Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/251

 “People always said that Poldik turned scavengers into wherrymen, and now look you, he scavenges, and that with a wherrymen’s little chap!”

“’Tis true he goes about with a wherryman’s little chap. It is Malka’s boy, and don’t you know that Poldik wanted to have her for his wife? Tra-la-la! Stranger’s boys he teaches to be wherrymen, and he keeps scavenging only for the Lord be with him. Tra-la-la!”

But even bygone times, more or less, renewed themselves. Malka, when her health was restored, once more brought dinner for them; at first, however, only for her son, but soon for Poldik also, because Poldik said as we drive together we must also dine together. Sometimes they waited for Malka, and when she was coming with the dinner, settled her in the cart and then drove on with her. On these occasions little Francis must needs take the horses in hand, that his mother might see with her own eyes how far he had progressed. Here Poldik laughed heartily at his “whoa-ups” and whip-cracking and looked the picture of contentment. There was only one fault to find in Francis, and that was that he was still diffident of swearing before his mother. This slight shortcoming which marred the perfect whole, Poldik could not pass over in silence, and therefore said, “Ah! Malka, he is learning very fast, but he still wants the least little bit of courage.” And that meant more particularly, “If only he would swear all would be well.”

At last Francis was wellnigh grown to man’s estate, and then Poldik entirely confided to him the charge of the horses and vehicle. He himself carted sand no longer, but devoted himself solely to the management of horses. He was already old, he could not any longer walk so well as he was wont, beside the cart, “hee” and “heesta” no longer issued bravely from his lips, and the horses obeyed them better when they heard them from the lips of Francis. “Come, then, Francis, manage everything for me”, said Poldik, and thus he quitted for ever his previous occupation.

When Poldik grew enfeebled by age Malka shifted to his lodging and tended him as though he had been her father, and when he expired no son and daughter could have grieved more heartily for a father than did Malka and Francis. And it would be hard to name any other funeral in which so many people took part, and amongst whom so large a number could say and said with tears the words, “He was our father.”