chambers were open all the year round; any one who had no roof of his own might take up his quarters in them. And they were occupied all the year round, strolling musicians roosted like birds of passage.
Tinklers tarried there till they had mended all the Loykas’s pots and pans and those of the whole of Frishets.
The kalounkar [tape-pedlar] who walked from Domazlik, and only occasionally went home for goods, dwelt in the Loykas’s chambers as though he were at home with all his family. Sometimes he was there several Sundays, got his victuals from Loyka’s kitchen, and had not even to say thank you for them. So it had been all his life long. The kalounkar’s grandfather and great-grandfather had received hospitality there from the Loykas—then, how could they refuse him a home there? Surely they would call down the wrath of heaven upon themselves should they venture to dismiss him. The kalounkar [tape-pedlar] was himself born there, his present young family was born there, the old Loykas were sponsors in baptism to the old kalounkar, the younger Loykas were sponsors to the wee kalounkars, so now there was a family connection. The Loykas would have felt ill at ease if at certain particular seasons they had been without kalounkar and without tinkers. Perhaps if their humble friends had not been at their house, the Loykas would have sent to search the district for them. At pilgrimage times, at festival times, or about the season of the village gala-they must needs be at the Loykas’s several Sundays before the great event, and several Sundays after it. So that, indeed, there were but few occasions in the year when they were absent.
Besides the kalounkar who sold ribbons, the cloth-pedlar walked the district, and he had even his stores at the Loykas’s. On Monday he drew forth from his chest various samples, beside cloth, all kinds of kerchiefs and stuffs for dresses, then he waited several days until Sunday drew nigh, or until the vigil of the village gala, and then he shouldered his pack and went. If it rained or if the weather was threatening, he did not sally forth, and all that time was an extra hand at table in common with the other servants.
And many an occasion occurred, moreover, when Loyka’s hospitality was reckoned upon or missed. People came to have their sieves mended or their knives ground, and also people drove or walked round by the Loykas’s with their implements from the field.
