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 “Why wouldn’t I want a goat and a home of my own? Of course, I’d want it. But, believe me, if I could really have a house, I’d not give in an inch unless I’d have hanging beside the stove a spoon rack, painted a blood red and made for eight sizes, with four pewter spoons in each.”

“And if I had my own room,” Matýsek cried, seeming to have grown a head taller, “I, too, would know what I want. At once I’d quit all peasant toil and would begin weaving brooms. That’s something worth while. A man can sit in the warmth and where it’s clean and can keep busy at his own work. Everyone inquires after him and knows of him. Nobody can get along without a broom-maker.”

“That’s true,” Barka nodded assent. “To be a broom-maker is a very fine thing. I, too, like that trade.”

“I wouldn’t spend all my time making brooms,” boasted Matýsek and again he seemed to have grown much taller. “I’d also make wooden lanterns and would fit in the glass sides myself, and if anyone wanted a cage for quails, I’d make it for him and attach a little bell at the top. I’d go in for making a dog-kennel as well. I’d paint it green and to make it please everybody, I’d fix on it a blue star and a little yellow moon. Don’t you think I couldn’t do it. I could!”

If some one from the village passed by and saw them sitting beside each other debating so fervently, he did