nds of dollars' worth of
gold. But he saved it all, for he had never forgotten the old folks on
their little farm. So he gathered up his money and went down to Seattle,
and then crossed to Vancouver. From there he made his way back to his
old home, dressed like a man of the world and wearing a big gold watch
and chain and a gold ring. And when he walked in on the old folks they
failed to recognize him--and that Jozef thought the finest of jokes. He
filled the little sod-covered shack with his laughter, for he was happy.
He knew that for the rest of their days their troubles had all ended. So
he walked about and made plans, but still he did not tell them who he
was. It was so good a joke that he intended to make the most of it. But
he said that he had news of their Jozef, who was not so badly off for a
ne'er-do-well. Before he left the next day, he promised, they should be
told about their boy. And he laughed again and slapped his pocketful of
gold and the two old folks sat blinking at him in awe, until he
announced that he was hungry and confided to them that his friend Jozef
had once told him there were wonderful mushrooms round-about at that
season of the year.

Andrei and his wife talked together in the cow-shed, before the old man
hobbled out to gather the mushrooms. Poverty and suffering had made them
hard and the sight of this stranger with so much gold was too much for
them. So it was a plate full of death cups which Andrei's wife cooked
for the brown-faced stranger with the loud laugh. And they stood about
and watched him eat them. Then he died, as Andrei knew he must die. But
the old woman hid in the cow-shed until it was over, for it took some
time. Together then the old couple searched the dead man's bags and his
pockets. They found papers and certain marks on his body. They knew then
that they had murdered their own son. The old man hobbled all the way to
the nearest village, where he sent a letter to Olga's father and bought
a clothes-line to take home. The journey took him an entire day. With
that clothes-line Andrei Przenikowski and his wife hanged themselves,
from one of the rafters in the cow-shed.

Olga said that she was only five years old then, but she remembered
driving over with the others, after the letter had come to her father's
place. She can still remember seeing the two old bodies hanging side by
side and twisting slowly about in the wind. And she saw what was left of
the mushrooms. She says