Did they beg too hard? Was it because they were loyal to a leader who loved and sympathized with his own people? Was that why Magyar guns suddenly boomed, and why the ground lay covered with blood? The news of the happening spread even to the little village in the more fertile plains, where Jozef lived. The twelve-year-old boy heard it discussed the very next day as he accompanied the haymakers to the fields. In order to hear, he found it necessary to keep close to the men and women, for they spoke only in half whispers, fearing spies sent out by the Notary, chief officer of the Commune, who seemed to count it among his duties to keep tab on their very thoughts. They knew that they could do nothing, and it gave them a cowed, dejected air. Never had a haying been so dismal. The killing, dangerous as the topic was, drew the men to the tavern at night. They sat at the plain deal tables in small groups and drank and smoked their long pipes. Now and then one had something to say. Perhaps it concerned the fate of some woman who had resisted the officers during the mad effort at Slovak denationalization in 1892, when forcible transportation of children to purely Magyar districts had been undertaken. Or it may have dealt with the imprisonment of some editor who had had the courage to denounce some new injustice or atrocity. [Illustration: "'WILL A TIME NEVER COME WHEN WE SHALL BE FREE?'"] A tall athletic-looking man with a broad smooth-shaven face, and hair worn rather long, seemed to be listened to with greatest attention. He was plainly from some other district, for his attire was different from that of his companions. It consisted of felt trousers, the seams piped with red, a linen shirt and a sheepskin waistcoat with the wool inside, heavily embroidered on the leather side. His shoes were of soft leather, laced with rawhide thongs across the ankle, and he wore a low, black hat decorated with a red ribbon band. "I was living in Turciansky Sv. Martin, our one national center, when the effort was made to establish a cellulose factory there," he was saying. "It was one of the many efforts on the part of Slovaks to be more prosperous and progressive. Like other citizens, I invested considerable money in it. The building was erected and the machinery installed and we were awaiting our license from the government, when word came that it could not be given to the present management. We were dumbfounded, although we understood. We were not to be allowed to run our own factory because we did not help oppress our fellow citizens; because we were loyal to our Slovak traditions and to our Slovak land.