Our Little Polish Cousin

by Florence Emma Voigt Mendel

What a happy reunion! Such hugging and bustle! All the children of the Ostrowski family were once more gathered together under the home-roof for the Christmas season, which was now at the beginning.

Mr. Ostrowski, the father, was a tall man of spare build; he had the kind, blue eye of the Slav and his heavy head of brown hair was tinged slightly with white. He wore a long coat, quite resembling a dressing-gown, edged with fur about the bottom and along the front, and tied about his waist with a long sash of crimson silk. This was the house costume of Mr. Ostrowski, who leaned toward the former luxurious style of dress in Poland.

His wife was a handsome woman, even in her elderly years; her complexion was as fresh and rosy as a young matron's, and her eye as soft a blue as in her younger days. The Polish women of culture do not age; they live a life of luxury and ease, and Time is gentle with them. But for all their seeming idleness they devote many hours of each day among their poor, and Mrs. Ostrowska was no exception to this rule.

Besides the father and mother, there was the younger brother, Peter, a tall, manly-looking fellow of about sixteen years, and Marya, the young sister, who had just passed her fourteenth birthday. Then there was the married sister, Mrs. Lechowicz, her husband and two sons, Francis and Frederic, and the oldest brother, Jan Ostrowski, with his wife and two children, Ignace and Marcella. You may well believe there was much to tell each other, and a great deal of commotion, for the married children lived in dwórs of their own or in the city, and were separated, not only by distance, but by family cares and business interests, so that it was not more often than at the Christmas season they were able to meet.

Jan Teczynski was overwhelmed with so many cousins and aunts and uncles; he was but five years old, and had not made their acquaintance before. He gazed about him in wonderment at all he saw; he could not withdraw his big, blue eyes from the immense boar's head which decorated the chimney-piece, and he asked all sorts of questions concerning it. It amused the older children immensely to hear him ask who had killed it. When told his grandfather had done so, he was very proud to think that his grandfather had been so brave; then he wanted to know if the boar had hurt grandfather with his sharp, curved tusks; but Mr. Ostrowski laughingly told him he had not been harmed, whereupon Jan seemed much relieved. But when he inquired if grandfather was sure the boar had been quite dead before he had cut off its head, the other children burst into roars of merriment. Jan didn't think it a matter to laugh over at all, but from that day he regarded his grandfather as one of the bravest men in the whole world.

The young folks now made off for sports of their own, while Mrs. Teczynska, much fatigued after her long and tiresome journey, went at once to her room to rest before luncheon should be served.

The maid-servant carried up the valises and bags of Mrs. Teczynska and set them down in the room that she had occupied from childhood. Fresh, hot water being brought by yet another maid, and cool drinking water placed upon the night-stand by the side of the great bed, the servants retired and left Mrs. Teczynska alone in her old, familiar room.

It was a very large room, as are all the rooms in Polish homes. The floor was beautifully inlaid in a fancy design with hardwoods of two colors, and polished so highly one had to walk carefully so as not to fall. Against one wall stood a magnificent stove of white glazed tile, with a door of shining brass, most exquisitely designed, and which could be closed so tightly that not one bit of dust or ash could penetrate through into the room. The peculiarity of this stove was, that only half of it was in the room; the other half extended into the adjoining room, so that, in this manner, one stove did duty for two rooms, thus saving expense, space and chimneys. It reached, too, quite to the ceiling; but, as the ceiling was low, it was not as tall as many other European stoves.

And the bed! It looked quite like any other wooden bed, but what a covering! There were no sheets or blankets such as we have. Instead, there was a blue silk comforter of down, so light you would have thought there was nothing in it, daintily tied here and there with little strands of silk. This silk comforter was put over a white linen sheet, much larger every way than the comforter; the edges were then folded over the silk and buttoned to it, the button-holes being worked in the border of the sheet and the buttons placed upon the comforter. At the top, which we usually turn over the blanket, the sheet was shaped like a triangle. In the middle of the point was worked the monogram of the hostess, while the remainder of the space was filled with the most elaborate and exquisite embroidery imaginable, done by the young peasant girls upon the estate. This was not a "company" sheet; no, indeed, not at all; the same kind was used every day in the week and in the year. The pillows, too, were covered with blue silk, and over this was buttoned, just to fit, a handsome pillow-case all inset with lace insertion so that the color of the silk beneath might show through. What a luxurious bed in which to sleep! It certainly was inviting.