Jan Klecanda

“ It is he! It is the old man!” echoed from every pair of lips, and the participants in the celebration parade in excited haste flew to the school. The music became silent, but the mortars kept on booming in exultant triumph.
“The key! Quick, give me the key!” screamed Joseph like one stark mad, rushing at Schlosser. Apolenka burst into sobs, the children set up a wail, Schlosser uttered oath after oath, while his wife, beholding the horrible scene, sank to the ground and rolled about in spasms. ”

“ Then he quickly followed Schlosser and the manager out to the courtyard and they hastened to enter the carriage.
Old Nešněra picked himself up from the floor and with clenched fists, flying locks of gray, looking more like a specter than a man, ran out after his son. The neighbors who had stepped aside for the gentlemen intercepted his way, fearing that something would happen.
“Let me go, let me go! I’d rather kill him with my own hands than to have him—” ejaculated the old man in a voice resembling the roaring of an animal more than the tones of a human being. ”

“ None of my sons is ashamed of his father, even if he is only a Halama—”
“Eh, those are only speeches.” Nešněra waved his hand vexedly, drowning his discomfiture in a glass.
“Speeches they are, but not empty ones! No evasions, you understand?” Halama would not permit himself to be interrupted once having gotten into the current. “And it is true that you can do as you please with your own property. You’re not sinning against any legal ordinance nor can anyone send you to court for it. But you are committing a sin against your own people on the land of your fathers. ”

“ It means that some day your boy will be ashamed of his father and of his language and will probably spit upon your grave because he didn’t have a better father.”
“Ho! ho! ho! It surely won’t be quite so bad as that,” Jachymek checked him. “You’re just saying that because you envy Nešněra since he is to have a neat profit, and not you. What kind of misfortune is a German school? It doesn’t mean that you’ll all have to become Germans and even though it did what of it? The master wants it because he is a master and a good one. Why didn’t some Czech build us a factory here?” ”

“ And you don’t realize, do you, that that same hand, through the erection of the factory, struck out of your reach your former greater earnings? You don’t seem to figure it out for yourself that from your honest labor you barely eke out a miserable living, while he from your toil makes big capital? ”

“ To-day the older of the two is in charge of the schools, for the community has grown and prospered and there was need of more teachers for the increased number of children. The younger brother became mayor of the town. Both are the most zealous advocates of love for that land which our fathers by the sweat of their brows have earned and by their blood have hallowed for us as our heritage. And, in truth, I think that in that community it would be impossible for an enemy outsider to buy enough land to hold so much as a post on which the one selling it might follow the example of old Nešněra. ”

“ It’s a mighty sad thing that we’re all bought up, for we’re ready to sell one another if the ‘master’ smiles at us or places us on a better job. There didn’t use to be such corruption among us not even when we were bondmen under the imported German nobility!”
“That’s because money is everything now,” vigorously assented Halama, who had joined the group. “For money Joseph is selling the roof over his father’s head!”
“Well, we haven’t yet had a drink on the earnest money. Old Nešněra won’t let it come to pass, you’ll see!” ”

“ Schlosser, a little disconcerted, turned vexedly towards the door and asked young Nešněra, “What does this gaping crowd want here?”
“I say, sir,” the old man answered for his son, “they are not ‘a gaping crowd.’ They are neighbors. It’s an old custom here that when transactions like this are taking place, we never close the doors before our neighbors. After all, you know, it’s the affair of the entire community whether the estate is to be occupied by one of our own kind of people or some alien!” ”

“ Nešněra silently extended his hand to Halama and with the other pointed to the building.
“It makes your eyes bulge, doesn’t it? That’s the new school—a German one! You’ll see the inscription. Schlosser made haste speeded up the building of it! In a few days it’s to be consecrated. And say, old comrade! There’ll be children in plenty there over half of the village. The factory hands and many of the others in some way employed by our German ‘gentlemen’ got a sort of insight that it was vain to resist!” ”

“ The school on the Nešněra homestead stands to this day. And it prospers for it is teaching children to love their native country, their nation and the land of their fathers. The factory, too, is still there and in operation, but Schlosser’s son never influences his employees by a single word to deny their nationality.
Beyond the school, Nešněra’s wife, with the money left her after the death of her husband, built a new cottage for her children. The older one of the boys when he had grown up and attended the required schools, became teacher in “Nešněra’s school.” ”

“ Nešněra asked in menacing tones.
“No, they didn’t do that. Your son had it fixed up. Wants to get reconciled with you. And your daughter-in-law saw to it that everything was made as attractive as possible for you. They themselves live here in the school. Joseph has a sign over his door, ‘School Janitor,’ but it’s in German, in big letters, ‘Schuldiener.’ You’ll be surprised!” ”

“ The inhabitants of the village, in part factory hands and in part peasants or really householders who, in addition to their labors on the fields, worked part time in the factory or at home behind the loom, stood around on thresholds with their pipes in their mouths, waiting till the “gentlemen” rode by. It was generally known what would take place at the Nešněras’ to-day, and after the custom of people, some condemned, while others commended the young householder for selling his cottage for a school and his lands for the extension of the nobility’s park. ”

“ He honored in his son the father of a family and did not wish to cause unpleasantness for the children.
“What are you coming here for? Who called you in?” the young man burst out angrily at his wife.
“We surely belong here without being called in, don’t we? And your wife can hear what you have to say to your father?” the mistress of the home calmly answered.
“Right you are, Apolena. Just come here and let me hear what you think of this. And you boys also. It’s a matter that concerns your inheritance!”
The master irritably crushed his cap down on his head and arose, intending to leave. ”

“ But young Nešněra, though he was smaller than his father, with his iron hands tore loose his father’s hands clinging to his knees, and pushed him away so roughly that the old man tottered and fell to the floor. ”

“ I should say so!” assented the old man, delighted, but in the next instant he burst out with another doubt. “But why should the gentlemen run after you?”
“Oh, that’s all a part of it!” the young man drew himself up boastfully. “Only that they won’t run, but will come in style in a carriage and then I will ride away with them!” ”