group of men and women were gathered around a cross, while some one prayed. It was an impressive occasion, and as the villagers strolled homeward there was no loud singing nor even talking.
After Dusickovy Vecer, Jozef and Ruzena were taken by Jozef's godfather to a little village far up in the beautiful Tatras, where life was much more primitive and much harder than in their own little rude village, the Magyar Government showing no concern whatever in the people's welfare.
On the way to this village, they crossed a part of what the people around call "Matthew's Land," because over it once ruled one of the great figures of their history, Matthew Csak, Lord of the Vah and Tatras, as he called himself.
There are many castles in the mountains, butthe most interesting was that actually inhabited by Matthew in the early part of the fourteenth century.
Matthew's career was brief but remarkable. He was a Palatine, holding the highest office in the power of the King to bestow. He ruled over what is now the greater part of Slovakia, possessing enormous wealth, of which thirty fortified castles were a small part. In these castles he held court on a scale that rivaled that of the King himself.
When the male line of the Arpad Kings of Hungary became extinct, it was largely through his influence that a Czech King, Vaclav II, was called to the throne. Unfortunately, instead of coming himself, Vaclav sent his son, then a lad of thirteen.
To this the Pope, who had much to say in politics in those days, objected, and the King of Anjou, taking advantage of being preferred, seized the throne.
Powerful nobles rose up in arms against him, but the one he feared most was Matthew. He tried his best to gain his favor, but in vain. Then the Pope excommunicated Matthew, who retaliated by burning a bishop's stronghold. From everywhere nobles, zemans, and peasants flocked to his standards.
The Anjou King now made peace with all the other nobles, and resolved to direct his efforts to crushing the chief rebel. Near the little River Torysa, the armies of the two met. The King's was enormous, and although the Slovaks under Matthew fought bravely, they were so greatly outnumbered that they were defeated.
Although Matthew was defeated, he was not reduced in rank. He retired for a time to one of his castles, and then gradually assumed his old powers, which he exercised to the day of his death.
"Had Matthew succeeded in this rebellion,"Jozef's godfather concluded in telling the story, "he might have laid the foundations of a successful Slovak state, for the Slovaks at that time still had in mind the part they had played in the big Moravian Kingdom of Svatopluk."
A wonderfulopportunity now came for Jozef. He was only twelve and had just completed the course in the primary school.
"Jozef is bright. He is above the average in his studies," the teacher told his parents. "He ought to continue school work."
"I'd let him go on if we had schools of our own, but I won't have him go to a Magyar school to forget his language and learn to despise his own kin like Shlachta's boy," his father declared with emphasis.
"Better have him ignorant than false to his birthright," his mother agreed.
The teacher nodded. He understood.
"If you could only send him to Bohemia," he suggested.
"If," repeated the father grimly.
"What is this about Bohemia?" asked Jozef's godfather, who had just come up. He was a tall, thin, muscular man, whose hair hung down his back in two tiny braids. He was known for his liberal and somewhat "heretical" opinions. "I am going there after the holidays. Do you want to send some message?"
The teacher explained to him how things stood. "If we don't educate our children," he pleaded, "the Magyars will take greater and greater advantage of our ignorance."
Jozef's godfather stood a few moments in thought. Then he nodded good-by and left. The teacher was not put out. He was glad that he was going to think it over.
The next morning the godfather was over at Jozef's house bright and early.
"I've decided," he said, "that the teacher is right. In Bohemia, Jozef will learn moreabout his own country than we can ever teach him here and he'll learn to fight. I'll take him with me and somehow we'll find means to pay for his schooling there."
So, one day, Jozef found himself whirled away on a train over the fertile farm lands of Moravia, in parts of which there are many Slovak villages, through Nivnitz, where the great Moravian educator, John Amos Comenius was born, through towns and hamlets until they came to Brno, Moravia's capital. They changed trains here, and Jozef had time to see the Spielberg, crowned by a citadel long used as a Government prison, with its horrible torture cells, which throw some light on the conception of humanity of the Hapsburg Monarchy.
And then away again but not to Praha, Bohemia's capital. Instead, Jozef's godfather was bound for Tabor, one of the most interesting towns of Bohemia, having been founded byone of the great religious reform parties at the outbreak of the Hussite Wars. This was the town of Jan Zizka, the redoubtable military hero of the times.
Jozef was full of questions regarding this patriot and military genius—the greatest one of his age. He learned that he is regarded by many as the inventor of modern tactics, that he organized peasants and mechanics so wonderfully that they beat back and drove into despair the best trained arm-clad knights of Europe; that he never lost a battle; and that he probably was the composer of a splendid hymn, "All Ye Warriors of God," which seemed to inspire his men with wonderful power as they sang it marching to battle. At the battle of Domazlice (Taus), which took place after Zizka's death, 130,000 crusaders entered Bohemia, proclaiming that they would not let a single heretic live. They proceeded with plunder and slaughter until they reached Domazlice, wherethey pitched their camp. Some days after, the report spread among them that the Hussites, now under the command of Zizka's splendid successor, Prokop the Great, were on their way and that a battle was imminent.
While the Hussites were still four miles distant, the crusaders heard the rattle of their famous wagons and the mighty tones of the hymn sung by the whole Hussite army. It made such a terrible impression that the fanatical soldiers fled before the song, even the curses of the Cardinal failing to stop them.
Not knowing the passages of the gray Bohemian mountain forest they were overtaken by the Hussite vanguards; many thousands were killed and many more taken prisoners. Their camp with all the ammunition and provisions fell into the hands of their captors. Thus a song proved more mighty than the sword.
"Fear not those, the Lord hath said,Who would your body harm.For love of your fellowmen,He hath ordered you to die,Hence take courage manfully."
This great victory for a time put an end to all efforts to make Bohemia betray her conscience.
Before Jozef's godfather left for home, he told the boy another and beautiful story about Prokop.
"Not only did Prokop repulse the enemy when they invaded Bohemia, but he himself made incursions into neighboring lands. Once he led his army to the walls of Naumburg, in German Saxony. The inhabitants were seized with great terror for all counted on the town being entirely destroyed.
"In the midst of the dismay, some one advised the townspeople to send the children of the town to the enemy's camp. 'It is possible,' he said, 'that they may soften the leader's heart.'
"The people took the advice and the next day four hundred and fifty children, gowned in white, assembled before the Town Hall. Two hundred armed citizens accompanied them to the gate.
"When the children reached Prokop's camp, they fell down on their knees before him and begged him to spare the town.
"Prokop was deeply affected. He detained the children until evening, treating them to all the peas and cherries that they could eat. When it began to grow dark he sent them home. 'Tell your parents,' he said to them, 'that I will spare the town. But see that when you reach the gate you shout: "Victory to the Hussites!"'
"The next day the Hussites left the vicinity without having harmed a single living thing.
"In memory of the event, the people of Naumburg hold an annual festival in which the children march to the spot where once stood theHussite camp. Here they are treated to peas and cherries. The occasion is called the Hussite Cherry Festival."
Afterarrangements had been made for Jozef to live with some distant relatives, his godfather bade him good-by.
two boys looking at tower"HE USED TO WANDER . . . TO THE FORTIFICATIONS"
"HE USED TO WANDER . . . TO THE FORTIFICATIONS"
"Learn all you can, the better to help your native land," he said to him in parting.
It was not long before Jozef felt quite at home. The boys at first teased him about his dialect, but it was such good-natured teasing that he did not mind it. Once when the teacher overheard them, he said:
"Do not care. Your language may not be as literary as ours, but it is softer and more musical, and hence much more pleasing."
Jozef became very fond of the city. With a "heretic" friend, he used to wander over thecuriously arranged, toothed old streets, to the fortifications that still stand, or to the river that surrounds the city on three sides. Or they would stand and stare and discuss the statues of Jan Hus, the religious martyr, of his marvelously eloquent friend, Jerome of Prague, of Jan Zizka, and of Prokop the Great. These and many historic relics were in the odd, triple-gabled Town Hall, finished in 1521, in the big market square.
The statue of Zizka had an especial fascination for them. They could see him walking right there in the Square, surrounded by armed warriors, looking just as here represented, with expressive bent head, long mustache, and heavy fur coat over his shirt of mail. In one hand he held a sword, in the other, that terrible weapon that they knew was once called by the fanciful name of the morning star.
Besides the Town Hall there were other interesting irregularly built buildings, withpeculiar ornamentation, in the Square. Before one of them still stood one of the stone tables on which the Taborites took communion in the open air.
How very different Bohemia seemed to him from Slovakia! Here every one was proud of his nationality, which despite heavy taxes and many other oppressions, the people had retained through the efforts of great unselfish leaders who ceaselessly battled for their rights. He forgot the humility that he used to feel when meeting a contemptuous Magyar. Soon he held his head as high as the Czech boys did when they came face to face with Germans who through wrong training, in their wicked conceit, looked upon every nationality not their own, as far below them. In Tabor this was not at all hard with all the voiceless eloquent teachers around that reminded of past greatness and resistance to injustice.
Jozef soon felt one of the family in the excellenthome in which he boarded. Nothing pleased the good-hearted house mother more than his usually hearty appetite, and she seldom failed to applaud it by some quaint folk saying, as "A hearty eater is a hearty worker." She had no patience with fussiness about selection of food, and if she saw any would exclaim: "He who is fussy about his food, may learn to think any cheese would be good."
In the first days of his stay, Jozef accompanied her once to a market day in the Square. The farmers seemed to him to have brought a little of every kind of food that one could wish for. There was sweet home-churned butter, cottage and other cheese, eggs, poultry, vegetables, fruit, honey, mushrooms, poppy seed for cakes, and grain of all kinds.
In school Jozef was now in what was called the Lower Gymnasium. He had to be in the school building, which was not far from his boarding place, at a quarter to eight in themorning. Sundays and Thursdays were holidays. The school exercises began by all the pupils repeating the Lord's Prayer and Ave Maria. After that the time was devoted to the regular studies. The classes were named by Latin numerals, prima, secunda, etc. to octava.
At ten o'clock came a short recess, in which the children of the Lower Gymnasium played ball; those of the upper thought it below their dignity to do so. Sometimes instead, the pupils indulged in a little lunch by buying buttered bread, cheese, or fruit from the janitor.
Whenever a Professor entered the room or left it, all the children stood up as a sign of respect.
Jozef soon came to share the devotion of the children to the teacher, a man of delicate health but great spiritual vision, who constantly called the attention of the pupils to the idealism found in Bohemian (Czech) history. Through him the pupils learned, too, that Austria was largelyparasite, living on Czech wealth; that the Czechs paid sixty-two per cent of all the taxes in Austria to support passive non-Slav lands; that eighty-three per cent of Austrian coal was mined in Bohemia; that sixty per cent of the iron was found there; that ninety per cent of beet sugar factories were located there; that textile and other industries were important. They also learned that the renowned Bohemian glass employs over fifty thousand workers; that there are excellent highways, extending to ten thousand miles, and several important railroad lines; that one-third of all the gold and silver mined in Hungary is mined in neglected Slovakia. Jozef was particularly impressed by the fact that despite all the discrimination of the Government against the Czech schools, the Czechs were by far the most literate people of the monarchy.
History came to be Jozef's favorite study. He devoted much time particularly to theglorious reign of Charles I, known also as Emperor Charles IV, who probably did more for Bohemia than any other monarch.
One of the teacher's favorites was King George (Jiri) of Podebrad, sometimes called the "Heretic King of Bohemia." Jozef did not appreciate his full significance and was more interested in the stories told of his jester, whose name was Palecek.
Palecek was no ordinary jester. He was an educated man of noble birth, who by playing the fool could often tell truths other courtiers dared not utter. Because he addressed every one, even the King with his permission, as "Brother," he himself came to be known as "Brother Palecek." One thing Brother Palecek felt as a particular duty was to keep the King in lively humor, for the cares of state were very heavy at the time.
Once the King gave a large dinner. At his table sat the Queen, princes and princesses, andthe highest nobles of the realm. The younger nobles and others who served the King sat at a table apart. When Brother Palecek arrived, he was not very well pleased at being placed at this lower table. Soon he had another grievance; big fish were being passed to the King and those around him, while only little fish with many bones, came to the table at which he sat.
Gaining the attention of those about him, he took up one of the fish and held it to his ear and asked it: "Little fish, do you know anything about my brother?" and then placed it down again.
Then he took a second fish and asked: "Little fish, do you know anything about my brother?" Again he laid it down and took up a third.
The young people about him burst into laughter, so funny did Palecek look while doing this. The King asked what was amusing them.
"If it please Your Majesty," one of them answered, "Brother Palecek is conversing with the fish."
"Brother Palecek," said the King, "what are you doing?"
"Brother King," replied Palecek, "I'll tell you. I had a brother fisherman who was drowned in the river. So I am asking these little fish if they know anything about him."
"And what do they tell you?" asked the King.
"They tell me," returned Palecek, "that they're still too young and small to know anything about it, but that I'd better ask those bigger, older fish that are on your table."
The King laughed and ordered the largest fish of all to be placed on a dish and given to Palecek. These the jester accepted gracefully and shared, amid general good cheer, with all at his table.
There were various boys' associations,which Jozef was soon invited to attend or was asked to join. One was a boys' orchestra. In this land of music, it was very natural that all who formed a part of it should have been enthusiasts. As an encouragement to its members, the orchestra received free tickets to all the purely national concerts given in the city. Thus Jozef came to know better the works of the great Czech composers, Antonin Dvorak, Bedrich Smetana, and Zdenko Fibich. He thus also had an opportunity to hear Jan Kubelik, the renowned violinist, and Emmy Destinn, the prima donna.
Now and then the school children were taken to a national art exhibit. One of Vaclav Brozik, whose "Columbus at the Court of Queen Isabella" is known to all American children, and one of Alfons Mucha, known also in America for his poster work, but renowned in his own country in other lines as well, were followed by one of Joza Uprka, the MoravianSlovak, whose paintings of his beloved country folks, with their riot of color, and his passionate portrayal of the action and joy of life, made Jozef for a time quite homesick for the simpler, more picturesque life of his mother's home.
Theworld rang with the assassination of the Austrian Archduke, Francis Ferdinand, and his wife, at Sarajevo, in a province of Austria-Hungary, but quite outside the Czech and Slovak lands. It was a terrible deed with which no law-loving people were in sympathy. But when Austria, backed by Germany, seized the killing as a pretext for declaring war on little Serbia, both Czechs and Slovaks felt the grave injustice, and despite all efforts made by the Government, very few of them could be induced to make any demonstration in favor of the action. When Germany mobilized, there was no doubt in the minds of any but that the War was simply one against all the Slavs, whoopposed German possession of Middle Europe and German and Magyar ideas of superiority and power.
It was a hard time through which all the Slavic people of Austria-Hungary had to pass. It was hardest on those who, like the Czechs and Slovaks, were forced to fight on a side that they detested, against their own interests. In the face of the terrorist methods employed, their resistance and sacrifices are remarkable.
The Government feared them. No sooner was war declared than Czech and Slovak troops were sent from their home lands into the Austro-Hungarian province farthest from them, Transylvania, and foreign soldiers took their places. German soldiers are said to have patrolled Bohemia's borders.
It was during the first days that Prof. T. G. Masaryk, on the advice of his colleagues who understood how the War menaced the Czech and Slovak lands, was fortunate enough toescape from the country with one of his daughters. From then on until Czecho-Slovakia was recognized, he worked incessantly for Czecho-Slovak independence.
When Austria declared war, it did what no other country taking part in the War did: it declared war without first gaining the consent of Parliament. It was a high-handed act which the Czechs, in particular, resented. Great gloom prevailed. In sympathy with the principles of the Allies, knowing intimately the world menace of Germany as few outsiders knew it, the leaders were seeking means of protest when one after another was thrown into prison. Newspaper and magazine editors followed in quick succession. But the people, like the Hussites of old, stood firm in their faith and determination to sacrifice all for the right and to quietly resist in every way that promised to be effectual.
Jozef saw the soldiers march off from Taborwith a look of peculiar resolve in their eyes, and heard mothers and fathers whisper with their good-bys:
"You know your duty to your native land." When later he heard of patriotic soldiers shot because refusing to go forward; of Czech and Slovak soldiers branded as traitors because they deserted to the Allies and, reforming in their ranks, fought their real enemies, the Germans of Germany, the Germans of Austria, and the Magyars of Hungary, he understood better what a big and splendid thing this duty was.
For a while, work in the school continued, but everything seemed different. Patriotic songs with their beautiful melodies were no longer allowed to be sung; the old school books with their brilliant, romantic, yet true recitals of Bohemia's wonderful, heroic past, were replaced entirely by newly written books full of praise of the Hapsburg rulers and of Germany. Jozef and the other pupils rejoiced in one thing:they still had the same teacher. But this rejoicing did not continue long. One day they found the school doors closed and learned that the teacher had been taken to prison accused of disloyalty because he had allowed a ten-year-old pupil to walk home humming the national air, "Kde domov muj" (Where is my home?).