Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/36

 funeral, and he at once began to order this and order that.

Venik and Krista did not understand what all these orders meant. They were still in fancy by the father’s grave, and when they came home they heard many words. All they understood was that from that moment everything would be different.

All that had been heretofore began to crumble beneath the children’s feet: with their father perished even their home. It was unloving words which they now heard, and a loveless home is no home at all. They listened like frightened birds, and longed to flee away to the hillside.

“You Venik,” said Riha, “can’t you leave that precious violin to be a violin. A great boy like you and nearly grown up to go mooning about the hillside; what a pretty affair it is! Thy father was too good-natured to thee, and when he saw thee and thy violin together, he thought—God knows what he thought. But what will become of the house and farm, I wonder, if you treat it like that? Until harvest you shall still pasture the sheep. When harvest comes I will take a turn with thee in the field myself, and after harvest I will find someone to put you in the way of things.”

“And thou,” said Riha’s wife, turning to Krista, “dont let me see thee running out of the house any more after Venik. A girl like thee, who could already be in service, to go prowling and howling in