Aunt Basilika had only a few fagots left. When those were sold she would pack her bags with the winter store that she had purchased, and she and Zorka would climb into the wooden saddles and begin the long homeward journey that very night. How would the short fat legs of Mirko and Marko make the uphill grade?
Twilight was already flooding the Plain of Podgoritza when a man rode up looking for firewood. Seeing Basilika’s fagots he went toward her, and then, peering through the dusk, exclaimed, ‘Why, it’s Basilika Ivanova!’
He was an old friend of Zorka’s father, a well-to-do merchant of Podgoritza. ‘And so this is Ivan’s daughter,’ he said, smiling at Zorka; ‘but what fine pigs you have! Are they for sale?’
Zorka began to cry. ‘They’re not just pigs,’ she said. ‘They’re Mirko and Marko, and I don’t want them killed.’
‘Oh, I don’t kill such wee piggies,’ said the merchant. ‘They will grow to be grandfathers if you sell them to me; and I promise you they will live in a fine pen.’
Zorka dried her eyes, and under her breath named the price that her father had told her to ask. The merchant counted out silver and copper coins in her hand. She stowed them carefully away in the pocket of her petticoat, and then going down on her knees she hugged each little pig and kissed him on the top of his silly head before their new owner dropped them into his big saddlebags. They squealed wildly at first, but when Zorka patted them they settled down quietly on the straw with which the bags were lined.
The merchant took an orange and a shilling from his pocket. ‘Zorka Ivanova,’ he said gently, ‘you have taken good care of your pigs, and made them worth a fine price.’ With that he rode off in one direction, and soon Zorka and her aunt had packed their possessions and were turning in the other. Basilika went lightly, having sold her wares, but Zorka climbed the mountain with a pocketful of money, an orange, and a heartache.
TODOR’S BEST CLOTHES
The adventures of Todor began suddenly, one day, when he was going home from school with a strapful of books over his shoulder. He had almost reached home when a dog chasing a white kitten rushed madly from an alley. Instantly Todor swung his load of books into the dog’s face. The kitten escaped up a tree, but the angry dog sprang at Todor tearing his coat and biting his arm. At that moment two men appeared pursuing the dog, one with a pistol. There was a sharp crack and the dog rolled over dead.
‘He was mad!’ cried the frightened men. ‘You’ve no time to lose, Todor.’