"I should love to," the young girl replied, as her face brightened. She was glad of the opportunity to get away from the confinement of the hut and the household duties for a short time, and this meant an afternoon of extreme pleasure for her. All the peasant girls loved to be invited to the manor, for a cup of warm, delicious tea served with lemon, and pirogi, those most delectable cakes filled with almond meal which were such luxuries to them, awaited them.
"I have a woman coming from Cracow," Mrs. Ostrowska continued, as she rose to leave, "who is bringing some very pretty little trinkets from the city. I should like to have you there to make a selection of such as you would care to have."
"You are more than kind," the girl replied, in a low voice. "You are always thinking of our pleasure and happiness."
"That is my duty," the older woman answered; "you are all my children, and I must give you as much happiness as I can, for some day you will be beyond my care and protection, and will have no one but your Jan to look after you."
Again the girl blushed a deep red, and the tender look returned to her soft eyes at the mention of her fiancé. She escorted her patroness to the door of the cottage and closed it after her. Then she resumed her tasks about the kitchen, giving the little ones their meal of barszcz and a slice cut from a cake of cabbage which had been pressed into a solid loaf.
Mrs. Ostrowska was glad to be in the clear, crisp air once more, after the stifling atmosphere of the cottage, for her peasants were slow to learn the value of ventilation. As she continued her way down the road toward the manor-house, she thought of her "young people," as she called them fondly, for she took a personal interest in each of them, whether large or small, girl or boy.
She reviewed their lives, as they live them from one generation to the other. How they roll and toss upon the floor of their cabins or upon the greensward, in unconscious bliss of childhood. How they attain the age of youth when they must begin to help share the burdens of the elders either in the fields or the mills, if they be boys, or in spinning and caring for the helpless ones at home, if they be girls. How they grow up to manhood and womanhood with very little time for pleasures and holidays, for all hands must take hold that the weight may not fall upon one. How finally, the young girls attain the age of fifteen or more, when they are allowed to consider the question of marriage. Then comes to them courters, and love enters into their lives, to brighten the eye and redden the cheek. They live for months and months upon the delights they will experience in attending church, the wedding procession, and the carrying-off of the bride; then the settling down in their own nests. After that, they are no longer helpers in the household, they are the mainstays of their own homes, and they realize then what it really means to be home-makers. They take up their cares and their duties; they arise early, but then, they have always been used to that; they must spin and knit, and sew and darn, and there are no other fingers to help them. For many years they must do all, until the little fingers are big enough and strong enough to aid. Sometimes, they must go out into the forest and gather fagots for their fires so that the little one may not suffer from the chill; they must learn the wonderful art of making a few pence do duty of many. And year by year passes; they see their daughters grow up to that age when they, in turn, must leave their homes for homes of their own; they see their sons going away to the army or to other lands, perhaps, to seek their fortunes; and thus, from generation to generation, they continue in this routine, living in memory, throughout those days when their lives are filled with busy cares, that day, so long ago, when they drove to the village church, the bridal veil falling about their slender shoulders, the wedding supper and the gay dance, and the clamor of voices as they rolled away with their loved ones in the village cart for the honeymoon. And all the burdens of their lives, all the toil, all the care and the endless sameness are more than compensated for by that one glorious day of their existence—their wedding day.
Mrs. Ostrowska planned and planned how she could educate these peasants in such wise as to fit them for more than mere care-takers; that they might learn a little of the refinements of life, and that, by education, they might gradually raise themselves to a higher and better plane. Her work was slow, but she felt that already she could see signs of having accomplished something material of betterment in their lives.