Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/281

 “Why should I not? All night I shall sleep here and to-morrow also I shall sleep beside mamma.”

“Who was thy mama?” asked Frank.

“Who was she?” said Staza. “Why, who could she be, when she was my mamma?”

This reply satisfied Frank, at all events if he had tried all his life he himself could not have invented a wiser one.

The sun set and the shadows lay upon the cemetery. In the grave it was already dusk.

“Aren’t you frightened, Franky?” inquired Staza.

“Since it is in the grave in which my grandfather will have to be I am not frightened”, answered Frank, but he was frightened all the same.

“If you are frightened seat yourself beside me, we will sleep together or we can talk”, said Staza; and she at once made a place beside her where Frank esconced himself without further invitation.

And they sat beside each other like two birdies in a nest. “If thou art frightened, I will lead thee home”, said Staza. “I am not frightened.”

And now when Frank saw this little girl so completely without any fear, he said that he would not be frightened either, and that he would not go home. At that moment he felt so fond of his new companion that he could not bring himself to go home. He was happier seated by Staza’s side, and was with her in the grave.

After a while the moon rose, and the whole cemetery shone white like molten silver. The moonbeams penetrated even into the grave, all the interior of the grave looked as though it had been whitewashed, and when Frank looked at Staza she was white also. Frank involuntarily nestled closer to her, and Staza laid her sleepy head on his bosom.

Staza slept with “maminka” beside Frank, they were together “verne dusicky”.

Later in the night if they had not been asleep they would have heard the tramp of feet approach the cemetery, they would have heard a rapping at the grave-digger’s window, they would have heard the voice of the grave-digger, and afterwards all these feet and different voices approach the grave. But because they slept they heard nothing of it.

Loyka, the peasant, it must be understood, when the evening was already far advanced and no Frank appeared at home, fear-