Then, of course, there are those who never will come back. That awful, mysterious place called Bosnia has swallowed them up. There was fighting, it seems, in Bosnia, and many were killed: two lads from Marosfalva, one from Fekete and two from Kender.
Bosnia must belong to the Crown of Hungary--whatever that may mean--the politicians say so, anyhow, and in order that the Crown of Hungary should have what rightly belongs to it the lads from our villages have to fight and get killed.
"Is that just, I ask you?" so the mothers argue.
The sweethearts weep for awhile and then cast about for fresh fish out of the waters of Life. Sometimes there are mistakes: lads who have been reported killed turn up at the village on the appointed day, either hale and hearty or maimed and crippled. In either case they are welcome. But at times the mistake is the other way: no black report has come; the mothers, the fathers, the sweethearts, expect the young soldier home--he does not come. The others return on a given day--they arrive by train--Laczi or Benkó or Pál is not amongst them. Where is he? Well! they were not all in the same regiment; they have seen little or nothing of one another during these three years.
The anxious mothers rush to Barna Jenö--the mayor--and he drafts a letter of inquiry which is duly sent off to the proper authorities at Budapest. In the course of time--not very promptly--the reply comes. A letter of condolence, curtly worded: the name of Laczi or Benkó or Pál, as the case may be, was inadvertently omitted from the list of killed after the skirmish near Banialuka.
Sometimes also the young soldier having received his discharge, does not care to return to his native village: he has lost his taste for pigs and geese, for digging and sowing; he has had a glimpse of life and wants to see some more; the emigration agents at Budapest are active and persuasive. "America is a land of gold," they say; "no further trouble but to stoop and pick up the gold just where it lies."
And the lad listens and ponders. He will not go home, for he is afraid that his mother's tears will deter him from his purpose: he follows the advice of the emigration agent, expends his last fillér, sells his spare shirt and takes passage at Fiume on a big ship which conveys him to the land of riches.