Jozef soon felt one of the family in the excellent home in which he boarded. Nothing pleased the good-hearted house mother more than his usually hearty appetite, and she seldom failed to applaud it by some quaint folk saying, as "A hearty eater is a hearty worker." She had no patience with fussiness about selection of food, and if she saw any would exclaim: "He who is fussy about his food, may learn to think any cheese would be good."
In the first days of his stay, Jozef accompanied her once to a market day in the Square. The farmers seemed to him to have brought a little of every kind of food that one could wish for. There was sweet home-churned butter, cottage and other cheese, eggs, poultry, vegetables, fruit, honey, mushrooms, poppy seed for cakes, and grain of all kinds.
In school Jozef was now in what was called the Lower Gymnasium. He had to be in the school building, which was not far from his boarding place, at a quarter to eight in the morning. Sundays and Thursdays were holidays. The school exercises began by all the pupils repeating the Lord's Prayer and Ave Maria. After that the time was devoted to the regular studies. The classes were named by Latin numerals, prima, secunda, etc. to octava.
At ten o'clock came a short recess, in which the children of the Lower Gymnasium played ball; those of the upper thought it below their dignity to do so. Sometimes instead, the pupils indulged in a little lunch by buying buttered bread, cheese, or fruit from the janitor.
Whenever a Professor entered the room or left it, all the children stood up as a sign of respect.
Jozef soon came to share the devotion of the children to the teacher, a man of delicate health but great spiritual vision, who constantly called the attention of the pupils to the idealism found in Bohemian (Czech) history. Through him the pupils learned, too, that Austria was largely parasite, living on Czech wealth; that the Czechs paid sixty-two per cent of all the taxes in Austria to support passive non-Slav lands; that eighty-three per cent of Austrian coal was mined in Bohemia; that sixty per cent of the iron was found there; that ninety per cent of beet sugar factories were located there; that textile and other industries were important. They also learned that the renowned Bohemian glass employs over fifty thousand workers; that there are excellent highways, extending to ten thousand miles, and several important railroad lines; that one-third of all the gold and silver mined in Hungary is mined in neglected Slovakia. Jozef was particularly impressed by the fact that despite all the discrimination of the Government against the Czech schools, the Czechs were by far the most literate people of the monarchy.
History came to be Jozef's favorite study. He devoted much time particularly to the glorious reign of Charles I, known also as Emperor Charles IV, who probably did more for Bohemia than any other monarch.
One of the teacher's favorites was King George (Jiri) of Podebrad, sometimes called the "Heretic King of Bohemia." Jozef did not appreciate his full significance and was more interested in the stories told of his jester, whose name was Palecek.
Palecek was no ordinary jester. He was an educated man of noble birth, who by playing the fool could often tell truths other courtiers dared not utter. Because he addressed every one, even the King with his permission, as "Brother," he himself came to be known as "Brother Palecek." One thing Brother Palecek felt as a particular duty was to keep the King in lively humor, for the cares of state were very heavy at the time.
Once the King gave a large dinner. At his table sat the Queen, princes and princesses, and the highest nobles of the realm. The younger nobles and others who served the King sat at a table apart. When Brother Palecek arrived, he was not very well pleased at being placed at this lower table. Soon he had another grievance; big fish were being passed to the King and those around him, while only little fish with many bones, came to the table at which he sat.