Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/295

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On Condition: or Pensioned Off.
89

You, verily! You will be hospodar six years longer, you will dwell in the farm house, you are still master there. Oh! oh! things will grow worse and worse until they crack, and until you are mast-headed on yonder balcony whence your father looked at the farm house, because he did not dare to cross the courtyard.”

As Vena said these words Barushka came out bearing a message “from Joseph, you know, papa dear,” to the effect that during harvest time the old people could take up their abode with her mother in the pension house, and that the young folk would shift into the farm house. “We have so much to do, and it is so tiring to run to the pension house and then back again to the farm,” she remarked. After this she marched off as though she had already gained her father-in-law’s consent to this arrangement.

“Look, look, yonder, pantata, the maids are already heaving you out of the nest,” said Vena. And forth from the farm house the maid servants were already carrying Loyka’s furniture.

“So! you are to be shelved instanter” said Vena. “See! see! I did think that they would have waited a little longer. You did bear with your father in the house a certain time. But youth develops faster now-a-days. See! see!”

Old Loyka turned his eyes to the entrance hall. “Dear Vena,” he said, and took him by the hand. “Come and help me, and let us make mince meat of it all.”