Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/307

 with green turf, and above each bent a heaven aglow with the sun’s rays and saturated with its smiles.

Sometimes they sat upon the graves like two living monuments—cheerful monuments, however, and in their young memory and on their young souls were inscribed even solemn matters. And Frank was flattered when Bartos, the gravedigger, made him the auditor of his narrations; it seemed to the boy just as though the dead grandfather continued to play his part in Bartos, it was too a certain mark of distinction to be made the confidant of a man so sedate and, moreover, the greatest athlete of the county.

Sometimes again the two children sat by the hedgerow among the rye like two quails, only that they broke in upon the clicking music of the cricket with human voices, and upon the buzzing of flies and bees. And this specially delighted Staza, who felt just as though she were at a concert, and as though she must laugh and whistle and press Frank’s hand. It was dull, though only at times, for a mind so very young to be always yonder among the graves, and Staza’s feet grew tired of wandering about the prim and sombre walks of the cemetery. But here where everything made holiday, look whithersoever she would, she likewise made holiday, just as when the lenten season has passed the young sleeper awakens with a glad hurrah.