Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/190

184 women, grouping themselves together according to their ages. But they were not quite ready to start. The careful housewives repeated their directions to their servants to see well to the housekeeping, and the fathers gave strict orders to their help to take good care of the farms. The children begged: "Please bring us something from the shrine!" the old women: "Remember us with a Pater-noster!" Then the leader gave the signal, beginning to sing in a loud voice: "Hail, daughter of God!" The pilgrims joined in full chorus, the young men raised the garlanded cross, and the party started on their pilgrimage to Svatonovitz. At every chapel they stopped and ofered a Pater-noster and the creed for the glory and honor of God; by every tree upon which some pious hand had hung the picture of the Virgin, by every cross that marked the spot where some accident had happened, they knelt and prayed.

Barunka and Manchinka gave good heed to the leader and sang with the rest. But when they came to Red Hura, Barunka all at once asked Grandmother about the deaf and dumb girl from Turyn.

This time her questioning met with a sad rebuff, for Grandmother replied: "When you go on a pilgrimage, you must turn your mind to God, and not think of something else. Sing or silently pray!" The girls sang again.

They now came into the woods. Here and there strawberries were seen in the grass. It was a pity to let them go to waste; they preferred to pick them. Their hats fell, their petticoats came down and had to be tucked up again, and finally they remembered the buns in their bundles and began to