Friends in strange garments

by Anna Milo Upjohn

In half an hour they had left the cool, green valley hung like a hammock between wooded mountains, and were winding their way through a stony land where there was no sprig of grass, but where the wild pomegranate bushes springing from crevices splashed their flame-like blossoms over the rocks. The mountain-sides were so steep that no soil clung to them, or if any did the first rushing rain washed it away. Here and there were what are called pot-holes, where long ago some whirling stream had kept a stone spinning round and round until it had ground a hollow in the rock. The stream had dried up or found a new course, but the hollow remained, like a stone bowl. Such soil as caught there was not washed away, as on the slope. People living near such pockets brought baskets and aprons full of earth and made precious little gardens of the hollows. Zorka could look down from the road and count the number of cabbages and potatoes growing in them.

Sometimes the travelers stopped at a spring to rest. Then Zorka would take Mirko and Marko by turns in her lap. The little pigs slept soundly, tired out by the rough trot over a rocky road instead of over the sod that they were used to.

When night came Aunt Basilika knocked at the door of a friend who lived near the road. A woman came out, throwing her arms wide in welcome. She kissed Zorka and Basilika on both cheeks and pulled the baby joyfully from the saddlebag.

There was room for the donkeys and the pigs in the sheepfold, which was a snug cave in the side of the hill. Shepherd boys brought straw and corn and water, and when the beasts were comfortable the family went into the house.

Zorka looked at it in amazement, for it was very different from her own home. That was built of wood with a shingled roof and a border of carving below the eaves. This valley house was of the rough stones of the hillside without mortar or plaster. The thatched roof was held in place by logs and stones. There were no windows and there was no chimney, but the smoke from the hearth, which was in the middle of the floor, found its way through the loose weave of the thatch.

The boys built a wood fire and their mother put over it a pot of soup. They were very poor people, but eager to share everything they had with their friends. They gave them their mattresses, spreading Zorka’s near the fire; they themselves slept on the ground.

The next night the market-goers camped on the edge of the town of Podgoritza. Zorka fell asleep to the stamping and grunting of animals and the jingling of bridles. At dawn every one was up, preparing coffee and putting on holiday clothes. Aunt Basilika took a long black skirt and white linen blouse from her saddlebags. Over them she wore a long sleeveless coat of robin’s-egg blue with a border of pale gold balls. She tied a dark handkerchief over her head, and on it set a tiny skullcap of black silk. Most of the women wore bright blue coats that had been a part of their wedding outfit. Their finery was shabby and faded, for no one had had new clothes since the war. As for the children who had outgrown their good garments, they were dressed for the most part in gunny sacks sewed together with ravelings.

Zorka was better off. She wore a gray homespun dress and had an orange-colored handkerchief over her head, and sandals of cowhide on her feet. The journey from Kolashin had been so gay that she had forgotten the purpose of it. Now it came over her with fright.

Mirko and Marko were restless and hungry. They rooted about, seeking the juicy clover of home in the sparse grass and weeds of the market place. Zorka watched them with an aching heart. If she saw a business-like man approaching, she stood in front of the little pigs to hide them or gathered them into her lap drawing her skirt over their heads, determined not to sell them. But as the day wore on and no one offered a price for them, she grew indignant. Were they not the most beautiful pigs in the market? How could anyone pass them unnoticed?

As evening drew on she began to wonder what her father would say if she had to take Mirko and Marko back with her. She knew that he was counting on the money that they would bring. This was probably the last chance before spring to sell them. How could they be fed during the long winter?