Hungarian Heritage Review, 1990 (19. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1990-04-01 / 4. szám
And toward evening the old woman died. They laid her out At about midnight, Whiteshirt up and goes over to the rich farmer’s house. There he slipped his little finger into the lock of the cellar door. He turned the lock and the door sprang open. The boy stepped into the cellar. And what he had found there, he carried over to the poor man’s house. He took the wine and the potatoes and the peas, and all that was in the cellar. As he was collecting the last batch of peas, he beheld a chest stowed away under them. He opened the chest. It was filled with money. He took all the money as well to the poor man’s house. Then he pulled out the tap from each cask, except one. In that one cask he left some wine. Then he went into the room where the old woman was laid out. He carried the corpse down into the cellar and there he placed her in a position just as if she were standing at the cask in which he had left a little wine. Then he drew out the bung and, fixing it in the hand of the dead woman, let the wine run through the hole in a thin stream onto the ground. This done, he left the cellar and locked the door. In the morning when the rich farmer woke, he said to his wife, “Go and take the jug and get me some wine from the cellar.” She goes to the cellar and as she opens the door didn’t she nearly drop down dead with horror, seeing her mother-inlaw letting the wine run off, all over the cellar floor. Wailing desperately, she ran back to her husband, “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, come at once and see what your mother’s doing!” And her husband goes back to the cellar with her and Lord! there’s his mother, letting the wine run out of the cask and all over the cellar floor. With a leap he got to the cask and put the tap back into its place. Then he got hold of his dead mother and laid her on the ground in the middle of the cellar. Then he went from cask to cask to see what was left. But all of them were empty. “I dare say, mother, you’ve taken it out of us,” he said. Up and he went over to his poor neighbor. “Listen, my poor friend. You’re blessed with a lot of children to help you. Get my mother buried, and I’ll pay you for your trouble.” Whiteshirt leapt forth at once. “I can do that.” He went with the rich farmer back to his house. Then he looked about At the foot of a strawstack he dug a deep hole. When he got it done, he went into the cellar and brought out the corpse. But instead of burying the old woman in the grave he had dug, he pushed her into the stack. Then he filled up the hole with earth and said to the farmer, “I’ll put some stones over the grave so that she’ll never be able to leave it again.” “That’s right, my boy.” So he brought a cartful of big stones and dumped them over the grave, and then he covered it with earth, and on top he rolled several bulky pieces of log. “Well, guv’nor, don’t you fear. She’ll never manage to get out of this.” Then the boy went home, carrying a sack of wheat grain which the rich farmer had given him for his pains. That night, at half-past-eleven, Whiteshirt went to their neighbor’s house again. He went up to the loft. He could hardly get in, so full was it with the finest wheat grain. One third of the grain—or was it one quarter?—he carried over to the poor man’s house. Then he went back again, and pulling out a couple of shingles, he made a hole in the roof, on the street front. Then he took hold of a wooden shovel and began shoveling the grain through the hole until some five to six tons were shoveled down onto the street. Then he came down from the loft and made for the strawstack and pulled the corpse forth from beneath the straw. And he carried the dead woman up to the loft and stuck her into the middle of a heap of grain, so that she seemed to stand there. Then he fixed the shovel into her hand to make her look as if she were shoveling the grain onto the street through the hole. All this done, he went home and said to the poor man, “Well, you aren’t a poor man any longer. You have grain enough, maybe even more than your rich neighbor, as not much has been left to him. And money you have even more than he has.” And the poor man’s children could have their fill now, and indeed they were doing themselves so well that each day six t eight of them died on account of overeating. And fewer and fewer they became in number. In the morning the rich farmer looked out of the window and saw his fine grain scattered all over the street. “Oh, Christ! What’s happened again?” Calling his wife, he hurried up to the loft, and there they saw the dead woman with a shovelful of grain, standing at the hole. “Oh, Lord! What are you up to again, mother? To be sure, you’ll bring us to ruin and make us poorer than our neighbor, though he is the poorest of the poor.” And immediately he went over to his poor neighbor. Whiteshirt stepped up to him at once, “Good morning, guv’nor!” “Good morning, my lad. I say, a poor work you’ve done of the burying.” “What do you mean?” “Oh, dear Lord, isn’t she shoveling the grain from the loft onto the street?”- continued next page 28 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW APRIL 1990
