An old woman now engrossed the tinker's attention. She was quite a character in the village and some of the people would have agreed that she was the chief character. No one called her by her name. She was "Aunty" to everybody for miles around. In sickness and death, in birth and rejoicings, her advice was sought, even sometimes before that of the village priest. She generally carried a basket of herbs on her arm, for she was always hunting for some or ready to distribute some to others. She knew their virtues as no one else did. Ruzena chose that moment to bring out an earthen pot to be wired. She hoped the tinker would be so busy talking to "Aunty" that he would forget to indulge in his favorite pastime of teasing. But no sooner did she come up than he looked at her seriously to ask: "Have you caught any birds this year by sprinkling something on their tails?" And when Ruzena smilingly shook her head and said shyly, "None," he wanted to know where a dog goes when he follows his nose. When at last he handed back her pot so skillfully mended that it was, as he claimed, as good as new, he said more seriously than before: "His lordship in the next village has commanded me to bring him a new kind of strap, and I think that one of your braids of hair will be just the thing for it. Stand still just a moment while I find my shears." But instead of standing Ruzena was running home, half afraid that the funny tinker might really cut off the hair. And as she ran she heard him sing the first part of a folk song that he had just learned from some peasants in the neighboring brother land of Moravia: "M--m, m--m, two mosquitoes married to-day; M--m, m--m, not a drop of wine have they." "Does the tinker go all over the world?" Ruzena asked her mother, humming the tune that her quick ear had caught. "M-mm, yes," her mother answered rather absent-mindedly. She was busy preparing the supper which the tinker was to eat with them. "He does his wiring well," she said as she put down the pot he had fixed. "He's somewhat rattle-brained, I think sometimes, but he learns a lot more going around than if he stayed here. He hasn't come from any distant country to us. Only from Nytra. You might ask him about that place. If we don't get him started on something else he will bring up the Czechs again and what they're doing and what we're not. Since we can't do anything, it's no use repeating all that." Ruzena remembered when all were seated at the table, and asked the tinker if he would tell them something about Nytra. "I learned in school," she concluded proudly, "that it was the capital of the great Moravian Kingdom." The tinker looked pleased. "Yes, under Svatopluk," he said. "Then we had nothing of which to be ashamed. But do you know anything about that Svatopluk?" Ruzena shook her head. "Never mind," said the tinker kindly. "There's some grown people in this village that don't know any more. Do you know?" and he turned to Jozef.