Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/218

212 "That won't do, for the rest of us would be cheated," said John.

"You won't get anything anyhow but a switch," teased Christina.

"Oh, but St. Nicholas knows that Grandma has had one hidden since last year and that she never whips us," replied John. Grandmother, however, remarked that it was not because he had not deserved it.

Lucie's day was very disagreeable to the children. The superstition was, that on this night, Lucie a tall woman in white, with long, disheveled hair, went about seeking disobedient children. "Cowardice is folly," said Grandmother, who was not at all pleased when the children were taught to be afraid. She used to teach them to fear nothing except God's displeasure; but she could not, like their father, prove to them that no such things existed as watermen, fiery dragons, will o'the wisps, fiery men that roll before the observer like a bundle of straw; for her own belief in them was too deeply rooted in her mind. To her, the various forms in nature were animate with good or evil spirits; she believed in a wicked infernal spirit, that God sends upon the earth to try the souls of his people. She believed it all, but was not afraid; for she possessed a firm living faith in God, in whose power is the whole earth, heaven, and hell, and without whose permission not a hair falls from our heads.

This confidence in God she tried to instil into the hearts of the children. So, when on Lucie's day Vorsa began to talk about the woman in white, Grandmother told her to be quiet, for she had never heard that Lucie ever harmed any one.