Friends in strange garments

by Anna Milo Upjohn

The whole village was spread out below like something embroidered on a green cloth, and across it ran the thick silver thread of the river. On the farm by the bridge Jaroslav’s mother must be working in the fields. Lidka, his sister, was probably putting the house in order or washing the baby. Jaroslav looked for smoke from the chimney, but there was none. Perhaps Lidka was in the garden picking beans. Yes, there was something red moving. He sprang to his feet, and putting his hands to his mouth, gave a piercing cry, as he had so often done when he saw people moving about below. There was no sign that Lidka had heard him, and with a sigh Jaroslav settled down to his solitary day with Flick.

It was vacation; otherwise Jaroslav would have been in school. He was glad to be able to earn something during the holidays, and it was not hard work looking after the cows, though neither he nor Flick dared to drowse during the hot afternoons, for if a cow wandered among the rocks she might stumble and break a leg. Jaroslav spent a great deal of time with his violin, playing over all the tunes he had heard and composing new ones. The one he liked best he called a Hillside Song. It began with the sigh of the wind in the pines, then a bird’s song broke across it and died away. Again, the wind swept through the trees and brought the cling-clang of cow bells and the slipping march of cattle winding their way down the wood path. All this Jaroslav had tried to put into music. He had worked hard for weeks, and now he could play it smoothly.

Sometimes Jaroslav brought a book with him. He loved to read about the heroes of his own land. But having only one book, and that a heavy one, he preferred to keep it for Sundays, when he would read aloud to Lidka and her friends about the great deeds of Czech men and women. He pondered these stories as he sat alone until they became very real to him.

First, there was the story of Cech, the founder of the Bohemian kingdom. More than a thousand years before, he and his brother Lech had separated from the rest of their tribe because there was not grazing space for all their cattle. Through this very country they must have passed, and perhaps looked up at this very rock as they followed the course of the river with their thousands of cattle and horses, their families and household goods in ox-carts, seeking new homes. On and on they trekked westward, until they came to the mountain called ‘Rip,’ which rises like a cone from the plain.

But what most often filled Jaroslav’s mind was the story of the ‘Great Amber Road,’ an ancient route that hundreds of years before even Cech’s time ran from Pressburg straight up to the Baltic Sea. It had been little more than a trail for trappers and adventurers, at first, and led through dark forests full of wild beasts. But over it passed many traders in search of amber, in those days a strange, new treasure, found on the shores of the Baltic. Men risked their lives to get it, as they risk them now in wild countries for gold, and when they had found it they sold it at a great price to Roman and Greek merchants, who had it carved into ornaments and amulets, and often into cups and bowls, which were studded with jewels and used in the houses of princes.

Ages before Jaroslav’s time, barbaric people had broken loose across the country and stopped all trade. The Romans had disappeared and the Great Amber Road had been forgotten and stretches of it lost entirely. Nevertheless it must be there, if only one could find and follow it, and no doubt at the end there were still beds of the precious amber. Jaroslav longed to rediscover it, as men have longed to find the North Pole.

Flick spent most of the day chasing rabbits. There were hundreds of them in the fields and along the edge of the woods. Often they came down to the village and did great damage in the gardens by destroying the sugar beets, the lettuce and the cabbages. While Flick was romping after the rabbits, Jaroslav would grow restless, put down his violin and climb a tree. Then he would glance sadly down on the little house, the white pigeons on the roof, the garden, and the twisted plum tree. Before the war, life had been gay there. His father had made a good living by cutting and hauling timber. They had had a cow and a horse and even a cart. But their father had gone away with the army; the horse and the cow had been taken by the Austrians, and though they had been paid something for the cow, it was not enough to get another. Their mother had had to buy a goat, instead. There was far less milk than there used to be, and no butter at all. When the war was over their father came back from Russia, sick, and before the year was out he died.

It had been a very sad year, and it would have been much sadder except for the baby. It was Lidka who took care of him and the house, for their mother now had to work on a big farm, and was gone all day. When Jaroslav came down from the pastures, he weeded and spaded in the garden, because cabbages, potatoes and beans made a large part of their food.

Jaroslav and Lidka used often to talk of what they would do when they grew up. Jaroslav would have a trade and Lidka would make beautiful embroideries. Thus they would earn enough to make everything easy for their mother. They talked of the Great Amber Road, too, and tried to trace on the map where it must have run. For them the wealth of amber had the fascination that Captain Kidd’s treasure has had for American boys and girls. But it took a long time to grow up, and in the meantime it troubled Jaroslav that he could find no way of earning more than he did earn by guarding the village cows. On Saturday night, when he was paid for the week’s work, he never had more than six or eight crowns to take home. At such times he thought longingly of the Great Amber Road and the treasure that he felt sure lay at the end of it.

To-day was Saturday, and as he looked out over the sunny landscape he said to himself that there was no use in merely dreaming of the Great Amber street. He must really start on his quest if he meant to succeed. ‘I’ll go to-morrow,’ he said, ‘while Mother and Lidka are at church. I can take the week’s wage with me, and when it is gone I will play for my meals.’