The boy rejoiced.  The grandfather loved the Lord Jesus!  “How glad I am!  Oh, then he will surely forgive you.”

They could not continue their talk because Aunty Moravec called them to dinner, which was very good.  Joe came after dinner; he was carrying cheese to town and stopped to ask if there was anything to be mailed.  The lady gave him her letter, and Aunty a slip and money to buy various things at the stores, with a big piece of cake to eat on the way.  From the lady he received money to buy cherries for himself and the boys, if there were any good ones.

That afternoon it was quite jolly in and about the cottage when the comrades came.  Ondrejko was glad that his mother was so joyful.  She taught them all kinds of nice games.  She even went with them on the “Old Hag’s Rock,” and there Palko had to tell her also how he found his Sunshine Country.  That interested her very much.  He recalled twice, how he was lost as a small child and grew up with strange people, and how the Lord Jesus took care that he came again to his parents.  A whole book could be written about how he fared in the world.[A] Madame Slavkovsky was very much interested in that.  When they later walked to the sheepcotes, all along the way she asked about Palko’s mother, who in her sorrow for the lost boy also lost her reason till she finally found him and the Lord Jesus returned her son to her.  They did not realize how quickly they came to the huts.

[Footnote A:  See the first part of “The Sunshine Country.”]

It was a beautiful evening; the sunset covered the sky with its rosy curtains.  The sun sank behind the mountains, and as if in parting kissed the valleys and the people, and especially seemed to kiss the beautiful lady who sat by the open fire in deep thought.

“If you can sing so beautifully,” begged Palko, “and many people went to hear you, we also would like you to do so.  Sing for us, if you please.”

“Oh, Palko.”  The lady shook her head.  “You wouldn’t like my song.  Besides you wouldn’t understand me.  I sang mostly in English, Italian, but also in Czech, but the text of these songs would not fit in with this sacred evening closing around us.  But because I would like to reward you, Palko, for so beautifully relating your experiences, let me just think a moment.”

They waited; and it was so quiet around them that they could almost hear one another breathe; and in the distance the bells of the flocks tinkled.

Finally, she lifted her head.  “After all, I remember something, and it is in the Slovak language.  Once I learned this song about the sea, and when I sang it, thousands of people wept.  It is a ballad about a shipwrecked vessel.  Would you like to have me sing it?”

“Yes, yes,” they all cried.  Bacha had just arrived and sat among them.  What a beautiful thing it is when the Creator puts such a voice in the human throat that no bird or instrument can equal it!  You can hear everything in such a voice:  the ringing of gold and silver, the moaning in the tops of the pines when they move in the wind; the babbling of the brooks as well as the roar of a great cataract—­yes, everything!