Page:The grandmother; a story of country life in Bohemia.pdf/60

54 Grandmother, who ate but little herself, begged her hostess not to trouble herself so much, at which the good lady only laughed. "You are old, and it is no wonder you eat so little; but children—oh, heavens! they have stomachs like ducks. Just look at our Manchinka! I never knew the time when she was not hungry." The children's smiling faces confessed that she was right.

When the children got another bun apiece they hastened behind the barn, for when they were there, no one worried about them. There they played ball, horses, colors, and similar games. The same company waited for them each Sunday,—six children, of different sizes, like the pipes of an organ. They were the children of the organ grinder from the flax mill. When he moved there with his family, the inn keeper built them a cottage having one living room and a kitchen. The father went about with his hand organ, and the mother after finishing her own work went among the neighbors, doing chores for a little food. They had nothing in the world but those six "pandores"—as the miller called the organ grinder's children—and some music. For all that, no great want was seen in the family. The children's cheeks were like roses, and at times an odor came from the flax mill that made the mouth of the passer-by water and long for roast chicken. When the children came out with greasy and shiny lips, the neighbors thought: "What in the world are those Kudernas roasting?"

Once Manchinka came from the flax mill and told her mother that Mrs. Kuderna had given her a piece of hare, and that it was so good, "just like almonds."