f a more substantial nature. People paid Tamoszius
big money to come and make music on state occasions; and also they
would invite him to parties and festivals, knowing well that he was too
good-natured to come without his fiddle, and that having brought it,
he could be made to play while others danced. Once he made bold to ask
Marija to accompany him to such a party, and Marija accepted, to his
great delight--after which he never went anywhere without her, while if
the celebration were given by friends of his, he would invite the rest
of the family also. In any case Marija would bring back a huge pocketful
of cakes and sandwiches for the children, and stories of all the good
things she herself had managed to consume. She was compelled, at these
parties, to spend most of her time at the refreshment table, for she
could not dance with anybody except other women and very old men;
Tamoszius was of an excitable temperament, and afflicted with a frantic
jealousy, and any unmarried man who ventured to put his arm about the
ample waist of Marija would be certain to throw the orchestra out of
tune.

It was a great help to a person who had to toil all the week to be able
to look forward to some such relaxation as this on Saturday nights. The
family was too poor and too hardworked to make many acquaintances;
in Packingtown, as a rule, people know only their near neighbors and
shopmates, and so the place is like a myriad of little country villages.
But now there was a member of the family who was permitted to travel and
widen her horizon; and so each week there would be new personalities to
talk about,--how so-and-so was dressed, and where she worked, and what
she got, and whom she was in love with; and how this man had jilted his
girl, and how she had quarreled with the other girl, and what had passed
between them; and how another man beat his wife, and spent all her
earnings upon drink, and pawned her very clothes. Some people would have
scorned this talk as gossip; but then one has to talk about what one
knows.

It was one Saturday night, as they were coming home from a wedding, that
Tamoszius found courage, and set down his violin case in the street and
spoke his heart; and then Marija clasped him in her arms. She told them
all about it the next day, and fairly cried with happiness, for she said
that Tamoszius was a lovely man. After that he no longer made love
to her with his fiddle, but they would sit for hours in the kitch