The Three Comrades by Kristina Roy
page 8 of 108 (07%)
page 8 of 108 (07%)
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a moment and the boys waited eagerly for him to go on.
"When I was five years old my mother died. My father brought another mother in the house. She was a young, beautiful woman, a widow. With her came a son from her first marriage. We called him Stephen, and when I look at you, Ondrejko, I always have him before me as he entered our hut for the first time. On his head he had a hat with a long band, a cloak thrown over his shoulder, an embroidered shirt, and narrow trousers. He was like a picture of a saint--so beautiful and so lovely. "I was my father's youngest child. The older ones died, so I never had a brother, and suddenly he came--and was to be my brother. You love each other--I know. That also reminds me of my childhood. I began to love him more than I could my own brother. We were of equal age, but I was strong and he weak; I was wild and he tame; I was ugly and he beautiful. In spite of this we loved each other, and our parents were well satisfied. They could leave him under my care--because they knew I was able to defend him--and could leave me under his care, because when he was with me I was much more tame. "Would that it had remained so always. But a proverb says, not in vain, that 'Where the Devil cannot go himself he will send an old woman.' And he sent her to us. It was your father's Aunt, your great-aunt, Petrik. She came once to us and asked me aside if the new mother liked me, and was sorry for me that I was a poor orphan. Said she, 'Who has a step-mother has also a stepfather. Your father doesn't love you as much as he does Stephen.' She didn't stay long with us. Just as she came, so she went, but she took with her my love for Stephen. Because I was so wild and always did something wrong, my wise |
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