The Servant Departs

It was on another beautiful Sunday afternoon, the haze of the fall spread over the woods and valleys, and the trees were bare of their leaves. In the oak grove on the very spot where once Method related how the swallows came home, then being surrounded by a group of children and Sammy Petrash, there sat this same Sammy, but he was alone. Method was no longer there. He was no longer in Hradova; in vain one would have looked around for that friendly, youthful figure. No longer could you hear the children crying along the streets, “Uncle Method! Uncle Method!” Though they kept on pointing out the gifts and keepsakes which he had distributed among them before leaving.

Method finished his term of service with Ondrasik, and he finished the house, which, it was now revealed, he had never intended for himself, only to show to the people in Hradova how to appreciate their homeland. As suddenly as he came, just as suddenly he left. Nobody could keep him there, he was just not one of them.

Sammy rested his head in the palms of his hands, and nobody being able to see him there, he cried. Oh, how many times he had cried already for that good comrade. He knew that he would never have another one like him.

Who would have thought so many things would change in those two years? How happy and orderly everything was now at the Petrash home, with the parents, sister, brother-in-law; and he with Dorka in that beautiful house Method had built. And when he thought of the happy family of the Podhajskys and especially the Ondrasik family, how they now lived for God, he could not give enough thanks to Him, because He sent Method to seek old David, and at the same time grace to find even them. Oh, how good God was to them all.

The young man looked around. He seemed to see him once more and hear him tell the story about how the swallows came home. Well, he, also, flew to a better, warmer country and would not live in that nest that he had built. The neighbors found out that he had built that house, on what had been the swamp, for old David, from the money that the grandson entrusted to him for David. And that David could have lived there like a rich man because he had inherited much from his grandson.

Method had planned for them very nicely, that they both together, Dorka and Sammy, would take care of the aged man, who really loved them, and thus he need be no longer alone. But the aged one would not stay. A mighty desire possessed him to go and see the graves of his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, and be buried there beside them, that he might be united with them at least in death, if not in this life.

This is what was commonly known in the village, but Sammy knew that old David would have died, surely died, if he should have had to be separated from Method. He was not surprised, because he understood him; often he himself would have fled to him, but that he had good parents and a loving wife.

Thus Ondrasik, together with Petrash, bought the house for their children. Old David sold it to them for half the cost, and his own hut he presented to old Mother Podhajsky, so she could make room for the young family, since it was large. Thus, even after he was gone they continued to bless the old Jew, David.

For years he had lived in that small village, the people had become used to him; toward the end of that time he was changed into a very good man. They will remember him.

Will they forget him who had been among them such a short time, living there only two years? Can they forget Method?

They will forget him, because people have very brief remembrance of kindness shown to them, but for a long time yet, the neighbors will speak among themselves about the time when Ondrasik’s servant lived in Hradova.

He disappeared from sight; but the light and love which he had sown those years have taken root and are increasing constantly.