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Neighbour Rosicky
by
After that Fourth of July day in Park Place, the desire to return to the country never left him. To work on another man’s farm would be all he asked; to see the sun rise and set and to plant things and watch them grow. He was a very simple man. He was like a tree that has not many roots, but one tap-root that goes down deep. He subscribed for a Bohemian paper printed in Chicago, then for one printed in Omaha. His mind got farther and farther west. He began to save a little money to buy his liberty. When he was thirty-five, there was a great meeting in New York of Bohemian athletic societies, and Rosicky left the tailor shop and went home with the Omaha delegates to try his fortune in another part of the world.
IV
Perhaps the fact that his own youth was well over before he began to have a family was one reason why Rosicky was so fond of his boys. He had almost a grandfather’s indulgence for them. He had never had to worry about any of them- except, just now, a little about Rudolph.
On Saturday night the boys always piled into the Ford, took little Josephine, and went to town to the moving-picture show. One Saturday morning they were talking at the breakfast table about starting early that evening, so that they would have an hour or so to see the Christmas things in the stores before the show began. Rosicky looked down the table.
“I hope you boys ain’t disappointed, but I want you to let me have de car tonight. Maybe some of you can go in with de neighbours.”
Their faces fell. They worked hard all week, and they were still like children. A new jack-knife or a box of candy pleased the older ones as much as the little fellow.
“If you and mother are going to town,” Frank said, “maybe you could take a couple of us along with you, anyway.”‘
“No, I want to take de car down to Rudolph’s, and let him an’ Polly go in to de show. She don’t git into town enough, an’ I’m afraid she’s gettin’ lonely some, an’ he can’t afford no car yet.”
That settled it. The boys were a good deal dashed. Their father took another piece of apple-cake and went on: “Maybe next Saturday night de two little fellers can go along wid dem.”
“Oh, is Rudolph going to have the car every Saturday night?”
Rosicky did not reply at once; then he began to speak seriously: “Listen, boys; Polly ain’t lookin’ so good. I don’t like to see nobody lookin’ sad. It comes hard fur a town girl to be a farmer’s wife. I don’t want no trouble to start in Rudolph’s family. When it starts, it ain’t so easy to stop. An American girl don’t git used to our ways all at once. I like to tell Polly she and Rudolph can have the car every Saturday night till after New Year’s, if it’s all right with you boys.”
“Sure, it’s all right, papa,” Mary cut in.”And it’s good you thought about that. Town girls is used to more than country girls. I lay awake nights, scared she’ll make Rudolph discontented with the farm.”
The boys put as good a face on it as they could. They surely looked forward to their Saturday nights in town. That evening Rosicky drove the car the half-mile down to Rudolph’s new, bare little house.
Polly was in a short-sleeved gingham dress, clearing away the supper dishes. She was a trim, slim little thing, with blue eyes and shingled yellow hair, and her eyebrows were reduced to a mere brush-stroke, like Miss Pearl’s.