One autumn day, after his wife had been rating him severely for not yet
having found a farmhand, it chanced that Maciek Owczarz,[1] whose foot
had been crushed under a cart, came out of the hospital. The lame man's
road led him past Slimak's cottage; tired and miserable he sat down on
a stone by the gate and looked longingly into the entrance. The
gospodyni was boiling potatoes for the pigs, and the smell was so good,
as the little puffs of steam spread along the highroad, that it went
into the very pit of Maciek's stomach. He sat there in fascination,
unable to move.

[Footnote 1: Pronunciation approximately: Ovcharge. _Maciek_
(pron. Machik): Matthew.]

'Is that you, Owczarz?' Slimakowa asked, hardly recognizing the poor
wretch in his rags.

'Indeed, it is I,' the man answered miserably.

'They said in the village that you had been killed.'

'I have been worse off than that; I have been in the hospital. I wish I
had been left under the cart, I shouldn't be so hungry now.'

The gospodyni became thoughtful.

'If only one could be sure that you wouldn't die, you could stay here
as our farm-hand.'

The poor fellow jumped up from his seat and walked to the door,