[6] Breakfast.
CHAPTER V
THE FAIR OF HAROM-SZÖLÖHOZ
The village of Harom-Szölöhoz lies on the edge of the plain, where the rolling lands sweep toward the hills and those in turn to the mountains.
Many of the men of the village were sheep or cattle herders, as Emeric Semeyer, living with their herds and seldom returning home save for high days and holidays. Others dwelt in the villages and worked in the grain fields, while still others worked in the salt mines each year for some months at least, for the salt mines of Hungary are famous the world over, and employ many labourers.
It was a pleasant little village. In the centre was an open space around which was clustered the church, with the town house and the larger houses. All the cottages were white-washed, and had gray-shingled roofs. Some of them had gay little flower gardens and a few had trees planted by the doorway. Their shade is not needed, for though the sun is hot, there is always the szöhördo to sit in. This is a seat placed under the eaves which always overhang at one side of the roof. Here often the firewood is stacked and one log serves as a seat upon which the old people may sit and gossip, protected alike from sun and rain.
Upon the doorway of Aszszony Semeyer's house were carved some tulips, a pattern much used in Hungary. In the porch of the house dried kukurut and paprika hung in long ribbons to dry. The front door opened into the kitchen where the soup pot simmered upon the huge brick stove. Many of the cottages in this part of Hungary have but one room, but Aszszony Semeyer was rich and she had two rooms and a loft above. She kept the house wonderfully clean, yet she always seemed to have plenty of time to sit at the window and embroider varrotas. The varrotas are Hungarian embroideries worked with red and black and blue threads upon linen cloth the colour of pale ochre. The thread and linen is woven by the women, and in nearly every cottage in the village some one may be seen seated at the window spinning, weaving, or embroidering.
Aszszony Semeyer's father had been one of the beres[7] employed by the Tablabiro,[8] and he had been able to leave his daughter, for he had no sons, a cottage and some money, so that she was better off than many of the village people. This did not keep her from working hard, for all Magyars are industrious and hard working. She did not intend that any one under her care should be idle; and Banda Bela found that he and Marushka must work if they were to eat.