Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/78

 questions. She showed them such an honest face, said good-morning so simply, and told her beads by the way with so much devotion, that no one would have taken her for anything but an honest egg- or apple-woman who had got up early, and was now hurrying to the town by short cuts to steal a march on the other market women.

If in spite of her precautions one of the men stood still and looked at her with suspicion, she at once stood still too and offered her produce. Who could have doubted her sincerity? It had even happened that the police had bought pears or cherries from her without finding her out. What wonder that old Matouš appreciated her, and praised her to the skies, saying that such women were not born in these latter days, and that she would be the last to tell of the old glories.

Still grumbling with annoyance at having overslept herself, old Martinka hurriedly wrapped herself in a warm shawl, took her basket and once more overhauled its double bottom and the shoulder straps. Then she wedged in two pieces of wood crossways about a hand’s breadth from the rim, covered them with a board on which she laid several pounds