'He would never have made a peasant; he was such a peculiar child, he didn't care for farm work; all he cared for was roaming about and gazing into the river.'
'Yes, and he would talk to the grass and the birds, I have heard it myself,' said Maciek, 'and many times have I thought: "Poor thing! what will you do when you grow up? You'd be a queer fish even among gentlefolk, but what will it be like for you among the peasants?"'
In the evening Slimak carried Stasiek on to the bed in the alcove; his mother laid two copper coins on his eyes and lit the candle in front of the Madonna.
They put down straw in the room, but neither of them could sleep; Burek howled all night, Magda was feverish; Jendrek continually raised himself from the straw, for he fancied his brother had moved. But Stasiek did not move.
In the morning Slimak made a little coffin; carpentering came so easily to him that he could not help smiling contentedly at his own work now and then. But when he remembered what he was doing, he was seized with such passionate grief that he threw down his tools and ran out, he knew not whither.
On the third day Maciek harnessed the horses to the cart, and they drove to the village church, Jendrek keeping close to the coffin and steadying it, so that it should not rock. He even tapped, and listened if his brother were not calling.
But Stasiek was silent. He was silent when they drove to the church, silent when the priest sprinkled holy water on him, silent when they took him to his grave and his father helped the gravedigger to lower him, and when they threw clods of earth upon him and left him alone for the first time.
Even Maciek burst into tears. Slimak hid his face in his sukmana like a
Roman senator and would not let his grief be looked upon.
And a voice in his heart whispered: 'Father! father! if you had made a fence, your child would not have been drowned!'
But he answered: 'I am not guilty; he died because his hour had come.'