Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/100

94 is so disturbed that I cannot pray in peace," sobbed the poor girl.

"My child, why did you leave it so long, until the evil power overcame you? But with God's help we shall conquer that demon yet."

Victorka summoned all her courage; she prayed fervently, and when her thoughts began to wander she thought of Christ's crucifixion, of the Virgin Mary, so that the evil power should not overcome her. She guarded herself thus for two days; the third day, however, she went into the farthest corner of her father's fields to cut some clover; she told the workman to follow her soon, as she would hurry with the cutting. She ran like a fawn, and the people stopped their work to look at her and admired the grace of her movements. Thus she went, but home she was brought by the workman, on the green clover, pale, wounded. Her foot was bound in a fine, white handkerchief, and she had to be lifted from the cart and carried into the house.

"Holy Virgin! what has happened to you, my daughter?" lamented the mother. "I stepped upon a thorn; it went deep into my foot and made me ill. Please take me into my room. I will lie down," begged Victorka.

They carried her in, laid her on her bed, and the father hastened to the blacksmith's wife. She came post haste, and with her a crowd of uninvited neighbors, as is generally the way. One advised burnet, the second, dragon's head, the third urged then to smoke it, the fourth, to conjure it; but the wise old dame was not put out by those differences of opinion. She bound up the swollen foot in a poultice of potato starch. Then she dismissed all