Yet the farmer frowned, and his wife said slowly: "What does this mean?"
"This means--this is what I've brought back from my journey," replied George, who saw a storm rising which he wished for the present to avoid. Yet he did not release "what he had brought," but held her firmly by the hand.
"What does this mean? How came you by the child?" cried the farmer angrily, and his wife sharply added:
"The girl looks like a gipsy! Where did you pick her up! Out with the whole story."
Jovica, who during the journey had greatly enlarged her knowledge of the language, understood that the people before her were George's parents, but she also perceived their unkind reception. Tears filled her dark eyes, and she timidly repeated the words of greeting she had been taught "How do you do?" But the foreign accent completely enraged the mother.
"She can't even speak German," she cried furiously. "That's a pretty thing! Do you mean to bring her to us at the Moosbach Farm?"
"I won't have it!" said the farmer emphatically. "We want no foreign gipsies in the house. Let the girl go, and come with us; we're going home."
But George was not the man to leave his Jovica in the lurch. He only drew her closer to his side and answered with resolute defiance:
"Where the girl stays I shall stay, and if she cannot come to the farm I'll never return home. You must not scold me about Jovica, my dear parents, for, to tell the truth, I have chosen her for my wife."
His parents stood as if they had been struck by a thunderbolt, staring at their son as though they thought people might lose not only their heads but their wits in Krivoscia. Then a storm burst forth on both sides; it was fortunate that, in the general rejoicing, each person was absorbed in his own friends, and everybody was shouting and talking as loud in delight as Farmer Moosbach and his wife in their wrath, or there would have been a great excitement.