Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/44



HOULD a traveler, accustomed to the busy hum of city life, wander into the vale where stands the isolated house of the Proshek family, he would think: "How can these people live here during the whole year? During the summer, when the roses are in bloom, it may be pleasant enough; but how dreary it must be in the winter!" Yet the family had many pleasures, both in summer and winter. Love and content dwelt under that humble roof, and the only sorrows that visited them were the frequent departures of the father, or the illness of some member of the family.

The house was not large but pretty and cosy. The front part was ornamented with a grape vine, and the garden was full of vegetables, roses, and mignonette. On the north-eastern side was an orchard, and beyond that a meadow stretching out clear to the mill. Close to the house stood a large pear tree, whose branches spread themselves over the shingled roof, beneath the eaves of which the swallows built their nests. In the middle of the large yard stood the linden, where the children used to sit in the summer evenings. On the south-eastern side were the stables, sheds, and other outbuildings, and behind them grew shrubbery clear to the dam.

Two roads went past the house: one a wagon road, by which a person could travel up the river