Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/216

 him down at full length in the space which he had cut.

The neighbours smiled slightly, and said, “Ah! well-a-day! How could he ply his sickle at all at such an age, I wonder? A hundred years!”

“One time while he lay thus,” proceeded the Mayor, once more, “I go close by him with my sickle, and I say, “Oh! grandfather help us in God’s name.” Loyka perceived that I was smiling and said, “Lazy body! lie no longer, up! up! and work thou also!” Then he rose and set himself to cut the corn, I meanwhile sat beside him near the boundary stone, and waited till he had once more finished cutting his own small portion. When he had finished it, he again lay down.

“And why could not his son, the peasant proprietor, cut it for him?” enquired some, though, indeed, they knew why this was not done, because they had already asked the same question several times at least, both in the present and the past.

“He could and he could not,” answered the Mayor again, “of course you understand-he was a pensioner on the son’s bounty. ’Tis seldom a son gives the father anything who is once pensioned off.”

As soon as this sentence was pronounced it was again evident that Vena was present. He stood by the farmstead, considering what to do with the rosolek, now that no one was willing to drink it. But as soon as he heard about the son and the