I do not know how long a time had passed since her disappearance, when a certain spring came with unusual rapture, swept across the meadows, drove the ice out of the river in a night and climbed the foothills of the Carpathians, leaving the big mountains still covered by snow. It was a Sunday and May-day, the Gypsies had gone to the houses of the nobility and also to the lesser folk, in whose pockets they suspected small change which they would lure out by their stirring music. The peasant lads had gathered at the inn and were boasting of their prowess in climbing May-poles and of their eagerness to climb an unusually tall and smooth one, at whose top tempting prizes of coloured neckerchiefs and bottles of palenka awaited the man who could make his boast true. The room in which the peasants gathered was a bare one, although a few coloured prints of anæmic-looking saints hung upon the once whitewashed wall. In one corner on the beaten earth floor was a bundle of straw which served as beds for poorer wayfarers, while the better furnished adjoining room was reserved for the higher class of guests, none of whom had yet arrived, as it was still early. Even when a boy I had a curious interest in people and always disregarded class distinctions. I wanted to see that May-day celebration as the peasants saw it. I wasn’t merely curious; I know that I celebrated with them. I felt sorry if the rain spoiled their holidays and that day was unusually happy because the weather was fine. A square-jawed, heavy-faced lad, whom my mother had hired to work in the field, was my sponsor and guide. He wore his very best and most gorgeous garments and from his rakish hat hung rather defiantly the feather of a cock with whose erstwhile owner, this youth, whose name was Shimek, shared his predilection for a fight. “First music, then a fight and after the fight, a girl to love.” This was Shimek’s Sunday program, although to do him justice, he went to church in the morning. One must not believe, though, that he was seriously concerned about his soul; for the plan of salvation, if he ever thought of it, was expressed by him in the song, sung by just such youths through many generations:
“He who can dance well
And payeth the fiddler
Angels will lift him
Up into heaven.”
While they had no fiddler to make merry for them, they had the goose girl’s father—who could evoke music out of a threshing flail. This he did by rubbing the flail over one of his fingers which he held on the table. The result was a rumbling sound, not unlike the monotonous notes of a bass viol. In a quavering voice he began singing to his accompaniment a familiar song, the swinging melody of which was snatched from his lips by the ever ready Shimek, who knew every song born in the merry heart of the Slovak and who taught me many of them, none of which I have forgotten. This is the song he sang:
“On the white mountain
The peasant ploweth,
Has a fine daughter,
Grant her me, Heaven!”
All the half-drunk guests sang the chorus:
“Hey, zuppy, zuppy, zupp,
Grant her me, Heaven!
Hey, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.”
Above the noisy chorus came the rumbling of Matushek’s improvised instrument which he rubbed over his fingers until the blood came spurting out. Even then he would not stop, until every verse was sung:
“O! if I had her,
I would rejoice so.
Three hundred dollars
Quickly I’d earn.
Huy, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.
“Dear little woman!
Three hundred dollars!
I’d make her travel
In a closed carriage.
Huy, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.
“Servants in front of her,
Servants behind her,
And they must call her
My high-born lady.
Huy, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.”