Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 162.djvu/291

Rh back crying, with an angry peasant beside him. The angry peasant carried a thick stick, which he still shook threateningly over the boy's head.

"He has beaten me," roared Kuba from a distance.

"I have not beaten him half enough," exclaimed the peasant; "the good-for-nothing scamp has been feeding his cow in my corn-field."

"Father told me to give it the best grass," said Kuba sulkily.

"Then your father will be pleased to pay for it as well. Holloa, neighbor Filip! that will be a little debt for us to settle in the harvest-time. Four kopys (a measure) at the very least is the damage done. Come and see for yourself."

Filip went and saw for himself the trampled field and the bitten-off corn-ears, and was obliged to admit grudgingly that certainly there was some damage done; not four kopys, of course, as his neighbor declared, but two, or perhaps three. "The child is young," he said in excuse, not caring to mention that he intended to treat the young child to a remarkably severe hiding that evening.

"If he is young, the more reason to look after him. You did an unwise thing, neighbor, in sending your wife away."

"But I could not have kept her," said Filip.

"Well, well; you know your own business best, I suppose. But keep your cow out of my field in future; that is all I ask."

This was how Kuba fulfilled his duties as a cowherd; and some days later, Filip was to have a sample of Kasza's qualifications as cook. Before that, however, he was surprised by receiving a visit from his brother-in-law.

"What is the matter?" asked Filip, looking up on seeing Magda's brother appear thus unexpectedly before him. "Why have you come? Has Magda sent you?"

"She has not sent me," answered Karol; " but I have come to fetch her cow." "Her cow?"

"Yes, her cow; it is hers, you know." "Well, yes, it is hers certainly," admitted "And the cow is here?"

"The cow is here, of course. Where else should it be?"

"But why should it be here?" pursued the brother-in-law. "If you will not keep your wife, why should you keep her cow?" This was quite a new version of the case to Filip. Of course he could not keep the woman — he had told himself so hundreds of times; but it had never occurred to him that there was any reason for parting with the cow. It had done nothing wrong.

"Look you here, brother Filip; I am a poor man, as you well know, and I have taken in Magda because she is my sister, as how should I let her starve or go begging her bread on the road? But another mouth to feed is a heavy burden, and she is not strong enough to work in the fields yet. This cow, which belongs to her, will help to cover her board and the child's. You should have brought it at once with her — that would have saved me this journey."

"I did not think of it," said Filip. "But I suppose you can take it," he added rather ungraciously.

When, an hour or two later, his brother-in-law was starting back homewards with the speckled cow tied behind the cart, Filip asked suddenly, —

"Did — did — your sister not say anything? Did she send me no message?"

"None," said Karol, as he drove away.

A few days after this Filip announced that he had finished the altar-gates; they were done, all but the painting and gilding, and he was going to town next day to fetch the color for them.

A choice group of village connoisseurs had come to inspect this work of art. Most of them rocked their bodies in mute admiration, only one of them was flippant enough to remark, —

"But St. Peter looks for all the world like the old Jew who sells wódki at the turnpike."

Filip frowned, and said that was only because it was not painted yet; the oak-stain which he was going to purchase at the town to-morrow would endow the saint with far more dignity of expression. When he came back through the forest next evening with the bottles of oak-stain and gold paint in his pockets, it was past sunset, and the moon had already risen. He could not understand why the moon-shine seemed so red and bloody to-night, just like the sunset on a frosty winter's day; but as he came nearer he saw that the red was not of sun or moon, but the reflection of dancing flames.

"Something is burning in the village," he said, and he quickened his pace.

"It is my house that is burning!" he exclaimed a little later, as he came near enough to distinguish details.

Truly indeed his house was burning; the great red flames leaped and gamboled