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 whether or not people liked her. She did not push herself forward among the young people either in playing or dancing, but attended to her own affairs and to her old father. The parsonage was her Prague

There were some voices in the village which said: “One must give the girl all honor as having skill and strength which no girl and very few men can equal. What girl can carry two buckets full of water and yet walk as if she were toying with them? And who can look after a herd as she can? A horse or bull, a cow or sheep, all obey her, she controls all of them. Such a girl is a real blessing in a household.” But if a youth here or there announced, “I’d like to make her my wife,” the mothers at once shrieked, “No, no, my boy! Don’t bring that girl into our family. No man can say how things will turn out with her. She is the wild sort—bewitched!”

And so none of the boys were permitted to court her seriously, and to attempt it in sport no one of them dared. Bára would not let herself be ruled nor would she be blinded by flattering words. The sexton’s wife hated her most of all, although Bára never laid so much as a straw across her path. Indeed, on the contrary, she did good by protecting Josífek from the revenge of the boys. Whenever any boy got a box on the ear in church from the sexton he always tried to return it to Josífek. But the sexton’s wife was angry at Josífek for being a dunce and permitting a girl to defend him and for liking that girl. She was angry