Page:Czechoslovak stories.pdf/166

 times he thought to himself: “Even though she is a girl, she is my own. I shall die like a man and I have, as a father, a stepping-stone to heaven.”

Jacob was born in the village. Being an orphan, he had to go into service from childhood. He served as goose-herder, drover, cowherd, neat-herder, as hostler and ploughman until he reached the highest degree of the rank, becoming the community herdsman. That offered a good living and he could now marry.

He was given a cottage to live in to his death. The peasants brought him wood to his very courtyard. He could keep a cow. Bread, butter, eggs, milk, vegetables, of all these he received supplies each week. Each year, linen enough for three shirts and for two pairs of drawers was supplied to him, and, in addition, two pair of shoes, corduroys, a jacket, a broad-brimmed hat, and every other year a fur coat and a heavy blanket. Besides that on each holy day and church feast day he received pastry and his wages, so that even at the parsonage they did not fare better.

In short it was a good position and Jacob, though he was lacking in good looks, uncommunicative and morose, could nevertheless have gotten a wife, but he was in no hurry. In the summer he made the excuse that he had no time to look around among the girls because it was pasturing season. In the winter he was busy carving out wooden shoes, and in the evenings when the lads sought out the society of their girl friends he preferred to sit a while at the inn. When