murmur, and the neighbors, when they wanted some thing of the priest, always stopped first for advice at the sexton’s.
“The sexton must indeed be a worthy person,” the girl had always thought, but from the time that he so rudely showed her the door and struck Lišaj so smartly that, whimpering, he hopped on three legs all the way home, she always thought to herself, “You are not good at all,” whenever she met him.
How different it all was when Elška took Bára home with her to the parsonage every Thursday and Sunday. The moment the doorbell rang the maid would open the door and admit the two girls and also Lišaj, for their own dog got along well with him. Softly the two girls would go to the servants’ hall, climb up over the oven where Elška had her toys and dolls. The priest, who was an old man, used to sit on a bench at the table, and with his snuff-box and blue pocket handkerchief lying before him always dozed with his head leaning against the wall. Only once had he been awake; and when Bára ran to him to kiss his hand he patted her head, saying: “You’re a good little girl. Run away and play together now, my little maids!”
Also Miss Pepinka, the priest’s sister, was kind. She had no extensive conversation with Bára, although she liked to talk a good deal to the neighbor women, but she always gave her a big piece of bread with honey or a large muffin for lunch, larger than to Elška. Miss Pepinka was a short, little person who
