Clara Vostrovsky Winlow

“ Then the Revolution came, and, as the prisoners were freed, the Czechs and Slovaks flocked to their own colors, and I with them. If I live forever I shall never forget how I felt when I found myself among my own people, our red and white flag waving over us, and heard the band play our "Kde domov muj."
When we had to swear our oath of loyalty to Francis Joseph before leaving Austria-Hungary, all Czech and Slovak soldiers mumbled the words. ”

“ The country through which they now passed was tiresomely flat and covered with small birch and fir trees. After they had gone some distance it began to snow in thick cloud-like masses and the wind began to blow the snow about as if in violent play. Juhani did very well considering that this was his first reindeer ride. He managed to stay in the sled even when the reindeer bumped it hard against the trees. Fortunately the deep furrows in the road helped steady the sleighs, and Juhani began to feel proud of himself when finally the Lapp settlement came into view. ”

“ The National Council took over the government of the Czecho-Slovak countries, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Slovakia, all of [115] them formerly belonging to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
It was a bloodless revolution, for the Austrian Government realized the hopelessness of its position.
All the great sufferings through which they had passed—the hunger, the fear, the grief—were forgotten by the people in the great joy of their liberation. Old men embraced each other; old women wept in each other's arms with happiness that they had lived to see the day. ”

“ Before New Year's with its special significance came, a guest arrived from Helsingfors. It was Juhani and Maja's aunt, a woman who had achieved some renown in the Capital as an architect.
They enjoyed her vivid descriptions of how the snow there was daily shoveled from the pavements, and how when you step on what remains it screams: "A hard winter! A hard winter!"
"We haven't gone in for as much ice yachting as usual," she remarked, rather sadly, the children thought. "The times are too unsettled." ”

“ It was not until he was alone with his mother that night that Jonitza mentioned his desire to see Nicolaia at the market on the morrow. His mother put her arms around him. "It is a long time since I've gone to market. Suppose I go to-morrow morning and take you with me?"
"How good a mother is," Jonitza thought as he went to bed, "and how well she understands a boy."
"'WILL YOU NOT LET ME TAKE YOU HOME IN THE CAR?'"
It was delightfully cool next morning when a touring car took them to what seemed a village of booths or stalls, presided over by gypsies, peasants and Jews. ”

“ Through ceaseless battling for their rights, through pride in their great accomplishment in the face of great obstruction, the Czechs held their heads as high as the inhabitants of independent lands. It is an interesting fact that every poet, every musician, every artist felt it his duty to devote his art to his native land.
And here it might be well to state that the Czech of Bohemia, although often called Bohemian, has absolutely nothing in common with the Bohemian meaning gypsy. This term was once applied to some gypsies in France, through a misapprehension that they came from Bohemia. ”

“ On Tuesday of the following week Jonitza, his mother, and the maid Maritza, after a short trip on the train, were being driven over the vast level and wonderfully fertile plains of Roumania, that stretched before them like a great green sea. There were already signs that the short spring that Roumania has would soon change into summer. Wild flowers were to be seen here and there and birds twittered and flew about. ”

“ Jozef and Janik were surprised. They had had no idea that the girls were in the cellar. They had gone into Janik's storeroom for some raw sour-kraut, and Janik had related how his big brother had ventured quite a distance into one of the passage-ways the week before. "Let's go, too," had suggested Jozef. Both boys had run home for some lanterns, never dreaming that they should meet the girls.
"Huh," grunted Jozef, after Ruzena's embrace, not yet comprehending. And when the boys did comprehend, well—it was rather nice to be treated like heroes! ”

“ But what chance have we to develop our brains when we haven't a single Higher School where the Slovak language is taught? When every opportunity is cut off from one if he somehow manages to educate himself, unless he turns traitor to his mother tongue and swears that he is a Magyar? ”

“ Winter had fully set in when Jonitza and his parents returned to their home city of Galatz. It was intensely cold, for the winds from Russia's vast steppes meet no hindrance in striking the great plains along the lower part of the Danube River. The snow lay heavy on roads and houses, while sprays of icicles hung low from the trees and bushes and even from the noses of toiling cattle. The Danube itself was frozen and would remain so for at least three months. Even the Black Sea further away was ice covered for several miles' distance from shore. ”

“ Maja began to hum a folk song, to which Juhani soon whistled a tune while he kept one hand on a sheathed knife, called a pukko, hanging from the belt around his waist. It was no wonder he was conscious and proud that it hung there. When his father had given it to him a few days before, he had said, "You are beginning to do man's work, Juhani, and so I think that you deserve [6] a man's knife." ”

“ The gallant exploits of the Czecho-Slovak army in Siberia won the attention and sympathy of the world to and for their hopes and sacrifices in the cause of freedom. Fighting the Germanic Powers was not a new thing to them. Bohemia, the chief of the Czecho-Slovak states, has always been the battlefield between Slav and Teuton. All that of which Bohemia is proud to-day was won inch by inch through incessant struggle, through bringing to bear every force of civilization possible, on the German rulers. Bohemia's leaders emphasized the need of education ”

“ And Juhani never did.
The boy won the favor of a driver of one of the short sledges on which the cut-down trees, rough hewn with axes and with the bark peeled off, were drawn, and he sometimes had a ride with him to the lake where men stalked the logs on the banks. On these trips, although he said nothing, he hardly knew whether he admired most how the driver guided the horses over the difficult ground or the intelligence of the alert little Finnish horses themselves. ”

“ Nicolaia, who was a short distance behind, stopped so suddenly that he almost lost his balance. There, stretched out between the two boys, lay two long shiny snakes sunning themselves and apparently paying no heed to what had happened.
Nicolaia recovered himself first. He grasped tight hold of his shepherd staff and approached. "Pshaw!" he called disdainfully, to Jonitza on the other side. "They're harmless." Then jumping without fear over them, he ran to where his companion, panting hard, was leaning against a bowlder. ”

“ Will a time never come when the world recognizes the crime of using force to make people false to their own traditions?" he exclaimed. "To outsiders the Magyars boast of their liberal constitution, of the freedom granted to other nations in the kingdom. We who have no opportunities, who are not allowed a single higher school of our own, nor even a single Magyar Higher School where our language is taught, know what a lie this is. And what advantage is the Magyar language to our children outside of Hungary? ”