boy with him. He thereupon asked him the following day, whether he would like to go a walk with him, and when the little boy gleefully assented, Vojtech told him to ask his mother whether she would allow it. Vojtech himself did not wish to do so. He did not augur much success nor expect that the mother would give him leave, but he said to himself, “If the little boy is ready to the minute we will go together: if not, I shall go alone.”
Vojtech came at the exact hour to the Horskas’s and the little boy was ready—only there was yet something amiss with his little hat. Lidunka set it right and begged Vojtech to have a little patience. When it was put straight the master and his little pupil sallied forth.
They went beyond the ramparts. The grass smelt, sweetly, the fresh corn glistened, the lark quivered in the air. Everywhere there was so much life, so much joy, that it seemed as though the whole world frolicked and was playing farces.
The boy skipped about, here he picked up a beetle, here he plucked a flower, here he ran after a butterfly, until he was tired. Then they sat on a meadow. Vojtech cut a willow, made him fifes and whistled and the little boy fifed and whistled. Then he made him a cage, limed it in a neighbouring bush, and told him that the next time they came there would be a bird in it. The little boy could not be brought to believe that Vojtech could catch even a bird. Over the meadow they saw the shrew-mice running, in the stream darted little fishes, and before them on the bank strutted the water-wagtail. Vojtech allowed the boy the most complete liberty and he availed himself of it in full measure.
When they returned home in the evening Vojtech handed over the boy to Lidunka. That day he had seen her twice. Lidunka asked how her brother had behaved: of all this Vojtech only remembered the fact that he had seen Lidunka twice more.
When the next day Vojtech came to teach, the boy was quite metamorphosed. He at once sat on Vojtech’s knee and even after they had begun their lessons, asked him if the bird would soon be caught. Vojtech said that perhaps that very day it had been caught, and that they must go in the afternoon to see. The boy clapped his two hands and read as though post-haste and as if by reading quickly he would the sooner make it afternoon.
When Vojtech called for him in the afternoon he was dressed and ready. Lidunka led him by the hand and said that he could not wait a moment longer, that their mother had wished to take him a walk herself but that he had quite refused to go.
