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Words: 21515 in 15 pages
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t's see how many different ones we can make out."
The little boys did not take kindly to the suggestion. "I am hungry," one of them said; "let's go home."
So back the three began to trudge, now and then throwing a stone into the air, or, when they could, into the water.
Jonitza felt more tired than he cared to confess to the two youngsters and inwardly planned to lie down as soon as he came within doors. "I'll be home in less than fifteen minutes, now!" he suddenly exclaimed, thinking aloud.
"How can you and see me dance?" said a voice behind him so unexpectedly that Jonitza jumped. Turning, he saw a laughing peasant all decorated with tiny bells.
"Oh, jolly!" the other boys shouted. "There's going to be a dance! Come on!"
Those little bells must have said "Come on" too, for Jonitza found himself trying to keep up with the peasant's rapid strides.
Down in the Lower Town, before one of the old domed churches, they found a crowd gathered. Although there was nothing unusual about such a gathering, one could see from the faces that something unusual was expected.
It was not a silent expectation, however. Everywhere people were talking and laughing and a few young men were even singing. As soon as the peasant with bells appeared, a shout arose. At the same instant a troop of other peasants, all attired in their gay embroidered national costumes, with bells at their girdles and on their sleeves, came in a body into the square, and taking their places began to dance and shout and sing and stamp their feet. Some one said this was the Pyrrhic Dance that was sacred in ancient mythology, and that had come to the Roumanians from their Roman forefathers; a dance to prevent Saturn from hearing the voice of his infant son Jupiter, lest he devour him. Whether this explained it or not there was no doubt of the audience liking it, for at its conclusion all clapped their hands and burst into boisterous exclamations of delight. Jonitza, feeling some of the excitement, clapped too, and no longer conscious of any tired feeling waited until almost every one had gone before he made his way slowly home.
THE TRIP TO THE COUNTRY
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.
The way lay among thatched farm-houses whose gleaming walls showed that they had been freshly whitewashed at Easter. Now and then a peasant seated in a rude wagon, drawn by beautiful, creamy, short-legged oxen with wide-spreading horns, saluted them gravely.
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