Then, since words meant little between them and their stranger, boys and artist smiled at each other in the dusk, in perfect understanding as they all shook hands again.
The honor of Olympia was clear when the wind and the sun went down at the end of the valley.
THE CHRISTMAS LANTERNS
Nikola usually began his day by fetching two jars of fresh water for his mother. He filled them at the public fountain, loaded them on his donkey, and then he and the donkey trotted home along the sea wall.
Nikola lived in a village of stone, which led up the side of a cliff to a plateau of rocks and thistles. Ages ago the sea had raged through here and had worn big caves in the cliff. In some of these caves people lived, having made them into houses by building walls in front of them, with windows and a door, and sufficient roof to hold a chimney, which was really nothing more than a big water jug the bottom of which had been broken out. Up the stone stairs, which served as a street, women toiled daily with similar jars on their shoulders. If they were tired, all they had to do was to sit down and rest on the flat roof of a house.
Over these steps Nikola skipped one hot winter’s morning to lead out his little flock of sheep, penned in a cave higher up. What a place of stones and thistle it was! But farther back from the sea there was more grass, and thither Nikola guided his flock. From below they were plainly visible against the dark sky.
HE AND THE DONKEY TROTTED HOME ALONG THE SEA WALL
A boy coming along the road saw them and smiled craftily. ‘I’ll get ahead of that fellow,’ he said to himself. It was Philippu, coming from the town with a roll of colored tissue paper in his hand. Nikola on the hilltop, unmindful of Philippu’s presence, stretched himself vigorously, flinging out his arms against the sky. One arm pointed toward Mount Ida, where the Greek god Zeus was born, the other toward Mount Jukta where he died. But that meant nothing to Nikola. He was so used to the glorious mountains that he paid no attention to them. He sat down and considered what could be done about the holidays. The Greeks have a different calendar from ours, so that Christmas and New Year’s come thirteen days later with them than with us. Consequently it was a day in early January When Nikola was thus making plans for Christmas.
It is the custom in Greece for boys to go about from house to house, singing carols on Christmas and New Year’s Eve just as the waits do in England. They carry lanterns, usually fancy ones, which they make themselves in order to show that they have taken pains to attract and please and are not begging. Rather, they are carrying a little portable show, and they sing so lustily that people are either pleased to hear them or glad to pay them a few pennies to move on.