she dances, and will dance the entire evening, and would dance forever, in ecstasy of bliss.  You would smile, perhaps, to see them—­but you would not smile if you knew all the story.  This is the fifth year, now, that Jadvyga has been engaged to Mikolas, and her heart is sick.  They would have been married in the beginning, only Mikolas has a father who is drunk all day, and he is the only other man in a large family.  Even so they might have managed it (for Mikolas is a skilled man) but for cruel accidents which have almost taken the heart out of them.  He is a beef-boner, and that is a dangerous trade, especially when you are on piecework and trying to earn a bride.  Your hands are slippery, and your knife is slippery, and you are toiling like mad, when somebody happens to speak to you, or you strike a bone.  Then your hand slips up on the blade, and there is a fearful gash.  And that would not be so bad, only for the deadly contagion.  The cut may heal, but you never can tell.  Twice now; within the last three years, Mikolas has been lying at home with blood poisoning—­once for three months and once for nearly seven.  The last time, too, he lost his job, and that meant six weeks more of standing at the doors of the packing houses, at six o’clock on bitter winter mornings, with a foot of snow on the ground and more in the air.  There are learned people who can tell you out of the statistics that beef-boners make forty cents an hour, but, perhaps, these people have never looked into a beef-boner’s hands.

When Tamoszius and his companions stop for a rest, as perforce they must, now and then, the dancers halt where they are and wait patiently.  They never seem to tire; and there is no place for them to sit down if they did.  It is only for a minute, anyway, for the leader starts up again, in spite of all the protests of the other two.  This time it is another sort of a dance, a Lithuanian dance.  Those who prefer to, go on with the two-step, but the majority go through an intricate series of motions, resembling more fancy skating than a dance.  The climax of it is a furious prestissimo, at which the couples seize hands and begin a mad whirling.  This is quite irresistible, and every one in the room joins in, until the place becomes a maze of flying skirts and bodies quite dazzling to look upon.  But the sight of sights at this moment is Tamoszius Kuszleika.  The old fiddle squeaks and shrieks in protest, but Tamoszius has no mercy.  The sweat starts out on his forehead, and he bends over like a cyclist on the last lap of a race.  His body shakes and throbs like a runaway steam engine, and the ear cannot follow the flying showers of notes—­there is a pale blue mist where you look to see his bowing arm.  With a most wonderful rush he comes to the end of the tune, and flings up his hands and staggers back exhausted; and with a final shout of delight the dancers fly apart, reeling here and there, bringing up against the walls of the room.