flower-decked coaches rolled in; but he lay ill in an hospital where he had been sent by order of the doctor.
Upon the important day the entire country-side assembled. “We shall see now,” argued the peasants “whether it is true or not.” “It’s all just foolish talk,” declared Martin Saki, the cobbler of Tiszle. “Nothing will come of it. I’ll bet you, brothers—it can’t move ten paces.”
“How could it go without horses?” questioned Mathias Kozka, laughing. Gabor Kovacz, who took care of the church, said he was willing to lie right down on the track in front of the engine, but the village watchman would not let him.
“Well, if it doesn’t do any good, it won’t do any harm!” he consoled himself by saying.
The railway officials were the butt of jests and scorn.
“Take a halter along any way, because you bet you’ll have to pull that Polish village.” The long coaches with their rows of little windows, fastened together in a long line, looked to them like a village of small and diminutive houses.
In the meantime the invited gentry had assembled. They climbed on to the coaches and the
