Page:Famous stories from foreign countries.djvu/145

 them fodder, we took our food bags and started toward the house. We, too, felt need of breakfast. The old man picked up the little birch basket, took something from it and sat down upon a bench in the corner near the stove. I wanted to know what he had to eat and made believe that I had business in the same corner. Poor and needy was his lunch. It was only black bread and salt.

I turned away and took up my food box. I tried to appear calm and indifferent, although my heart was moved by strange emotions. When, outwardly, I had regained composure, I said to him:

“Come over here and eat with me!” The old man looked up in my face and did not answer. He did not seem to comprehend. Perhaps he did not hear or perhaps he wished to hold out on what he had to eat.

“Come! Come over and eat with me,” I asked again.

“Why should you be so good to me?” replied the old fellow, carefully packing away again his own food in the birch basket. He came across with slow steps, giving a hasty, searching glance at my face, in order to convince himself that the offer was genuine.

“We know each other so well now that we ought to be good to each other,” I answered.

“Sit down now and eat.”

Our roads separated. The old man went on toward the city. And while I jogged on again alone, I could not get the poor old fellow out of my mind. His lean mare, his scanty food, his ragged insufficient clothes,