‘Terribly,’ said Draga. ‘The King was killed, and all the country conquered.’
‘But why, then——’ began Mary, but stopped, afraid of hurting their feelings; evidently they saw nothing strange in making it the chief holiday of the year. Later, on the way home, she stopped short in the street with the baby in her arms.
‘We don’t seem to do things right in Serbia,’ she said with a troubled face.
‘Why not?’ snapped Peter and Pavlo, who had come round the corner. ‘What’s the matter? Why?’
‘Why,’ said Mary, confused, ‘in America they have a great holiday to celebrate a victory. But here we celebrate a defeat. I don’t like it. We ought to have a victory day too.’ And Mary began to describe the American Fourth of July, its flags and ice cream, its brass bands and processions and fireworks, until it seemed to the boys that the American children must live in a perpetual circus.
‘That’s grand,’ said Pavlo, ‘but every country doesn’t have the same history, and so they don’t have the same kind of fête days. Grandmother says the reason we keep Kossovo Day is because, although the Serbian army was beaten, the Serbian spirit was not. That burned brighter and stronger than ever in the day of defeat. And you can be great, even if you don’t conquer and do grand things.’
‘Yes, that’s so,’ said Mary slowly; ‘I can see that Serbia is great, and I’m going to be proud of Kossovo Day!’
That night Mary wrote a long letter to Mamie Barnes.
‘Dear Mamie,’ it began, ‘We had our Serbian Fourth of July to-day. I danced the kola with the rest. It’s easy; there are no fancy steps. But it is too slow. The women looked lovely! They had strings of great gold coins on their heads and round their necks. Solid gold! And jackets of purple and orange, embroidered with silver and green. It was just like vaudeville. And they had ribbons fastened to their caps behind, four inches wide and covered with flowers. The sash ribbons in Benton’s store can’t touch them. They would make lovely doll’s dresses and pincushions and things for Christmas. But there weren’t any fireworks. Just think, they celebrate a defeat here! At first I thought that was strange, but Peter’s grandmother says it’s because their army and not their soul was beaten. And it’s better to be great than to do great things. I guess that’s harder, too, because if you’re going to do something you can just go ahead and finish it, but if you’re going to be something you’ve got to be it all the time.
Your loving friend
Mary