In his Sunday best! A red-and-yellow flowered scarf was tied round his sun-burnt neck and the two ends blew over his shoulders; a small brown-felt hat with a curly brim was drawn down upon his head and, from under it, came here and there a wisp of flaxen hair. He wore a small, open jacket, with a short waistcoat, from under which a clean blue shirt bulged out; and his long, much too long trousers fell in wide folds over his big cossack shoes.9 Under his arm he carried a bundle knotted into a red handkerchief, while with the other hand he twirled a switch.

He was a growing youngster, a well-set-up cowherd, with a brown, freckled face, small, pale-grey eyes, under milk-white eyebrows, and bony knees and elbows: a sturdy fellow in the making.

‘Twas heavenly, grand Sunday weather: it shone with light and life and it was all green, pale, splendid green, against a clear blue sky in the middle of the afternoon.

He stepped on bravely, along the wide drove of elms, twisting his switch, and looked into the free sky with his young, grey-blue eyes. He thought ... of what? Of nothing! Truly, of nothing: what does a cowherd think of? Wait a bit, though; he was thinking: ‘twas Sunday! It was Sunday once more, the glad Sunday! And there were so few Sundays in those long, long weeks. And he was going home for a few hours: yes, home; and from there to Stafke’s and to Stafke’s pigeons.

He was hard-worked at the farm: twenty-nine cow-beasts, which were always hungry and always wanted fattening; furthermore, a whole herd of calves and hogs: ‘twas a drudging without end or bottom, from early morning to late at night, until his limbs hung lame.

The farmer was good but strict and could not abide sluggards; he looked for work, hard work; and this the lad was glad to give, but only while looking forward to the everlasting Sunday, in which lay all his happiness and cheer.

He quickened his steps; and the elms pushed by, one by one, and at last, ahead, very far down that dark hedge of stems and leafage, came a tiny opening where the trees seemed to touch one another.

Look! There, beside the little village church, stood Farmer Willems’ homestead, with its little slate turret and the great poplars and, beside it, close together and quite hidden in the green, two little cottages. ‘Twas there that he was brought up and had grown up; there, in one of those cottages. In the other lived Stafke’s father and mother. The children had led the half-wild life of the country there: two little boys together. They had clambered up those mighty trees, weltered in the sand of the drove and coursed like foals in the meadow. The farm was a free domain to them; they were at home in it; they went daily to the little door of the wash-house to fetch their slice of rye-bread-and-butter and, in the morning, an apple or a pear. They had lain and rolled in the hay-loft, like fish in the water; but all that had passed so quickly, so very quickly. The parish-priest came; and, for six months, six long months, they had had to go to school and church. Then, on a certain Monday morning, father said:

“Lad, you’re coming along to the farm to-day, to bind corn.”

Play was over, the free play of the country! They were pressed into labour, were saddled with the labourer’s heavy burden. Since then, it had been an endless roving after work, from one farm to another, with his bundle under his arm.

Stafke had remained serving at Willems’, with father, and he, on Sunday afternoons, had not so far to go, under the burning sun, in order to get home.

The way was long for an unthinking lad; and they seemed endless, those never-changing rows of tree-trunks, those uncounted yellow, blinking cornfields ... and never a creature on the road. It was something very much out of the way when a pigeon flew through the azure sky; the lad stood still and, turning round, followed the great ring which it made until it dropped far away, yonder among the houses of the village. Then he went on, pondering, as he went, that there was nothing, absolutely nothing lovelier than a milk-white pigeon in a pale-blue sky; and he whispered:

“Perhaps it’s Stafke’s pigeon.”

On reaching home, he laid down his bundle; his baby sister came running up to him, with her little arms wide open, and held him by his legs; and he lifted her twice, three times above his head. He handed mother his earnings; and then, out of the door, to Stafke’s!

“Roz’lie, is he in?”

“Oh, yes, he’s up in the loft, with the pigeons.”

He climbed up the ladder, in three steps and as carefully as he could, to the dovecote. Behind a swarm of half-stretched and loose-hanging clouts and canvas things, a lad sat on an overturned tub, his fair-haired curly head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, peering through a sort of lattice-work. Jaak sat down at the other side, on a bundle of maize, in just the same attitude, and looked too....

There were white, snow-white, mottled, blue, slate-blue, russet, speckled, grey, black-flecked, striped and spotted pigeons, doves, pouters—some cocks, the rest hens—a motley crowd all mixed up together. There were some that sat murmuring one to the other, softly—oh, so softly—and nodding their heads for sheer kindliness. Others cooed loudly, angrily or indifferently and tripped round one another. Others sat huddled, meditating, lonely and forlorn, blinking their bright little glittering eyes.

Through the holes, from the resting-board, new ones came walking in with shy feet and sought a little place for themselves; others passed out through the narrow opening and, flapping their wings, rose into the sky. ‘Twas a humming and muttering without end, a murmuring and whispering loud and soft and a restless stir and movement: a little world full of neatly-dressed damsels, who were all so lightly, so prettily decked out and who knew how to manage their trains and their fine clothes so demurely and so comically. They carefully combed and cleaned their black velvet ruffs, smoothed their sharp-striped feathers one by one, fondled and rubbed their downy breasts till they shone like new-blown roses....

And Jaak and Stafke sat watching this, sat watching this, like two steel statues, sweating in that warm loft. They did not stir nor speak a single word.

And that lasted and went on....

It grew dusk. From every side the pigeons came flying in, whole troops of them, and sought their well-known roosts. They stood two and two, closely crowded together on the perches or huddled in the holes. They drew their heads into their feathered throats and slept. The rumour diminished to just a soft mumbling; and then nothing more. The pigeon that sat over there, squatting low on her eggs, faded from sight in her dark corner; and the whole upper row vanished in the dusk of the rafters.

The boys still sat on.

The dovecote became a pale-grey twilight thing, with drab and black patches here and there. The soft humming passed into a faint buzz that died away quite; and all was silence.

They both together stood up straight, gave a long-drawn sigh and went below.

“It’s getting dark,” said Jaak, wiping the sweat from his face. “The cows will be waiting.”

“Yes,” said Stafke. “It gets evening all at once. Well, Jaak, till Sunday.”

And Jaak went away, through the now moonlit drove, with a new bundle under his arm and thinking of the farm, of his twenty-nine cow-beasts and of Sunday and of Stafke’s pigeons....