"I will stay," replied Sandu, scarcely knowing what he said.
The master looked at her, and turned to Sandu.
"Have you had your dinner?"
"Did he come for you to feed him," his wife interrupted him.
"Woman, you----"
The mistress threw him a look full of meaning, and disappeared into the yard.
"You can start work to-morrow."
Sandu turned and went out after the master; they walked side by side. When they reached the yard gate they stopped. The master would have liked to say something about the pay. One and a half florins a week seemed so very little to him, but Sandu was simple and glad to get work, and he did not ask for much.
"Master, I will go now. Good luck to you!"
"Good luck to you!" replied the master, and he seemed as though he would like to call him back and say another word to him.
In rather over a month Sandu had had time to get back into his old ways, and to work hopefully at his trade, but during this time he had, little by little, come to see that in his master's house the cock by no means ruled the roost. Sharp-tongued and ill-tempered, Mistress Veta was often dissatisfied with the work. Now it was because the skins had not come out of the vat yellow enough, and had not enough creases; now it was because a range of skins needed mending as the workmen had not been sufficiently careful; and so on and so on, always hard words for the workmen who worked eagerly and with all their might that the skins might be well tanned, and the mistress have no chance to grumble.
At first Sandu found these abusive words hard to bear, and all day long the thought worried him that the mistress only spoke so to him, and that it was with him only that she was dissatisfied. At one time even he was seized with the desire to go away so that he might hear her no longer, and the other men might not be worried on his account, for he said to himself that only since he entered the workshop had the work gone so badly, and the mistress's tongue chided so unceasingly.
But, all unperceived by himself, he grew somewhat accustomed to the ways of the house, and when a workman told him that the mistress had always been just the same, and that no matter how well the hides were dressed she always found some fault, he took heart and dismissed the idea of quitting the workshop of Talpoane, the master-tanner.
He was up almost before daylight, and never let his work out of his hand till it was dinner-time. He washed his hands clean, and took his usual place at his employers' table--for from olden times it had been the custom for the masters not to keep aloof from the workmen or to dine apart.
Silent at his work, he was, also, silent at meals. Only when he was spoken to did Sandu reply, gently and with dignity. The other men talked and laughed, and when they realized that it pleased the mistress to make fun of Sandu they began to crack every kind of joke at his expense.
At first Sandu opened his eyes wide. He looked at them and could not understand them, but when he took it in he, too, laughed with them, a laugh full of kindness and friendliness. He lived on good terms with the workmen; only one of them, Iotza, embittered the days. He only had to say: "You have made the solution too weak," for Sandu, although he knew it was not true, to be unhappy all the week, and often his heart was full of fear that the skins would not come out yellow enough or creased enough to please the mistress.
But he felt comforted when he noticed that, when he came into the workshop, Master Dinu asked only him how many hides were being worked, and when they would be ready, for at such and such a fair he would need so many, because a customer was trying to get in touch with him.
"They'll be ready when they are wanted; don't worry," Sandu would reply.
And away Master Dinu would go, quite content, and quite sure that the hides would be ready when they were wanted for the fair, or had to be despatched to some customer.
He saw that everything went very well since Sandu entered the workshop. The skins were kept in the pits just long enough for the hair to come off easily and not burn in the lime; the solution was boiled enough, not too hot and not too strong; the poles were in their places; the stretching-pegs were in a neat pile, and the workshop was cleaner than it had ever been before.
And Master Dinu knew the value of a good workman in a place where there were many workers, and where work was plentiful.
"There is only one thing he lacks," he said to himself, "he would be a man in a thousand, but he is too diffident."
But, even in spite of his diffidence, he thought so highly of him that had he asked for four florins a week he would gladly have given it sooner than let him go away.
So he said to himself, but Sandu did not dream of asking for much more than he had. All his life he had worked for the same wage.
It is true that had he done as the others did, and drawn out money every Sunday, he might, perhaps, have felt it was hard to see Master Dinu paying out a great deal more to the others than to him, but he did not ask for his money. On one occasion only did he draw two florins from his pay, and that was because, on a certain Tuesday, his mother had sent greetings to him and had asked him if possible to send her a little help.
Sandu ran off at once to the market-place to find Master Dinu to ask for all the money he was entitled to for his work, that he might send it to his mother. Master Dinu, not knowing what he wanted it for, nor how much he needed, asked whether two florins would be enough.
"Yes," he said, and with the coins in his hand he went to the man from his village. He wrapped up the money and begged him to lose no time in giving it to his mother and in telling her how much he longed for her, and that, perhaps, she might come to him, for he was working for a good master, and up to now he had not been idle for a single day.
A fortnight passed and he received no tidings of his mother. But on Tuesday, the day of the weekly fair, while he was spreading out the skins, the man came to tell him he had given the money and had brought a letter written by "Peter the Chinaman."
Sandu took the letter and would have liked to open it, but he caught the mistress's eye and involuntarily thrust it into his breast.
"Look at him," she cried, "we are longing to finish the work quickly, and he thinks only of reading lines from his sweetheart."
"I have no sweetheart," replied Sandu gently.
"Who writes to you then?"
"My mother."
"Your mother? She can't know how to use a pen. Did you ever hear such a lie----"
"I do not lie."
"Not lie? Hold your tongue! As if your mother knows how to write----"
And she looked rather sulkily at Sandu, who moved on to the other pile of stretching-pegs.
At this moment one of the workmen told her that the letter really was from his mother, but that it was written by a Chinaman in the village.
"Then why didn't he tell me?" she cried. "Am I supposed to know everything?" Sandu turned round. "But can you read?"
"Yes, mistress, I can."
"It's a good thing you can."
The mistress went away and the men were busy with their work till dinner-time.
Sandu lingered over his letter. When he went indoors the mistress could not resist having one or two hits at him. But Sandu scarcely understood her; his mother thanked him with all her heart, and he was so full of joy that even had the mistress struck him he would have felt nothing of it. He ate of the food, but he could not have told if he were satisfied or hungry when he got up from the table, and he worked like a nigger till the evening.
In bed, with his hands beneath his head, many thoughts crossed his mind. Three years had passed since last he saw his mother. He had often longed for her when he was in the army, but only from time to time had he received news of her. He had left her old and poor.
"And longing for me will have aged her a great deal more," he said to himself, and his heart was heavy when he thought he could not go to see her. "How good it would be if I could go and see her at Christmas! In the meantime I must send more money to give her pleasure and console her."
And he fancied how she would cry with joy when she got the money, and how she would pray God to lengthen his life and give him success and happiness.
And he seemed to feel himself close to her, and he seemed to hear the whisper of sweet comforting words.
Wrapped in such thoughts as these he fell asleep.
The next day God sent glorious weather, and Sandu beat the skins carefully and often that they might dry quickly.
But no matter what trouble he and the other men took, the skins would not dry, and Master Dinu could not begin the cutting out till next day; the cutting out and trimming goes quickly when one has everything close at hand, and some one to help one, and Master Dinu began to cut out and to trim. But the damping, oiling, thickening and sewing of the sandals and straps was difficult and tedious.
There being great need of haste, Master Dinu told his wife to call Ana, their daughter, that she might help to damp the sandals.