Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/192

 time in order that he may learn to understand horses.”

And he got the boy; for what scavenger would have refused to have his son taught such an excellent science as was Poldik’s science. And as soon as Poldik got him, he said to himself, “Won!”

And, to be sure, he sedulously developed in every boy a knowledge of horses and the proper treatment of them. But none the less, and perhaps mainly, he developed a disgust of scavenging and in place of it instilled into these boys a passion for the business of wherrying sand. That was his evangelium. When they were seated in the stable he would say to the boy, “Do you still want to be a scavenger?”

“I do not want, but I must be one,” said the boy. “I must! there is no such thing as must. Must take to the worst trade in the world! To drive continually along the same road among all the slatterns and be the laughing-stock of everybody. They look at your horses—and laugh; they look at yourself and laugh. The horse is a sorry jade—you are the same—all the spavined cattle belonging to a scavenger’s cart are sorry jades. And whenever you want to marry you will find that no one will care to give you his daughter. They had rather yoke her to your cart; that’s what they’ll say. But a wherryman! faith! that is something quite different. You spin along over the water and the whole world smiles upon you. Be a wherryman!”