enough to say that it leaves no portion of the room va~
cant, the three musicians follow her, laboriously and note
by note, but averaging one note behind; thus they toil
through stanza after stanza of a love-sick swain's lamen~
tation:--

/tab\"Sudiev' kvietkeli, tu brangiausis;
/tab\Sudiev' ir laime, man biednam,
/tab\Matau -- paskyre teip Aukszcziausis,
/tab\Jog vargt ant svieto reik vienam!"

When the song is over, it is time for the speech, and
old Dede Antanas rises to his feet. Grandfather An~
thony, Jurgis's father, is not more than sixty years of age,
but you would think that he was eighty. He has been
only six months in America, and the change has not done
him good. In his manhood he worked in a cotton-mill,
but then a coughing fell upon him, and he had to leave;
out in the country the trouble disappeared, but he has
been working in the pickle-rooms at Durham's, and the
breathing of the cold, damp air all day has brought it
back. Now as he rises he is seized with a coughing-fit,
and holds himself by his chair and turns away his wan
and battered face until it passes.

Generally it is the custom for the speech at a _veselija_
to be taken out of one of the books and learned by
heart; but in his youthful days Dede Antanas used to
be a scholar, and really make up all the love-letters of his
friends. Now it is understood that he has composed an
original speech of congratulation and benediction, and this
is one of the events of the day. Even the boys, who are
romping about the room, draw near and listen, and some
of the women sob and wipe their aprons in their eyes. It
is very solemn, for Antanas Rudkus has become possessed
of the idea that he has not much longer to stay with his
children. His speech leaves them all so tearful that one
of the guests, Jokubas Szedvilas, who keeps a delicates~
sen store on Halsted Street, and is fat and hearty, is moved
to rise and say that things may not be as bad as that, and
then to go on and make a little speech of his own, in
which he showers congratulations and prophecies of hap~

[[9]]

p008 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p009w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p010

v?