"And how shall I get along? And my colt? And my house? And who'll look after the hens? Let me weep, comare Sidora! It would have been better if I had died instead of that good soul."
"Hush, hush! you don't know what you are saying, and you don't know what a house without its head is!"
"That is true," assented compare Meno, comforted.
"Just take example from poor comare Angela! First, her husband died; then her grown-up son, and now her ass is also dying."
"The ass ought to be bled in the belly, if it has the colic," said compare Meno.
"Come, you know all about such things," suggested the neighbor. "Do a work of charity for the sake of your wife's soul."
Compare Meno got up to go to comare Angela's, and the little orphan ran behind him like a chicken, now that she had no one else in the world. Comare Sidora, good housewife that she was, called him back.
"And the house? How have you left it, now that there is no one there to look after it?"
"I locked the door, and besides cousin Alfia lives opposite, and will keep an eye on it."
Neighbor Angela's ass lay stretched out in the midst of the yard, with his muzzle cold and his ears hanging, every now and then kicking his four legs into the air whenever the colic made him draw in his sides like a pair of bellows. The widow crouching in front of him on the rocks, with her hands clenching her gray hair, and her eyes dry and despairing, was watching him, pale as a corpse.