Selected Polish Tales | Page 3

with rye or oats and fringed by the pine-forest, its contours showing black against the sky.
The northern ridge contains little hills standing singly. One of them is the highest in the neighbourhood and is crowned by a solitary pine. This hill, together with two others, is the property of the gospodarz[1] The gospodarstwo is like a hermitage; it is a long way from the village and still farther from the manor-house.
[Footnote 1: _Gospodarz_: the owner of a small holding, as distinct from the villager, who owns no land and is simply an agricultural labourer. The word, which means host, master of the house, will be used throughout the book. _Gospodyni_: hostess, mistress of the holding. _Gospodarstwo_: the property.]
Josef Slimak.
Slimak's cottage is by the roadside, the front door opening on to the road, the back door into the yard; the cowhouse and pigsty are under one roof, the barn, stable, and cart-shed forming the other three sides of the square courtyard.
The peasants chaff Slimak for living in exile like a Sibiriak.[1] It is true, they say, that he lives nearer to the church, but on the other hand he has no one to open his mouth to.
[Footnote 1: Sibiriak: a person of European birth or extraction living in Siberia.]
However, his solitude is not complete. On a warm autumn day, when the white-coated gospodarz is ploughing on the hill with a pair of horses, you can see his wife and a girl, both in red petticoats, digging up potatoes.
Between the hills the thirteen-year-old Jendrek[1] minds the cows and performs strange antics meanwhile to amuse himself. If you look more closely you will also find the eight-year-old Stasiek[2] with hair as white as flax, who roams through the ravines or sits under the lonely pine on the hill and looks thoughtfully into the valley.
[Footnote 1: Polish spelling, Jedrek (pronounced as given, Jendrek, with the French sound of _en_): Andrew.]
[Footnote 2: _Stasiek_: diminutive of Stanislas.]
That gospodarstwo--a drop in the sea of human interest--was a small world in itself which had gone through various phases and had a history of its own.
For instance, there was the time when Josef Slimak had scarcely seven acres of land and only his wife in the cottage. Then there came two surprises, his wife bore him a son--Jendrek,--and as the result of the servituty[1] his holding was increased by three acres.
[Footnote 1: Servituty are pieces of land which, on the abolition of serfdom, the landowners had to cede to the peasants formerly their serfs. The settlement was left to the discretion of the owners, and much bargaining and discontent on both sides resulted therefrom; the peasants had to pay percentage either in labour or in produce to the landowner.]
Both these circumstances created a great change in the gospodarz's life; he bought another cow and pig and occasionally hired a labourer.
Some years later his second son, Stasiek, was born. Then Slimakowa[1] hired a woman by way of an experiment for half a year to help her with the work.
[Footnote 1: Slimakowa: Polish form for Mrs. Slimak.]
Sobieska stayed for nine months, then one night she escaped to the village, her longing for the public-house having become too strong. Her place was taken by 'Silly Zoska'[1] for another six months. Slimakowa was always hoping that the work would grow less, and she would be able to dispense with a servant. However, 'Silly Zoska' stayed for six years, and when she went into service at the manor the work at the cottage had not grown less. So the gospodyni engaged a fifteen-year-old orphan, Magda, who preferred to go into service, although she had a cow, a bit of land, and half a cottage of her own. She said that her uncle beat her too much, and that her other relations only offered her the cold comfort that the more he applied the stick the better it would be for her.
[Footnote: Zoska: diminutive of Sophia.]
Up till then Slimak had chiefly done his own farm work and rarely hired a labourer. This still left him time to go to work at the manor with his horses, or to carry goods from the town for the Jews.
When, however, he was summoned more and more often to the manor, he found that the day-labourer was not sufficient, and began to look out for a permanent farm-hand.
One autumn day, after his wife had been rating him severely for not yet having found a farmhand, it chanced that Maciek Owczarz,[1] whose foot had been crushed under a cart, came out of the hospital. The lame man's road led him past Slimak's cottage; tired and miserable he sat down on a stone by the gate and looked longingly into the entrance. The gospodyni was boiling potatoes for the pigs, and the smell was so good, as the little puffs of