Katrinka: The Story of a Russian Child by Helen Eggleston Haskell. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, Publishers, 1915.
[Frontispiece]
KATRINKA DANCED BAREFOOT DOWN THE VILLAGE STREET.
Copyright, 1915,
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
TO
W. E. H.
AN EVER DEARER COMRADE
Dear Schoolmate:
You will probably be very much surprised when I tell you that there are not many Russian immigrants in the United States. I was surprised, too, when I found it out. There are a great many immigrants from Russia, but that is quite a different matter.
Russia is a huge country in which a number of peoples live, more or less unwillingly, under the rule of the Russian Czar. There are the Slavic peoples to whom the Poles and Ruthenians, and the Russians themselves, belong. There are the Teutonic people, the Germans, some of whom live in Russia. There are the Hebrews, whom we call Russian Jews, and whom we usually mean when we speak, in our ignorance, of Russian immigrants; but they are not Russians, and they have nothing to do with this story; perhaps some day they will have a book all their own in our Schoolmate Series, but not this year.
The other people whom we think of as Russian immigrants are the Ruthenians, or as they are sometimes called, the Little Russians, to distinguish them from the real or Great Russians. But the Ruthenians live in Austria-Hungary as well as in Russia, and most of those who emigrate to America come from Austria-Hungary, so it really does not seem quite fair to call them Russians, does it? Still, as a nationality, they are closely related to the Great Russians; cousins, we might call them, and there are about 26,000,000 of them living in Southern Russia, where their chief city, Kiev, was the capital of the country before the founding of Moscow in the middle of the twelfth century.
These Little Russians bring to us Americans the gifts of poetry and song; they are celebrated for their songs of love and war. And even after they come to America they make songs; but alas, they are now songs of the dark mine and the cruel "boss." The Ruthenians are dancers too, as well as poets. Does it not seem hard that we should so often give only poverty and wretchedness to these simple-hearted, trustful strangers who bring us such joyous and beautiful treasures? But out in the Canadian Northwest, where they can own farms, the Little Russians are happier than in the United States. One of their countrymen, Michael Gowda, has even translated into Little Russian our own Whittier's "Snow-Bound."
The Ruthenians are also a religious people. Some of them belong, like the Great Russians, to the Greek Orthodox Church, and others are called Uniates, and obey the Pope of Rome, who, however, allows their priests to marry and to wear beards, and to recite the prayers and the service in the Slavonic language instead of in Latin. There are many of these Uniate churches in America, and you may know them by their three-barred crosses.
But you must not think that there are no real Russian immigrants in America. There are the Doukhobars, those strange Russian peasants who, about one hundred and fifty years ago, became convinced that Christ forbade all war and fighting, and that it was not necessary for them to follow the rules of the Greek Church in order to worship God.
Of course, this independence of spirit did not suit the Russian Czars, and from 1785 to 1800 hundreds of these poor people were banished to Siberia, and others were tortured. In the early years of the nineteenth century they were given a breathing spell by the Czar Alexander I, who let them settle on land in Russia just north of the Crimea reservation, where they could live according to their ideals of coöperation and peace; but the Czar Nicholas I broke up the colony and sent them to the Caucasus. This was between 1841 and 1845. And then, unfortunately, they began to quarrel among themselves, despite their peaceful intentions, and one faction reported to the Czar's officers that the other faction "was in rebellion against the government," so that there was more misery for them, until it happened that Count Leo Tolstoy, the greatest Russian of the nineteenth century, or indeed of any century, heard of their misfortunes, and in 1898 a petition was presented to the Czar's mother, the Empress Dowager, when she was passing through the Caucasus, and she was asked to plead with her son that these poor peace-lovers might be allowed to emigrate or to settle in some part of the Russian Empire where they would not be tormented.
They were told that they might leave Russia if they would go before the next annual conscription took place; that is, before the next time for choosing soldiers to serve in the Czar's army; and through the prompt help of the Society of Friends,–Quakers in England and America,–they were hurried across the ocean in four ships to British Columbia, where land was waiting for them. The Quakers, you see, had a special sympathy for them, because of their unwillingness to fight. If there had been more Doukhobars in Russia, if all the peasants in Russia, Germany and France, had been willing to die rather than take up arms against one another, the great war that has ravaged Europe in 1914 and 1915 could never have been begun.
And besides the Doukhobars in Canada, and the Ruthenians in the United States, there are here and there in America, Russian men and women who have tried to overthrow the despotic government of the Czar, and have had to flee from their country in haste, for fear of being executed or exiled to Siberia. One of these, a woman,–and an old woman now,–is widely loved in the United States. Her name is Katharine Breshkovskaia, but her friends call her Babushka,–little grandmother. She came here a number of years ago, after having served a long term of exile in Siberia. Wherever she went, in America, she made friends who begged her to stay with them, safe away from the spies of the Russian government, who were only waiting an opportunity to put her in prison again. But although she was old and gray, and worn by the hardships of exile, she said she would never cease to work for the freedom of her people as long as her life should last. So her American friends bade her good-by, with tears, and she went back to her dangerous work fearlessly. Of course, it was not long before she was arrested again, cast into prison in Russia and then sent out to Siberia, where she is now,–the beloved Babushka of all the young Russian men and women who suffer to-day in that bleak land for the sake of Russian freedom.
The father and mother of Katrinka, the little dancer in Mrs. Haskell's story, were also sent to Siberia, because they had a printing-press in their house and were trying to teach the village people to read and write. The Russian government is afraid to have its peasants go to school, lest they learn how much better off the people are in other countries. So Katrinka's father and mother were called revolutionists, and were sent away into exile at night, while their little girl and boy were asleep. But Katrinka's story ends more happily than most of the Russian stories of exile. There are not many revolutionists so fortunate as to have a little girl who can dance her way into the presence of the Czar, win fame for herself and pardon for her family.
This Czar, whose picture Mrs. Haskell draws so well, will, perhaps, seem to you a very strange person,–so tender and kind to his own little daughters and son, so loving to his own wife, and so hard and indifferent to the people outside his own family, even allowing the Cossacks to shoot them down in the streets as if they were dogs. But it is not only in Russia that one finds this kind of man. There are many others like him even in America; men who guard their own little boys and girls from all harm and hardship, but who are quite indifferent to the fact that thousands of other people's children work all day in factories, and are ragged and dirty and hungry and ignorant. No doubt these men would be horrified if they thought they were like the Czar of Russia, for we Americans who have not yet forgotten our own struggle for liberty, do not like to think of ourselves as the oppressors of our fellowmen.
If the Great War brings liberty to the oppressed peoples in Russia, to the Poles and the Jews and all the others; if it teaches the Czar and his nobles the meaning of brotherhood, and brings to the more democratic nations, like England and America, a wider, purer vision of liberty for all people, it will not have been fought in vain.
Affectionately yours,
FLORENCE CONVERSE.
KATRINKA 1 opened her eyes, blinked sleepily, then drawing her shawl about her shoulders, sat up and looked around. Beside her, Peter, his stiff black hair tousled and his red lips parted over his tiny teeth, still slept. Katrinka, shivering, tucked the blanket more closely about his shoulders. It was unusually cold, even for Russia. The top of the big oven, where she and Peter had spent the night, was barely warm.
Katrinka leaned forward, her eyes on the two small windows with their tiny panes of glass. A fine, sandy snow was falling. The light in the room was gray and cheerless, the house wrapped in silence. Katrinka felt suddenly lonely and afraid.
"Mamusia," 2 she called softly.
There was no answer. She called again, then waited. All was silent. Katrinka bit her under lip, thoughtfully. Usually, when she awakened, her mother was pat-patting around the kitchen getting the tea and black bread ready for breakfast.
Katrinka slipped from the top of the stove and opened the door leading into the other room. It was empty and very cold. She turned back into the kitchen, and going to the broad shelf running along the wall beneath the window, sat down on the edge of it and began rewinding the bandages that she wore in place of stockings.
She had slept in her dress of brown cloth and her crimson blouse, and although she had loosened the bandages on her legs before she had snuggled down beside Peter on top of the oven, she had not removed them. Now, she swiftly took off the long strips of brown cloth, then began to wind one of them about her right foot, beginning at the toes and securing the end of the bandage cleverly under the first swathings. Around and around her ankle and calf she passed the bandage until, presently, her leg in its tightly wound folds looked almost as if it were encased in a heavy stocking. When both legs were neatly covered, she slipped on her funny, sandal-shaped shoes, made from strips of braided bark, with wooden soles.
Then she ran to the door, and opening it just enough to squeeze through without letting in any more cold air than was possible, sped through the snow to the log stable back of the house. This was surrounded by a high fence made of branches thickly woven together to keep out wolves. As she entered the stable, the hens set up a great crackling and gathered around her, expecting to be fed. The cow turned its head and studied her with patient eyes, then mooed as if complaining that it was long past the milking hour.
"Father," called Katrinka, softly at first, and then louder. "Father, where are you? Father! Father!"
At her feet the hens clucked and scratched in the straw. The cow looked at her and again mooed dismally.
"Mother!" There was fear in Katrinka's cry now. "Mother, oh, mother!" Her voice sounded high and shrill. "Mother, Mamusia, where are you?" There was no answer. Again Katrinka called, then with hands clasped on her bosom ran from the stable, stopping at the gate in the fence of wattled branches to look up and down the zigzag village street.
The snow was so fine and thick that she could see only a short distance, the neighboring houses showing like misty, dark patches through the white haze.
In her haste to find her parents she had forgotten to tie over her head the handkerchief-shaped shawl which she always wore when out of doors in winter, and her ears were red from the cold. The frost from her breath gathered in her nostrils and whitened her black lashes and brows. Her teeth began to chatter. Her hands were purple with cold.
"Mother! Father!" Her voice seemed swallowed up by the long white road. In a neighbor's yard a dog yelped.
Suddenly the door of the cottage opened. In it stood little Peter, wailing for his breakfast. He was barefooted. The wadded coat in which he had slept was open in the front, showing his plump, brown breast.
Seeing him, Katrinka, who was about to start down the village street in quest of her parents, turned back, and running to the house, gathered the little boy up in her arms and carried him into the kitchen. Opening the door of the big clay oven, she set him down inside, then went to the storeroom for birchwood.
The fire was almost out, but Katrinka soon had it blazing cheerily, for she stripped the bark from the birch, as she had often seen her father do, and used it for kindling.
Having started the fire, she turned her attention to bandaging Peter's feet and legs and putting on his bark sandals. Then she lighted a tallow candle, and holding it in front of her, made another trip into the dark storeroom under the house. It was a low room with white-washed walls against which hung the huge sides of several salted codfish. Some hams and a great many strings of small fish that her father had smoked and salted, swung from the beams. All about on the floor stood barrels and jars of salted cucumbers, pork and cabbages.
Going to a shelf, Katrinka found a pan of sour cream and a loaf of black bread. She carried these upstairs and set about getting breakfast for herself and Peter, although she was so full of strange fears that she had little appetite. Never before had her father and mother gone away without saying good-by. Even in the summer, when they had to go a great distance to harvest the crops on their tiny farm, they breakfasted at home.
This morning they had gone without a word of farewell and without having prepared for themselves even a cup of tea before leaving. The big copper samovar 3 stood in the middle of the table, just as Katrinka's mother had left it the night before, its charcoal ready for lighting.
Katrinka filled its reservoir with water, then lighted the charcoal. When the water began to boil she brought Peter and placed him on his high stool. She filled his cup half full of sugar before she poured his tea. Then she spread a slice of bread thickly with cold cream and offered it to him. Peter looked at the bread, then shook his head and covered his eyes with his chubby hands.
"Matuska," 4 he sobbed over and over again, using his pet name for his mother.
"Matuska will come by and by," said Katrinka, doing her best to comfort Peter. "She has gone for a walk in the snow. Perhaps, if Peter is good, she will bring him something from the store. I have made the tea as sweet as bees' honey, Peter, and see how thickly I have spread the cream on the bread."
Peter continued to dig his chubby fists into his eyes, shaking his head and wailing dismally, with his mouth wide open.
"Listen, Peter," coaxed Katrinka. "The little man behind the chimney 5 is getting cross. I hear him moving around. If you are not good he will come out and eat up your breakfast." Peter continued to cry. Katrinka laid her arm across his shoulders. "Oh, Peter," she whispered in a tragic voice, "close your mouth. A naughty spirit with fire for hair is sitting on top of the samovar, waiting to fly down your throat. Shut your mouth quickly."
Peter lowered his arms and closed his mouth.
"Where is the naughty spirit?" he demanded, looking eagerly around.
Katrinka laughed. "He flew into the oven when you closed your mouth," she said, a dimple flashing into her cheek. "Eat the nice black bread, Peter, and drink your tea."
She held the cup of sirupy tea to his mouth. He drank it, unwillingly, his eyes wandering from one corner of the room to the other, in search of the fairy with fiery hair.
Meantime Katrinka's great brown eyes were fixed on the gate, which she could see from the window and through which she expected that her father and mother presently would return.
After Peter had finished his breakfast she put on a shawl and, going to the gate, again looked up and down the village street. Then she returned to the house and crossing the kitchen went into the other room where the big loom stood in the middle of the floor, hiding from view the little printing press on which her father wrote in black letters to far away people. All day yesterday her mother had sat at the loom. Katrinka blinked back the tears that threatened to fall as she recalled her mother's head as it bent over the cloth she was weaving, her black hair forming a curly frill around her rosy face.
Katrinka walked around the loom, then stopped with a cry. The little printing press was gone. She ran into the kitchen and seizing Peter in her arms dragged him into the corner of the room farthest from the door. Her eyes were wide open and frightened. Her small face white with fear.
"Somebody has been here, Peter. Somebody has taken away the printing press," she whispered. "And father and mother are gone. Perhaps the Cossacks have been here."
"The Cossacks 6 do not touch good little children," said Peter, patting Katrinka's cheek.
She laughed in spite of herself. "Of course not, Peter. And they have not taken father and mother away, for father and mother were good, and all good folks are safe from the Cossacks."
She looked up, and, as her eyes fell on the picture of the Virgin on the wall, she ran towards it, then, bending her knees, sprang suddenly straight into the air and placed a fleeting kiss on the Virgin's forehead, striking the floor again as lightly as a feather in spite of the clumsiness of her bark and wood sandals.
THE snow was almost a foot deep. Little Peter constantly stumbled and fell, so that finally Katrinka lifted him, and, with her eyes fixed on the gray blur which she knew was the house of the nearest neighbor, went stumbling through the drifts. She wore a sheepskin coat, the fur on the inside. A gay, red woolen handkerchief was tied over her head. She had taken off her bark sandals and had slipped on a pair of knee-high leather boots that belonged to her mother. Her feet slipped up and down in them, and as now and then she sank in a drift, they scooped up quantities of snow in their loose tops. This melted, and running down inside, wet the cloth bandages and made her feet and ankles cold. Her eyelashes and brows were white with frost. Even the curls of hair that clung about her forehead as they escaped from the woolen head wrapping were frosted.
KATRINKA LIFTED PETER AND WENT STUMBLING THROUGH THE DRIFTS
Peter was crying softly for his mother. His tears froze on his round cheeks and hung from his chin in tiny icicles. Katrinka was too cold and heartsick to try to pacify him. For seven hours she had waited for her parents to return and at last, despairing, was on her way to the house of Ivan Drovski to ask advice.
When she set out, the house looked like a faraway gray blur through the veil of snow; but as she stumbled on, the blur took shape until at last she could distinguish a single window in the front of it and a low door with the snow piled high against it.
"See, Peter," she cried, her eyes fixed on the friendly shelter, "we are almost at the house of Ivan Drovski. Dry your eyes, we shall soon have news of mother."
She staggered through the gate and set Peter down for a moment, to get breath enough to go on. While she waited a face appeared at the window, another joined it and another, until presently six pairs of eyes were peering through the tiny panes at Katrinka and Peter. Then, suddenly, the low door at the side of the house opened and Ivan Drovski, big and bearded, wrapped in his great sheepskin coat, kicked away the snow and came striding down the path towards the exhausted children.
"Why, Katrinka, my little lamb, what brings you out in such a storm? Is the good mother or father ill?"
His voice rumbled like a bass drum. He tossed little Peter to his shoulder and taking Katrinka by the hand, started towards the house.
At the door he set Peter down, for he was so tall he had to bend almost double to avoid striking the beam in the top of the doorway. After he had crossed the threshold he reached back for Peter, placing him in the crook of his elbow and holding out a hand for Katrinka.
It seemed to Katrinka, who was blinded by the snow, that the room they entered was as dark as night, and she stumbled and would have fallen had she not struck a warm, furry body that she knew belonged to a young calf which lived in the cottage with Ivan Drovski and his family. As she righted herself there was a great whirring and fluttering of wings above her head, made by the pigeons that built their nest among the rafters in the outer room of the Drovski cottage. She was wading through straw to her ankles but the air was warm and felt grateful to her half-frozen face.
Clinging to Ivan Drovski's great hand she made her way through the darkness, almost stumbling over the hens and chickens scratching in the straw and a little family of sleeping pigs that set up a shrill squealing which delighted Peter.
Presently Ivan Drovski opened another door, a trifle higher than the one which had admitted them to the outer room, and entered the kitchen, which was lighted by the small window through which six pairs of curious eyes had watched Katrinka and Peter.
A large woman with a broad good-natured face stood in front of the whitewashed clay oven, which was set in the wall so that it heated both the kitchen and the outer room. As Ivan threw open the door she hurried to meet him, taking Peter from his arms and unfastening his wadded coat while she questioned Katrinka.
"What has brought you out in such a storm, my child?" she asked, shaking Peter's coat vigorously over the oven.
"Mother and father have gone away. They have been gone since early morning and Peter and I are very much afraid."
Mother Drovski stopped shaking Peter's coat and stood looking at Katrinka with her mouth open. Three small children clung to her skirts, staring shyly.
"What do you mean, child?" demanded Ivan, shaking himself like a bear and unfastening Katrinka's coat. "Have your parents gone for a visit?"
"I do not know," said Katrinka, her lips quivering. "They were there last night. There was a meeting. Some strange men and women talked. Peter went to sleep in his basket. 7 Then mother put him to bed on the oven and told me to lie down beside him. They closed the door to the other room. By and by somebody rapped and then there was more talking. Father and mother did not come to bed with us on the oven and this morning I could not find them. The cow has not been milked although I fed her with straw. Peter and I have waited all day for father and mother. When it began to grow dark I was afraid. The printing press is gone."
"Ah," breathed Ivan Drovski, as his thick brows puckered into a frown, "the printing press is gone, is it? I warned your father that it would make trouble for him. Now it has come. Who knows when we shall see him again?"
Ivan thrust his fingers through his long yellow beard.
"My poor lambs, what will become of you?" cried Mother Drovski, gathering the children into her arms, while her own family huddled in the corner under the image of the Virgin and crossed themselves, frightened at the anxious note in their mother's voice.
Katrinka, who had kept her tears back all day, felt her eyes fill as Mother Drovski's arms closed about her.
"Is it the Cossacks who have taken them away?" she asked, her voice smothered against her kind neighbor's shoulder.
"I saw strangers in town last night," rumbled Ivan. "They stopped at the store for tea. Somebody said they were secret police from St. Petersburg. Now our good neighbor and his wife are gone. That is what comes of learning reading and writing, and holding meetings." He shook his head dolefully. "They will find a grave in Siberia while their children starve."
Katrinka tore herself from the sheltering arms of Mother Drovski and looked despairingly into the face of Ivan. At last she understood what was meant by the disappearance of her parents. The police had taken them away. Even now they were on their way to that mysterious place called Siberia of which she had heard so much. Many of her father's friends had gone there. She had heard often, how, chained to one another, they had crossed the frozen desert, never again to come back, but to spend their lives working far under the ground in the Siberian gold mines.
There flashed through her mind a picture of her mother's face as she had seen it on the last Easter, her cheeks rosy, her dimples flashing. She had worn a dress of vivid blue, the color of the corn flowers, and her hair was confined under a lace handkerchief. Around her waist was tied a wonderful apron made of strips of crocheted lace and white linen. Her full plaited skirt was short and gave one a glimpse of her ankles bandaged in white cloth and of her slippers of black leather, the only leather slippers in all the village. How gayly she had laughed as she stopped to exchange kisses and Easter eggs with all whom she met!
Katrinka felt her chin quiver. Could it be that she should never again see the pretty, sweet-voiced mother of whom she had been so proud, the mother who had sat at home spinning while the other women in the village went to the fields to be hitched beside the oxen or the horses at the plows?
The tears rolled down Katrinka's cheeks. She hid her face in Mother Drovski's apron.
"Do not worry, my little one," said Mother Drovski, laying her arm about the child's shoulders. "You and Peter shall not go hungry. Your stomachs shall be filled and you shall sleep with us–here in the izba 8 of Ivan Drovski–with him and his own little ones. It has been a hard winter. The cattle are suffering for food but with the help of the good Father we shall find enough for two more mouths."
Mother Drovski crossed herself with her thumb and two first fingers, her eyes on the pictured face of the Virgin framed in a wreath of tin flowers that hung in a corner of the kitchen.
"Dry your tears. We will light the samovar, and have tea at once."
She motioned to a tall girl, who immediately set to work preparing the big samovar which stood in the middle of the pine table. Then, turning to Katrinka, she went on kindly.
"Come, we will go down cellar."
She took Katrinka's hand and drew her to the door that led into the storeroom under the house. At the head of the stairway she stopped to light a candle while Katrinka bravely blinked back her tears.
"We will have some beet-root soup with slices of cucumber in it," she said as they reached the foot of the stairs. "And there is a loaf of black bread in the oven." She paused and bent over the potato bin. By the light of the candle Katrinka could see that it was almost empty. For some moments Mother Drovski stood looking into it, then, with a sigh, she filled a wooden bowl with potatoes. "They will not last through the month, but you shall have some to-night," said the good woman, trying to speak cheerfully. After filling the bowl, she held up the candle and looked around the storeroom. Katrinka looked too, her brown eyes wide and filled with wonder. The room was less than half the size of the storeroom at home. Against its walls hung no strings of dried and salted fish. There were no jars of preserved berries on the shelves. A single barrel of salted meat stood on the floor. Mother Drovski shook her head sadly, then, going to a jar that stood in the corner, uncovered it and took out a single cucumber. Near the jar was a box filled with beets and turnips.
The flickering candle lighted up Mother Drovski's troubled face. She was wondering if the scanty supply of winter provisions would be sufficient to feed two more mouths.
Katrinka, seeming to read the good woman's thoughts, caught her rosy underlip between her teeth. She looked around dubiously at the bare storeroom, her mind conjuring up a picture of the storeroom at home with its supply of good things, and of the kitchen with hams, sides of bacon, strings of mushrooms and dried fruits hanging from the rafters.
Suddenly she clapped her hands. Her feet in their big boots, wet with snow water, felt light. She sprang into the air and coming down whirled around on her toes. It was Katrinka's way to express her feelings through her feet, which were like thistledown, and very small.
"Oh, Mother Drovski," she cried, "Peter and I will eat with you to-night and then you and Ivan and the children shall come home with us and stay until father and mother come back. We have a big house and there are hams and fish and potatoes and cabbages enough to feed the whole village."
As she finished speaking she felt a moment's misgiving over the generosity of her invitation. She was not sure that her father would be pleased to come home and find Ivan Drovski and his family installed in the house, which was the largest and lightest, as well as the cleanest, in the entire village.
She wondered if the Drovskis would bring the chickens and the calf and the little pigs to live in the sitting room and if they would scatter straw over the shining floor. Appalled by the picture she laid her forefinger against her lip, shrinking into the shadows for fear kind Mother Drovski would read her thoughts.
That good woman breathed a sigh of relief. "I have heard of the riches of your father," she said. "Surely it would be but right for us to take a few dried fish and some barley meal in return for the care of his children. And, Katrinka," she continued, starting towards the stairs, "is there an abundance of straw in your stable?"
"I heard father say that it would last until spring. Do you need some straw?"
"Ivan began pulling straw from the roof to feed the cattle two days ago. But if we use up the entire thatch there will not be straw enough to last until the snow is gone," replied Mother Drovski as she bent to close the cask in which the pickled cucumbers were kept. "I am sure your father would willingly allow us a little straw to pay us for sheltering his children."
"But, Mother Drovski, you are to live with us. Our house is large and there is room in it for all of us. Besides, if Peter and I come here to live with you, there would be nobody left at home to water the geraniums and to milk the cow, and keep the fire burning."
Mother Drovski patted Katrinka's head, dripping a splash of hot tallow on the child's upturned face as she did so.
"We will leave those questions until later," she said, moving towards the stairs.
IT was a restless night that Katrinka spent in the overcrowded izba of Ivan Drovski. Although she was accustomed to sleeping on top of the big oven at home during the long winter nights, with little Peter's head on her arm and her mother and father occupying the space beyond Peter, it was impossible for her to sleep on the Drovski oven, upon which was huddled the entire family, with the exception of Ivan, who slept on the shelf under the window.
In order to make room for all, Peter and the youngest Drovskis were laid crosswise at the foot of the oven against the wall. Katrinka and two half grown girls occupied the middle space, flanked by Mother Drovski and Marie, the oldest daughter.
The room was so hot and stifling that Katrinka's sleep was broken, and again and again she opened her eyes, fixing them on the gray square of light made by the window, wondering if morning would ever come. Her position was cramped and uncomfortable, but she dared not change it for fear of disturbing the kind neighbors who had so willingly taken Peter and herself into their already overcrowded house.
With the first gleam of daylight she slipped to the floor and pulled on the leather boots that belonged to her mother. After a night in the oven these were thoroughly dry, although as hard as stones. Making as little noise as possible Katrinka groped her way to the other room, crossed it without disturbing either the pigs or the hens, and opened the door into the yard. The snow had stopped falling. The morning was crisp and clear. She took a deep breath of fresh air and plunged into the great, white drift of snow that had piled up against the door during the night. Her eyes were fixed on the house at the end of the village street. Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Where are you going, my child?" rumbled Ivan Drovski.
"I thought I would run home while Peter slept to find out if father and mother had returned and to give the cow some straw."
Ivan Drovski wound the full skirts of his sheepskin around him and shook his head.
"Go back into the house, little one. I will look after the cow and bring you news of your parents, if there is any."
He opened the door of the outer room where the calf and the little family of pigs were already bestirring themselves. "Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes and Peter will be crying for you."
Reluctantly Katrinka turned her back on the snow-covered landscape and waded again through the drift to the dark little izba of Ivan Drovski.
Entering the kitchen she found Mother Drovski beating up some pancakes, while Marie, the oldest daughter, wrapped in a wadded coat and carrying a pail on her arm, was about to start for the spring back of the house.
"Fill your pail with snow, Marie," said Mother Drovski, "the spring will be frozen over and the ice too thick for you to break. Besides, snow water makes good tea and the snow melts more quickly than ice. But make haste, the little ones are already stirring." Marie started towards the door and Mother Drovski turned to Katrinka. "You may set the table, my child. We must have breakfast ready by the time Ivan gets back with the milk."
Katrinka set the table and when Marie returned with her pail full of snow, she emptied it into the reservoir of the samovar and lighted the charcoal. Meantime she planned how she should manage to return with Peter to their own clean and spacious house without wounding the feelings of Mother Drovski, who was already treating them as if they were her own little ones.
The water in the samovar had just begun to boil when Ivan Drovski returned with a bucket full of warm milk.
Katrinka ran to meet him. "Were mother and father at home?" she cried.
Ivan Drovski shook his head, then, as he saw the tears spring to her eyes, laid one of his great hands on her shoulder.
"Do not cry, my child. I will go to the village to-day and learn what I can concerning the whereabouts of your father and mother. Meantime you and Peter shall not suffer. You shall make your home with us."
She bravely blinked back her tears, but when breakfast was over and Ivan leaned back in his chair, sipping his tea through a big lump of sugar which he held between his teeth, she slipped from the table and going to his side, laid her hands on his arm.
"Now that Peter and I have finished breakfast, Ivan Drovski," she said with a wistful smile, "we will go home. Father and mother would be frightened if they should come back and find us gone. It is best that we wait for them there."
"Poor lamb," said Ivan, crunching his sugar. "There is no use in your going home to wait for your parents. You will be lucky if you ever hear from them again, much less see them. Best stay content with us. The izba is warm and when we have moved the provisions from your storeroom to ours, there will be plenty of food for all."
Katrinka compressed her lips. "I thank you, Ivan Drovski," she said, "but I must take Peter and go home. There is nobody else to water the geraniums and keep the fire going in the oven so that the kitchen will be warm when father and mother come back."
She released Ivan Drovski's arm and taking Peter's wadded coat from the hook on the wall, wrapped it about him.
"Come, come, my child," said Mother Drovski. "Be sensible. Your father and mother are halfway to Siberia by now. Make up your mind to remain comfortably with us. We are willing to care for you and Peter until you can care for yourselves. You are a smart girl and can make yourself useful."
"No Mother Drovski," said Katrinka stubbornly, "I thank you, but Peter and I must go home. My mother has taught me how to make a good soup and to bake black bread. I am ten years old and almost as tall as Marie, who is fifteen. I can knit and mend. I will go home and write a letter to the Czar, asking him to send back my father and mother."
Ivan Drovski's big laugh rumbled through the room.
"Many another child has written to the Czar, the Little Father, as they call him, and for their pains more than one has felt the knout and the Cossack's whip. Come, my child, and rest with us."
Katrinka looked at Ivan and shook her head, biting her rosy under lip to keep back a homesick sob.
"No, Ivan, I will write to the Czar and I will pray."
Again Ivan laughed. "Write to the Czar, if you will, then, but remember what Ivan Drovski tells you. It will do no good. Your letter will never find the Czar–you will be lucky if it comes under the eyes of one of the Grand Dukes."
With the words Ivan rose, thrust his arms into his sheepskin coat and strode towards the door.
Katrinka took Peter by the hand and started to follow him.
"Wait a minute, little ones," called Mother Drovski. "If you are determined to go home, I will go with you."
She long had wanted to see the storeroom of her neighbor, Peter Petrovski. Rumor said that it was provided with good things enough to feed the entire village until spring. She remembered how last year, during the famine, Peter Petrovski had kept his neighbors from starving by dividing his stores with them.
She pinned a shawl over her head, wrapped another around her shoulders, thrust her feet into huge boots and strode towards the door. Her children started after her but she waved them back, and with Peter on one side and Katrinka on the other, went through the dark room where the hens clucked and scratched in the straw and the little pigs fought over their food.
She stopped for a moment to pat the young calf which brushed her cheek with its rough tongue, then passed through the low door into the fresh outdoor air.
Peter blinked and covered his eyes with his hands. After the dark interior of the house the sun on the snow blinded him. Katrinka took long breaths of cold air. The blood danced through her veins. She broke away from Mother Drovski's restraining hands and went leaping and skipping through the snow, her large boots flapping up and down.
She threw back her head, waving her arms towards the sky. She skimmed nimbly over a snow-covered rock at the side of the road, plunging in and out of the drifts, then, her cheeks glowing, her lips parted, ran back to her neighbor. For a moment her joy in movement had caused her to forget the disappearance of her father and mother.
EVEN the cold and empty izba did not depress the buoyancy of Katrinka's spirits. At once she set about building a fire, singing softly under her breath, gayly confident that before another day was over her parents would be restored to her. While she laid the birch wood, Mother Drovski looked about the kitchen, shrugging her shoulders at the spotlessness of the floor and at the glistening whiteness of the big oven. In the front of the little window stood a stand spread with a snowy cloth. On this were several geraniums in full bloom. Above the stove hung shining copper kettles and stew pans. The samovar that occupied the middle of the rough table in the center of the room was so bright that she could see her face in it. The bench that ran along the wall under the window was spotlessly clean.
"It is easy enough to keep one's kitchen like this when there are but two little ones," Mother Drovski muttered under her breath, balancing in her palm a ham that hung from the ceiling. "Your father has enough smoked meat for an army of Cossacks," she went on aloud, with a sidelong glance at Katrinka, who was watering the geraniums. "That is because he has never given to the church like the rest of us and he only has a few mouths to feed."
"And also he works harder than anybody in the village," replied Katrinka.
Then, fearing that she had hurt the feelings of her neighbor, she impulsively moved a bench into the middle of the room and springing upon it reached up and took down the largest of the hams.
"Take this home with you, Mother Drovski," she said, cordially. "I am sure father would want to do something in return for your kindness to little Peter and me."
Mother Drovski put the ham down on the bench and went to the sink where she studied the trough made from a hollowed block of wood. In this trough Katrinka's mother did her washing, and in it she frequently bathed little Peter, instead of steaming him in the oven, according to the village custom.
"They tell me that your mother washes your clothes every week in the winter, just as in summer," said Mother Drovski, running her hand around the smooth inside surface of the trough.
"Yes," said Katrinka, slipping some mushrooms from the long string that hung over the oven and placing them on the bench beside the ham.
Mother Drovski shrugged her shoulders. She washed regularly every week during the summer, carrying the clothes to the river and rubbing them between two stones. But in the winter it was difficult enough to get enough water for the tea and the steam baths, so like the other villagers she baked the family wearing apparel on Saturday, even the great sheepskin coat of Ivan Drovski going into the oven with the other clothing.
After her survey of the kitchen was finished Mother Drovski visited the sitting room, where she looked at the big loom, the glass case in which stood the sacred images, and some pussy willows that had been saved from Palm Sunday a year ago, when, as is the custom, they were carried to church instead of palm leaves.
Her big black eyes saw everything–the white lace tidies on the tables, the artificial flowers stuck in the sand that was poured between the double windows to keep out the cold, the braided mat on the floor, the porcelain stove that had come from St. Petersburg.
This stove was cold now, for the fire that had crackled in it during the meeting, two nights before, had long since gone out, and the room was so chilled that a frost rim began forming about Mother Drovski's mouth. With a shiver she hurried back to the kitchen and lighting a candle went into the storeroom. Presently Katrinka joined her, loading her with salt fish, potatoes, cabbages and beets. In fact it was all that the good Ivan Drovski and his wife could do to carry home in their arms the good things that Katrinka bestowed upon them, as she recalled with a pang of pity the empty storeroom in the Drovski house and the many mouths that her neighbors had to feed.
"We will send Marie to spend the night with you," cried Mother Drovski, when she found that it was impossible to persuade Katrinka to return with her. "She is a big girl, old enough for marriage. With her here you will not be afraid and we shall have more room on the oven at home."
Katrinka smiled. With the sun shining on the snow it did not seem to her that she would ever again be afraid of anything. But when darkness fell and little Peter cried for his mother, and through the stillness she heard the great wolf hounds howling in the village door-yards, she was glad enough that Marie Drovski had come to spend the night, although Marie told harrowing fairy tales of bad spirits that dwelt in the barnyards and amused themselves cutting off horses' tails, and of others that hid in dark storerooms, creeping out by candlelight to tangle the skeins and spoil the spinning.In truth, it is quite certain that when night came, Katrinka would have preferred spending it packed on top of the oven with the entire Drovski family, to passing it alone with Peter in their own clean and roomy izba.
SPRING had come. All about the birds were twittering, crocuses and daisies were coming into bloom. The little buds on the lilac bushes had turned green. Katrinka danced barefoot down the village street towards the store, there to exchange dried fish for sugar and tea.
KATRINKA DANCED BAREFOOT DOWN THE VILLAGE STREET.
Now and then a shadow swept her brow and her feet grew heavy. This was when she remembered with a pang that no word had yet come from her father and mother. But when spring is in the air and one is only ten years old, tragedy must look on at a distance, while joy sends the blood bounding through the veins. So, on the whole, Katrinka was happy, although she fell on her knees many times a day to pray to the Virgin for the return of her parents, and she had stripped the storeroom of good things until it was as empty as the storeroom of Ivan Drovski, to make gifts to the village priest, in return for his prayers for the happiness of her poor father and mother.
To-day the air was wonderfully sweet and full of life, and Katrinka felt sure that the prayers would soon be answered. Her feet seemed hardly to touch the ground as she approached the store and then suddenly paused. She had almost bumped into Marie Drovski. She laughed, then sprang back to look admiringly at her friend.
Usually Marie wore an old crimson skirt, figured with bright yellow cornucopias, but today she had changed it for a skirt and kerchief of dark blue, which in Russia is the mourning color and is always worn by engaged girls–and Marie Drovski had been engaged for almost two months now.
It had come about in this way. A big man driving a fine sleigh had come to the village from the other side of St. Petersburg. He was in search of a bride for his son.He stopped at all the village houses to get a sly peep at the girls of marriageable age. He came finally to the dwelling of Ivan Drovski. As he entered the kitchen he saw Marie, who was taking a big loaf of bread from the oven. It was a white loaf and very light, made from flour that Katrinka had given Mother Drovski the day before. At the sight of the fine white loaf the man struck his hands together delightedly, and asked to see Mother Drovski. After some talk and laughter the visitor managed to find out a great many things about Marie that pleased him. He learned that she could spin, knit, sew, cook, milk the cow and work in the fields. Also he saw that she had a pretty face and guessed that her disposition was merry. He found that when she married she would have as a dower the fine young calf that had been kept in the outer room during the winter, as well as a pig, a sheep and a great deal of cloth that she had spun on the big loom which belonged to Katrinka's mother.
When the stranger learned all this he was very much pleased. He invited Mother Drovski to drive to his home with him, there to inspect a fine jewel that he had. Mother Drovski set out the following day, and that night Marie confided to Katrinka that the jewel her mother was to see was the son of the stranger. Two days later Mother Drovski returned, well satisfied with the young man whom she had met.
A fine feast was then prepared by the Drovskis, and on the day of the feast, towards the evening, three knocks sounded upon the outer door. By this time the snow had almost disappeared and the weather was so much warmer that the chickens, the calf, and the young pigs had been taken to the shed back of the house, and the outer room had been cleaned from floor to ceiling. The shutters had been removed from the double windows and the room was light and fairly cheerful.
When Mother Drovski heard the mysterious rapping she pretended to be very much surprised, and going to the door, threw it open. Twilight had fallen and she held in her hand a tallow candle. Two women stood outside.
"What brings you to my dwelling at this hour?" demanded Mother Drovski, as if she did not know who the strangers were or why they had come.
"We are hungry. We would eat," replied the taller of the women.
"Then enter," said Mother Drovski. "Our supper is spread. It is plain and poor but there is enough for all." Really it was the very finest supper that Mother Drovski had ever prepared.
The women lowered their heads and passed through the outer room into the kitchen. The big oven had been freshly white-washed, and the rough pine table, covered with a white cloth, was groaning under the weight of good things to eat. Marie in her red skirt made a pretty picture, standing shyly with downcast eyes in the corner near the glistening oven. She knew perfectly well why the women had come. One of them was the mother of the young man whom Marie had never seen, but whom her parents had decided she should marry, providing his mother thought well of her.
The mother of the young man, a broad-shouldered woman with sharp blue eyes, looked around the room, making believe, meantime, that she had not noticed the girl in the corner. Untying the white kerchief from her head, she placed it on the bench under the window.
"I have a son," she said, her eyes fixed on the face of Mother Drovski. "He is broad-shouldered and as strong as an ox. His face is so handsome and his disposition so kind that all the girls in our village desire him for a husband. But he will have none of them. He has heard that in this village, in this very house, there is a maiden of sixteen years with eyes as soft as a young lamb's and with a complexion like the sunny side of an apple. It is said of her that she has many virtues; that she goes to church regularly, that she is quick and neat, that she can sew, spin, weave, knit and bake a loaf that is good enough for the Imperial Prince. I have also heard that she is as good as a man in the fields. If there is in this house this beautiful maiden, pray show her to me at once, that I may return and tell my son that I have found for him a fitting bride."
"Indeed," replied Mother Drovski, "I will show my daughter to you. But I fear you will be disappointed. She is a simple village girl, but she works hard and is kind and obedient."
"Pray, let us behold her," said the sharp-eyed visitor, seating herself on the bench that ran along the kitchen wall.
Madame Drovski sighed, and going to the door leading from the kitchen into the backyard, called softly. Immediately several village girls appeared. They entered the house and one after another passed before the mother of the young man, who shook her head sadly, and after the last girl had gone, turned to Mother Drovski.
"I have made a mistake," she said, picking up her kerchief as if about to leave. "None of these is the girl for whom I am in search."
Then, suddenly, as if she had just remembered her, Mother Drovski called Marie, who came shyly from the corner and stood before the two strange women. Immediately the mother of the young man threw out her arms and gathered the girl to her bosom, kissing her first on one cheek and then on the other.
"This–this is the girl for whom I came in search. This is the maiden for whom my son longs."
Mother Drovski who, according to Russian custom, had planned the whole thing at the time she visited the home of the young man, immediately began to wail and wring her hands. Marie joined in the weeping, and even Katrinka, who had been invited to the feast, managed to squeeze out a few tears, although she knew that both Mother Drovski and Marie had been looking forward to the visit of the unknown young man's mother and were pleased at the prospect of the coming marriage. It seemed very foolish to her for them all to cry aloud now as if they were torn with anguish, but she knew it was customary and so, with an effort, joined in the lamentations.
After a few minutes the tears were dried and the Drovski family, the two strange women, Katrinka and little Peter crowded around the table where the feasting continued for hours.
The next day Marie was driven to the house of a relative in a nearby village where the youth she was to marry had also come. Here the two young people were allowed to see each other but not to speak. The young man, as if ignorant of Marie's presence in the house, strolled about the yard while Marie observed him through a window. Later Marie went outside and stood talking with a cousin while the young man watcher her.
It is probable that he was very much pleased with the choice his parents had made, for when Marie at last drove away with her father, he stood for some time in the middle of the road looking after the departing wagon.
All this had taken place some weeks ago, but to-day for the first time Marie had put on her betrothal mourning. To Katrinka's fond eyes her friend looked more enchanting than ever before.
"Oh, Marie," she cried, her gaze fixed on the blue skirt. "You have on your mourning. 9 Then it is true that everything has been arranged for the wedding?"
Marie's color brightened. "Yes, I shall be busy from now on, spinning cloth to make my wedding clothes."
"And in the summer will you go away?" Katrinka's dimples vanished. The corners of her mouth drooped.
"Yes, before the harvesting I shall go to live in the house of my father-in-law."
"Oh, Marie, what will Peter and I do without you? Who will sleep in the house with us after that?" Katrinka bit her under lip to hide its quivering. "We shall be very lonely and afraid, Marie."
"Perhaps your father and mother will have returned by then," said Marie, smiling cheerfully. "Besides, Peter is getting large and strong. He is four years old. He will soon be a man and able to take care of you."
Katrinka clasped her hands, and the dried fish which she was to exchange for sugar and tea fell unheeded to the ground.
"Oh, Marie, I pray to the Virgin every night that Peter may grow up a woman. I fear that if he is a man he will be a man of the sword and a printer. Then he will be torn from me and sent to Siberia. Even now he plays that he is a soldier and one day he had a stone that he said was a bomb. When I asked him what he would do with it, he said he was going to blow up the Czar's Cossacks. I do not know where he learned about these things, but I am sure it would be better for him if he could grow up a woman."
Marie laughed. "Children hear and remember everything. No doubt Peter heard them talking of these things at the meetings which were held in your house."
"They were all good men and good women who came to our house. They were talking and thinking always of what would be best for the poor."
"That may be, but it is foolish to talk of such things. It can do no good, and if the officers of the Czar hear of it they are very likely to throw one into prison. Have you finished coloring your Easter eggs?"
Katrinka picked up her fish and the shadow disappeared from her forehead.
"I have a basket of them and one for Peter. We have some of every color, but the prettiest are the green ones on which I have painted red flowers. I will show them to you to-night."
Marie smiled and started on her way, then suddenly turned and came back.
"A cousin is coming to eat with us to-morrow. I told mother that I would bring her some white flour that we might have a nice loaf for him. But when I looked for the flour in your house this morning there seemed to be none there."
"I gave the last of it to the priest yesterday."
"And the codfish is all gone."
"Yes, your mother took a strip–all that was left–when I gave her the last of the cucumbers, Saturday. There are seven mouths to feed in your family. In our house there are only two. Peter and I like black bread and mushroom soup, and there are enough mushrooms to last for a long time."
Marie looked at Katrinka and frowned, shaking her head dubiously.
"You have given too much to your neighbors and the church. You forget that your father is no longer here to provide food for the long winters."
"But Peter and I are very small. We have enough for a long time to come," replied Katrinka, entering the door of the store and offering her fish to the proprietor.
IT was three o'clock Easter morning. Katrinka, who had been taught to cook by her mother, had made a huge cake the day before and had covered it with icing. She had sold some eggs and with the money had bought some red and yellow paper flowers. With these she had adorned the top of the cake. Although it would not be dawn for several hours she and Peter were on their way to church with the cake, which Katrinka carried on a great platter. In the moonlight she could see that the village street was thronged with women, who like herself, were carrying flower-trimmed cakes, tower-shaped cheeses and loaves of bread to church in order that the priest might bless the first food eaten after the Lenten fast. One woman had a cake that was built up in terraces. It was surmounted with a pink candle and was so heavy that the woman staggered beneath its weight. As Katrinka overtook the woman and saw the pink candle, she sighed.
Her mother had always trimmed the Easter cake and cheeses with little candles, but after Katrinka had bought sugar and flour and raisins and paper flowers for her cake the egg money had given out, so for the first time the Easter cake was without candles.
All of the day before Katrinka had been busy preparing for the great feast. She had swept and cleaned the house and had set a bowl of yellow daisies in the middle of the kitchen table. Before going to bed she had given Peter a thorough steaming, having first built up a very hot fire in the stove, upon which she afterwards dashed a good sized basin of water. The water steamed and sizzled on the hot surface, filling the kitchen with warm vapor. When the steam was so thick that even the walls were damp, Katrinka took Peter, who was already undressed and prancing about the room, and laid him on the shelf in front of the oven. Then she rubbed him with a rough towel of homespun until he glowed. Finally, she filled the trough in the kitchen with cold water and rolled him in it, afterwards beating him lightly with birch branches until he was as red as her own petticoat.
This morning he was dressed in a little suit of yellow linen that his mother had made for him the summer before. It was a trifle tight and uncomfortable, but Katrinka thought it looked very fine indeed as he ran back and forth in the dim light, swinging a small basket of colored eggs.
By the time they reached the church Katrinka's arms were aching and she was very glad to set her big cake down on one side of the aisle, placing Peter's basket of eggs beside it. This done she took from a capacious pocket in her skirt a little packet of tea, some sugar and two small rolls. These she set on the floor beside Peter's basket. Then she stood up and looked around. The entire church was filled with food. There were cakes and fruit and meal and eggs and butter. In the midst of the good things the white-haired priest moved about with a bowl of holy water.
As he approached her cakes, Katrinka threw out her arms, crying, "Holy Father, bestow your blessing on my sweet loaf. Sprinkle it with one drop of the holy water that it may be blessed."
The priest dipped his hands into the water and then lifted them, shaking glistening drops in all directions. Katrinka kept her eyes on her food and seeing that none of the water had fallen on the rolls, cried out again, beseeching the priest to return and sprinkle the bread. At last when she was sure that all of her food had been blessed by contact with the holy water, she and Peter gathered it up and started towards home. They were very hungry for they had fasted for seven weeks, and according to the custom of the Greek church, had eaten almost nothing during the seven days before Easter. 10
Although the sun was not yet up when they entered the house, Katrinka made tea from the package that had been blessed and cut two large slices of cake. Then, having partly satisfied their hunger, she and Peter lay down on the shelf that ran along the wall of the sitting-room and were presently fast asleep.
It was long after sunrise when they again awakened. Fearful that they would be late for the morning service Katrinka hurriedly brushed Peter's black hair and sent him outdoors to play while she made her toilet. This finished, she called her brother.
"How do I look, Peter?" she asked, standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips and her head tilted to one side, eager for the small man's praise. She had discovered a few weeks before what seemed to her a very wonderful head-dress. It had belonged to her mother when she was a girl and had lived in the North with her parents. It was a red turban with an embroidered border. Katrinka had saved it for the Easter festival. Now with the head-piece rearing itself boldly above her brow she felt suddenly timid and sought Peter's approval before starting for church. The high turban was so different from the flat kerchiefs worn by the villagers that she was half afraid to appear in their midst, wearing it.
Peter looked at it, then began to shout. "You are a soldier! You are a soldier!" he cried, leaping up and down and swinging a stick. "Take your sword and come with me to fight the Czar's Cossacks."
"Ssh!" said Katrinka, taking off the turban. "Some one will hear you and then you will be carried away to prison."
"I am not afraid," cried Peter, flashing back and forth and slashing about with his stick. "When I am a man I shall go to war and when the Cossacks have all run away I will pull the Czar off his throne and make him give us back our father and mother."
"Peter," remonstrated Katrinka, looking about nervously, "the Czar will give us back our father and mother when he knows how good they were and how loyal. Come!" She tied her plain white kerchief over her head, smoothed down the full plaits of her bright red skirt that stood out like a hoop around her knees, fastened a white daisy in her bodice, and with a regretful backward glance at the scarlet head-dress which she had abandoned, took Peter's hand and set off towards the church. They had not gone far when a family that lived in one of the neighboring izbas saw them, and came running pell-mell to meet them. Katrinka, who had been walking sedately, dropped Peter's hand and with a little cry skimmed over the grass towards her neighbors. Then began a great smacking of cheeks, for each member in the large family kissed both Katrinka and Peter, and Katrinka and Peter kissed each one of them in return, at the same time exchanging Easter eggs with them. The exchanging of eggs and kisses completed, they all proceeded decorously on their way. But every now and then they came across other villagers, all of whom exchanged embraces with Katrinka, Peter and their companions. At the church everybody seemed to be embracing and kissing everybody else.
Peter and Katrinka laughingly joined in the festival, running about and eagerly smacking grown-ups and children alike.
The appearance of a carriage drawn by three black horses interrupted the merrymaking. The horses drew up with a clatter in front of the church and a strange man with fair hair and hollow cheeks, who had been half reclining in the rattle-trap vehicle, stepped out, and leaning on a staff that he carried, stood staring, half wistfully, at the group of merry villagers in front of the church. Presently Ivan Drovski strode up to the stranger and kissed him heartily on the cheek.
"Happy Easter, friend," he said, and then turned to the villagers. "Salute the stranger," he called out in his huge, rumbling voice. The throngs crowded around the man, but only a few ventured to place the Easter kiss on his cheek
The stranger smiled sadly at the apparent reluctance of the villagers to give him the usual Easter greeting. Then he looked up at the church, but did not cross himself. Instead, removed his fur turban and held up his hand.
The crowd drew back. There was something terrifying about this stranger with the fair hair, cadaverous eyes and unsmiling lips. Katrinka gathered Peter to her side and muttered prayers under her breath. But in spite of herself, she was fascinated by the new arrival and could not take her eyes off him. He threw back his head. His throat was full and white. Katrinka saw that in spite of his gauntness he was not an old man. There was something young and full of fire in his attitude. He looked around, his eyes resting for a moment on the face of each one of the silent crowd. Then he spoke.
"I am looking for the children of Peter Petrovski," he said, and his voice sounded like a deep bell. Katrinka cowered behind Mother Drovski.
For some seconds there was silence. Then Ivan Drovski spoke.
"Peter Petrovski's children are here. Have you news for them?"
The stranger thrust his hand under his belted coat and drew out a paper. "Show me the children," he said, his eyes again sweeping over the crowd.
Mother Drovski pushed Katrinka forward and the man saw the child fully for the first time. He smiled. The smile lighted up his face and Katrinka, no longer afraid, went to him, and as he stooped to look into her eyes, she kissed him on the cheek. He smiled again and laid his hand on her head.
"I bring news from your father and mother, little one," he said, speaking so low that even Ivan Drovski, who stood nearby, could not hear his words. "They came to Siberia over the new railroad. They were prisoners, but not in chains. They are well and asked me to tell you to be of good cheer. They are with you always in the spirit. Here is a letter your father gave to me."
He placed a folded paper in Katrinka's hands. She unfolded it, but the tears had filled her eyes and she was unable to distinguish the words that were written on it. The man leaned down and pointing at the lines with his finger, read:–
BELOVED KATRINKA:
Take the tin box in the closet and go to Stefan Norvitch in St. Petersburg. Tell him that you are the daughter of Peter Petrovski. Ask him to open the box and do with its contents what he will, first removing enough to educate little Peter, and to bring you, my beloved Katrinka, to young womanhood. Keep your heart filled with courage and join your mother and father in praying that we may soon be reunited.
Your mother sends a heart full of love and many kisses to her children. Be a brave girl and do not forget
Your loving father,
PETER PETROVSKI.
When the man had finished reading he gave the paper to Katrinka, who placed it in the bosom of her dress.
As the man turned to reënter the carriage, Katrinka reached forward and took his hand, striving to detain him. Gently he withdrew his fingers from her clasp.
"I must go about my business, little one. If God wills I will return in good time and go with you and your brother to find Stefan Norvitch in St. Petersburg."
He climbed into the carriage and, as the three horses galloped away, looked back, smiled, and waved his hand. Katrinka never forgot the expression on his face as the carriage swept down the road, the great bell that swung in the bow over the dashing middle horse, pealing merrily.
AFTER the man had departed Ivan Drovski took Katrinka to one side, waving away the villagers who had gathered about the child.
"What message from Peter Petrovski and his good wife?" he asked.
"My father sent me a letter," replied Katrinka, her eyes sparkling. "He is well and not in chains. He says that Peter and I are to go to St. Petersburg."
"Why, my child," exclaimed Ivan under his breath, "what could two children do in St. Petersburg? Such talk is foolishness." The good man's brow knotted in a frown.
"I do not know, but I must obey my father," replied Katrinka. "He has written."
"We will show the letter to the priest after the service," said Ivan, holding out his great hand. "He will tell us what to do."
Katrinka gave the letter to Ivan Drovski and then, taking Peter by the hand, went into the church where the Easter services were being held, all of the people standing up or lying face downward on the floor. It seemed as if her father and mother were nearer by than they had been for a long time.
After the service Ivan waited for the priest, and showed him the letter that had been brought to Katrinka by the stranger.
The priest took it, his brows knotted, and when he had finished reading it, thrust it into the pocket of his cassock.
Katrinka looked at him appealingly. She wanted the letter from her father but was afraid to ask for it. She followed the priest as he crossed the little stretch of ground which separated his tiny izba from the church and, just before he stooped to enter his low doorway, called out softly:–
"Father, you have forgotten to return my letter."
The priest turned and looked at the child. He was still frowning.
"No, little one, I have not forgotten. The letter will be returned to you in due time. Go home now, and pray the good Lord that he will keep you from mingling with evil men and women."
The child made a reverence, turned, and slowly walked away.
The priest shook his head, then stooped and entered the low door of his cottage. That very afternoon he dispatched the letter to an officer in St. Petersburg.
On the following Thursday a tall, black-bearded man rapped on Katrinka's door.
She saw him from the window, and the magnificence of his uniform with its golden eagles frightened her, as did his sharp black eyes and the white teeth that glistened behind his black beard.
Nevertheless, she opened the door as wide as it would go and invited him to enter, politely asking him if he would have some tea. He shook his head. He did not take the trouble to remove his hat, which Katrinka thought strange in a man who seemed so rich and intelligent.
"Is this the cottage of Peter Petrovski?" he demanded.
Katrinka nodded shyly.
"I have been sent here by one of the Grand Dukes. You have in your possession, I am told, a black box. Bring it to me."
Katrinka's knees trembled beneath her. This must be Stefan Norvitch, whom her father had told her to find in St. Petersburg. She looked up at the man fearfully. When she finally summoned courage enough to speak her voice was tremulous.
"Is your name Stefan Norvitch?"
The man frowned.
Katrinka shrank from him. She was very much frightened.
"I am an officer in the employ of the Emperor. I have been sent to demand the tin box which is in your keeping and which you were ordered to take to Stefan Norvitch, the revolutionist. Bring me the box at once, child, or show me where it is hidden."
Katrinka opened the door of the closet back of the clay oven.
"There it is," she said, pointing to a tin box on the shelf. "I do not know what it contains."
The man took the box from its resting place. It was shallow and only about eight inches square, but apparently it was heavy. He smiled, showing his great white teeth. Then he tried to open the box and, finding that it was locked, attempted to pry up the cover. But the lock was too strong.
"Where is the key to this box?" he asked, turning to Katrinka.
"I do not know. I have never seen it," the child replied, shrinking from the man, who scowled fiercely at her as he pulled from his pocket a bunch of keys attached to a gold chain.
He tried to fit several keys into the lock without success, then turned again to Katrinka.
"We are wasting time. Make haste and bring me the key to this box."
"MAKE HASTE AND BRING ME THE KEY TO THE BOX"
"I have never seen it, sir," she insisted. "I do not know what the box contains. Father told me to take it to Stefan Norvitch in St. Petersburg. If you are not he I cannot let you have the box."
The man shrugged his shoulders, and with the box in his hand, went out to the carriage with the three horses and its padded coachman. The harness shone and the carriage was much newer and more beautiful than the one that had brought the stranger to the church on Easter morning.
The officer who rode in it was plump and red-cheeked. But as it rattled away he did not look back as the man had done who had brought the message to Katrinka from her father. Katrinka sighed as she looked after the carriage and then smiled. After all it was better to have lost the tin box than to have found that this man was Stefan Norvitch, to whom her father had told her to go in St. Petersburg. She felt sure that this stranger who claimed to have come from a Grand Duke would be very cruel to little children.
She laughed softly under her breath. How lucky it was that he had driven off without seeing little Peter, whom he might have carried away!
Relieved at the thought of Peter's safety, Katrinka began to sing, and then, as if she could express her happiness in no other way, went dancing across the meadows, her hands waving above her head, her small feet beating time to her song. At the end of the field she saw little Peter half hidden by the cow that had been turned out to graze on the tender spring grass. She called him to her and, taking his hand went to the house of Ivan Drovski. Ivan and Mother Drovski were in the fields hard at work with their spring plowing, but Marie sat on a bench in front of the cottage, sewing lace to the edge of her wedding petticoat.
Katrinka sat down on the grass at Marie's feet, and drawing Peter down into her lap, told her friend of the visit of the magnificent officer who had driven away with her father's tin box.
KATRINKA stood in the middle of the storeroom and looked around. The walls were bare, the casks that had held salted meat, pickled cucumbers and cabbages were empty. She had given the last of the honey to Mother Drovski for Marie's wedding feast. Katrinka shook her head sadly and went to the cupboard where her mother had kept the preserved cherries and strawberries and the delicious bottled grape juice. The cupboard was now bare.
Katrinka sighed. The light of the flickering candle showed that her cheeks had lost their rosy color and that there were hollows in them. The white kerchief crossed over her breast revealed the thinness of her sweet throat.
Katrinka ran her fingers over the dusty shelves, hoping that unexpectedly she would come upon a dried herring. She disturbed a couple of big beetles which rustled away to hide in a crack in the shelf, but there were no herrings.
With a shake of the head and a quivering under lip, she left the cupboard and going to the big stone jars standing on the floor of the storeroom, peered into them. There was a sharp stick on top of one. She took it and stirred the brine in the bottom of the jar where the cucumbers had been kept. Then with another sigh she turned to the stairway.
"Peter will cry if there is nothing but berries and a crust of the black bread," she said under her breath. "I will go out and hunt again for some mushrooms."
She blew out her candle and, tying her kerchief over her head, went to the pasture. Her feet lagged. She felt very tired. In the distance the cow, which had given no milk for a month, was contentedly chewing her cud. Katrinka looked at her reproachfully, then as her eyes fell on the ground, laughed gleefully. Almost at her feet were two beautiful mushrooms nestled, half hidden in the grass. She pulled them up carefully, and laying them in a large leaf, hid them in a corner of the fence.
Cheered by her good fortune, she called to Peter to come and help her look for others. The child came trotting dutifully toward her. He was wearing the yellow frock in which Katrinka had dressed him on Easter morning and which had fitted so snugly. Now, although Easter had long since passed and the dress should have been tighter than ever, it hung quite loosely upon him. For Peter, like Katrinka, was very thin. There were blue hollows under his cheek bones, and his little nose looked sharp and pinched.
Katrinka's breath caught in her throat as she looked at him. Then her eyes wandered in the direction of Ivan Drovski's cottage. At Ivan's there was milk and plenty of sour, black bread. But Marie's wedding was to take place Sunday and Mother Drovski was busy preparing for the feasting that would last for three days. Katrinka looked longingly towards the cottage, then shook her head and resumed her search for mushrooms. She and Peter would be in the way. Besides, the Drovskis' storeroom would be as bare as their own by the time Marie's wedding was over, and there were many mouths to be fed in the Drovski izba.
Poor Katrinka!
She felt faint. Her feet no longer skimmed the ground as lightly as thistledown. There was a strange feeling of hollowness under her breastbone and her head ached. For two days there had been only a few crusts of black bread in the house and these Peter had eaten. Mother Drovski had given her milk, ever since the cow had gone dry, but yesterday when Katrinka had gone for it she had been given only a part of the usual allowance, because the big cheeses for the wedding would take all of the milk that the Drovski cow gave.
"My own babies will have to get along on cabbage soup and bread for the next few days," Mother Drovski had said, shaking her head sadly as she looked at Katrinka, "and so will you and Peter. But after the wedding–well, as I have told you before–there is always room in our house for Peter Petrovski's little ones, and you will soon be big enough to work in the fields with the women."
Katrinka had thanked Mother Drovski and had gone slowly home. She felt that she could not again ask for milk. Half-heartedly she searched the field and the neighboring roadside for mushrooms and berries, then went to the straw-thatched stable in search of eggs. But there were only two hens now, and she found no eggs.
Inside the cottage the big samovar still stood in the center of the pine table. But it had not been used for many days. There was neither tea nor sugar in the cupboard, and after to-day there would be no bread, not even a crust.
Katrinka fried her mushrooms in oil that her mother had made from the seeds of sunflowers, looked over the few berries she had gathered, arranged them nicely in a yellow bowl and lifted Peter to his high stool.
Peter tasted the berries, then pushed them away.
"Peter wants bread and milk," he said crossly.
"First eat some mushrooms and the nice, red berries, then, by and by, Katrinka will give Peter some bread and milk."
Peter shook his head obstinately, but after some coaxing Katrinka prevailed upon him to eat the mushrooms and berries. When he had finished these he again asked for milk and set up a loud wailing when Katrinka told him that he must wait until night, when Ivan Drovski had finished milking.
Katrinka's dinner consisted solely of wild berries, and when she finished this meager repast, she felt weaker than ever. But she kept up a brave front for Peter's sake.
She washed her dishes, tidied her little kitchen and whitewashed the stove. Then with Peter she started down the long village street towards the house of the white-haired priest. She had given many a strip of bacon, many a fine ham, as well as potatoes and flour, to the priest during the past six months. Now she was going to ask him to give her food enough to keep her and little Peter from starving during the next few weeks.
The old priest was working in his garden and, as Katrinka approached, smiled a friendly greeting.
"And what has the lamb for an offering to-day?" he asked as she drew near.
"I have not come with an offering to-day, Father. I have come to ask alms. Peter is hungry. Our cow has gone dry. Our hens do not lay any eggs. The garden which Ivan Drovski has plowed and planted for us will yield nothing for some weeks. We are hungry and Peter cries for milk."
The priest's face grew serious. "And you have come to the church for aid? Oh, my child, these are hard times for the church and for the good Czar, the head of it. As for me, I have a large family of my own to feed and my storeroom is almost empty. You should be giving alms, not asking them."
"But, Father, I have nothing more to give and Peter is starving."
The priest looked at Katrinka, scowling.
"How does it happen that with all the riches left in your house when your father and mother went away, you have come to such straits that you ask aid of the church?" he demanded sternly. "What have you done with the fish and pork, the bin full of potatoes, the cabbages, the beets, the cucumbers? Surely two children have not eaten everything."
"Oh, no," said Katrinka. "The winter was long. Many of our neighbors needed food. My father always helped those poorer than himself, so I did what he would have had me do. I gave to the hungry whatever they asked. Surely I did right."
"So that is the way the wind blows! Well, then, my child, since you have come to me for help and advice I will give it to you."
Katrinka's head suddenly stopped aching. The color flashed into her cheeks.
"Thank you, Father," she said, making a reverence and seizing the priest's hand in order to kiss his finger tips. The priest patted her head, smiling into her upturned face. "Yes, child, I will help you. Go to the neighbors whom you helped in their need, and ask them to help you, now, in yours. Tell them that I sent you."
"But, Father, they are no better off than they were last winter. They were hungry then. They are still hungry. I cannot ask help from them."
"Tell them that I sent you. Surely there is enough food in the village to keep two orphaned little ones from starving."
Tears rose and filled Katrinka's eyes as she looked at the broad back of the priest, which he had turned towards her as he finished speaking. She brushed them away, then her gaze wandered to the windows of his small house where his wife sat sewing. The woman looked pale and ill.
Katrinka smiled at her as cheerily as she could. She felt sorry for the priest's wife, because in Russia, although the people love the church, they shun the priest and his family. Neither the children of the peasants nor the children of the nobles associate with the priest's children. It is considered very bad luck to come upon him unexpectedly in the street. If his wife dies he must give up his parish, take leave of his children and enter a monastery, because a priest without a wife is not allowed to live in a parish, and a second marriage if forbidden.
His oldest son must become a priest, no matter how unwilling he may be, and his daughters must marry priests. Frequently they never see their future husbands before the wedding ceremony. Pictures and descriptions of these girls are sent to all the church schools in the country. When a young man has completed his education for the priesthood he writes to the father of the girl whose picture and description have pleased him, and a marriage is arranged. The wedding must take place before he is given a parish in order to fulfill the law of the Russian church, which provides that no unmarried man can be a priest.
The priest's wife smiled and nodded at Katrinka and no doubt would have gladly asked her to tea, if she had not felt certain that the child would have refused such an invitation, as the villagers deem it unlucky to eat or drink in the house of a priest.
As Katrinka again turned her face towards the street, the tears once more rose and filled her eyes. She walked slowly with down-drooping head. House after house she passed, pausing now and then to look wistfully into the open doorways. There was scarcely a family which had not benefited from her generosity during the past winter. But something–either pride or shyness–kept her now from asking alms. No, there must be some other way. Her knees trembled as she climbed the slight rise of ground which led to Ivan Drovski's cottage. Peter was waiting for her near the gate. As Katrinka looked at him she knew that Mother Drovski had given him some milk. The front of his jacket was wet with it. Marie sat on a bench in front of the house putting the last stitches into her full skirt. Her hips burst like shelves from her tight belt.
The Drovskis had fared well since Peter Petrovski had been taken away. Ivan Drovski had come every morning to milk the cow for Katrinka and to bring in an armful or two of birch wood for the fire, while Marie had slept in the house with the children every night since the disappearance of Katrinka's parents. In return, longing to show her gratitude for their kindness, Katrinka had loaded her neighbors with provisions, and the Drovski children had grown fat and rosy as they had never been before.
But now that the provisions had given out she could no longer repay Ivan for taking care of the cow and bringing in the wood. She had given him the last of the salt fish the day he had plowed the garden. Katrinka sighed, then threw up her head courageously and smiled at Marie.
"Thank you for giving Peter a cup of milk, Marie," she called. "He is growing so fast that he is always hungry." She paused, then went on, making a brave attempt to seem cheerful.
"I found a lace and linen apron in mother's chest yesterday. I will send it to you to-night by your father when he comes to feed the cow. I am sure it will become you."
Marie showed all of her pretty teeth in the smile she flashed at Katrinka.
"Thank you, she cried, and then bent again over her work.
Katrinka took Peter by the hand. They were a long time in reaching home, although it was but a little way, for Katrinka's feet dragged. When, at last, she reached the house she sank down weakly on the doorstep, her chin in her palms. She knew that the time had come when she and Peter must have help from the outside, but it was the first of June and the whole village seemed poverty-stricken. Last year's provisions were exhausted and this season's crops were not yet ready.
Presently Katrinka's thoughts were disturbed by the plaintive mooing of the cow. Ivan Drovski had assured her that in a few days there would be plenty of milk again. Katrinka smiled wanly. By that time she and Peter would have starved to death. She rose wearily, called Peter, and undressing him, put him to bed on the shelf under the window, although it was still early in the afternoon. If he went to sleep now, she reasoned, he would not miss his supper.
Katrinka lay down beside her brother, her dark eyes wide open, resting first on one piece of furniture, then on another. Suddenly a wonderful idea came to her, and forgetting her weakness, and the heavy feeling in her head, she sprang to her feet, and as of old danced across the floor, waving her thin, little arms above her head. In front of the table she paused.
On it stood the shining samovar. She gazed at it, her eyes glowing. Then, in spite of her hunger, she began to sing, choosing one of the songs the young men in the village always sing before starting away to join the army. Afterwards she blew a kiss towards the samovar, whirled around, opened the door and went outside. As she walked towards the enclosure that her father had made for the chickens, the old weakness returned, but she still hummed softly. She looked at the two fat hens that were scratching in the dirt, then started down the road towards Ivan Drovski's house. Half-way there she met Ivan coming up the slope.
"Good evening, my lamb," he shouted. "I was on my way to your house."
Katrinka smiled. "And I was in search of you, Ivan Drovski. Our hens do not lay. I will bake one and give the other to you." As she spoke a shadow clouded her brow, for the hens seemed like old friends, although they laid no eggs.
"I will lose no time," replied Ivan, his face lighting up. "But first I will take a look at the cow."
He went around to the back of the house, and then began shouting to Katrinka.
"Come, child. Here is a present for you. Come quickly, and call Peter."
Katrinka made haste to join Ivan, who was standing in the door of the stable. "Come here, little one," he shouted.
She entered the low stable door and saw lying in the straw on the floor beside the cow, a tiny, baby calf. She cried out in delight, clasping her hands. Then the thought came to her that there was another mouth to be fed and she sighed despairingly.
"In a few days you will have milk to spare," cried Ivan, running his hand gently along the cow's back. "And now I will see about the hens."
Ten minutes later a fine plump hen, picked and dressed, was placed on the kitchen table.
Katrinka threw wood on the fire, and before the sun went down, the cottage was filled with pleasant odors. Peter danced gleefully back and forth patting his small stomach in delighted anticipation of the approaching feast.
IT was just daylight on the following morning that two children passed the house of Ivan Drovski. A sack made from a strong linen sheet was swung over the back of the older child, a girl of ten or eleven. She had knotted the four corners of the sheet securely and she held the ends firmly in her two hands. The sack was heavy and the child walked with bent back to ease its weight. Beside her a boy danced gayly, running off now and then into the fields to look for flowers and mushrooms. He found an abundance of flowers but it was not until they had passed the church at the end of the village street that he picked his first mushroom.
"Look, Katrinka," he cried, running towards the girl, who had stopped breathless at the top of the hill. "I have found a pink mushroom."
The girl smiled. "It is a very pretty, Peter," she said; "you shall eat it with salt for your dinner."
"And the leg of the chicken? You said you were saving that for my dinner to-day. I am hungry, Katrinka; it is time for dinner now."
The girl laughed. "No, Peter, we must travel a long, long distance before we eat dinner. Come, the sun will be up in a few minutes and all of the village will be out. We must hurry or somebody will see us and then we shall be scolded for beginning our journey without first discussing it with our neighbors."
She drew the sack higher over her shoulder and started briskly down the incline. A little feeling of fear and desolation was already taking possession of her, and in order to keep up her sinking spirits she began to talk gayly.
"We are going to St. Petersburg, where the streets are all beautiful and the houses are made of marble and gold," she said. She had never seen a great city except in her dreams.
"All of the people there are merry. They laugh and sing and the Little Father goes about among them showering blessings on their heads. And nobody is hungry. When we get there we will go to the Little Father and ask him to take us to Stefan Norvitch."
"Why do you say 'Little Father,' Katrinka? Father is bigger than Ivan Drovski."
"The Little Father is the Czar. He has five children, one of them a little boy only two years older than you."
"Will he play with me, Katrinka?"
"Perhaps, if you are good."
"What is his name?"
"Alexis."
"Has he a yellow jacket like mine?"
"He has many jackets of different colors."
"Has he a sword?"
"Yes, although he is only six years old. He is an officer of many regiments."
"So am I," cried Peter, "and I have a sword. Tell me some more."
"Wait until we reach the bazaar, 11 Peter."
"When will that be?"
"In a little while. It is in the next town."
"Is the next town St. Petersburg?"
"Oh, no. This town is only eight miles from our village. St. Petersburg is much farther. Before we reach St. Petersburg we come to the town called Tsarskoe Seloe 12 where the Czar and his children live."
"Will they let us sleep in their oven?"
"They do not sleep on the oven, Peter."
Peter pouted. "Do they sleep on shelves? I like the oven better."
"They sleep on beds that are as soft and warm as fur. But see, there in the field is a brown mushroom." Katrinka laughed. "We shall find more than we can eat."
Peter gathered the mushroom and a short distance farther on the children came to a place where the road divided. Katrinka stopped.
Two roads now stretched before her. She did not know which one led to the town where she had heard there was a bazaar to which people came from far and near to buy and sell things. While she stood hesitating, a man driving a shaggy little farm horse approached. Katrinka drew Peter into the grass at the side of the road and held up her hand.
The man brought his horse to a sudden halt, and leaning from his wagon asked if he could give her a lift.
"No, I thank you. We are on our way to St. Petersburg. But first we want to stop at the village of Tosna, where there is a bazaar. Which of these two roads goes there, please?"
The man laughed. "So you and the little one are going to the bazaar. It is a long journey by foot. Take the road to the right. If I overtake you on my way back, I will give you a ride. What have you in the sack?"
"I am taking our samovar to the bazaar to sell."
"Well, good luck," said the man, and crossed himself. It was not unusual in the spring for Russian peasants to be obliged to part with their most treasured household possessions. The winters were long and hard. It was easy to see that Katrinka had gone hungry more than once. The wagon rattled down the road. The children stood looking wistfully after it until it disappeared, then resumed their journey.
At ten o'clock they sat down by the roadside and Katrinka untied the great sack and took from it a tiny bundle which she opened and from which she produced the leg and back of the chicken.
She gave the leg to Peter, who bit into it ravenously. The chicken was tough, for Katrinka had long ago given away the young pullets, either to the priest or to her needy neighbors, keeping two old hens until the last. She had felt a fondness for them because they had raised families the year before. But, to the children, the tough meat tasted delicious and they picked the bones until not a shred of meat remained. Then Peter set his teeth into the pink mushroom, offering the brown one to Katrinka. This she refused, urging Peter to eat it himself, and sprinkling salt between its feathery gills. She was afraid that Peter would be hungry again long before they reached the bazaar.
After they had finished their luncheon she threw the heavy sack over her shoulder. Then she and Peter again started on their journey. The sun beat down upon them pitilessly, for summer comes suddenly in Russia, intense heat frequently following severe cold. But they went on courageously until, by and by, Peter's feet began to drag. Now and then he stopped and, sitting down by the side of the road, begged Katrinka to take him home. By one o'clock both children were very hungry again, but there was nothing for them to eat excepting a few sunflower seeds that Katrinka had been saving to plant.
On every side of them they saw men and women working in the fields and gardens, the women weeding the cucumber beds on their hands and knees, or, hitched beside cows, dragging the heavy plows. Their bright skirts and kerchiefs made pretty patches of color, and Katrinka longed to abandon her weary pilgrimage and stop and talk with them. Only her desire to reach the bazaar before dark stopped her.
To brace her waning spirits she sang the village war songs and hummed tunes that Ivan Drovski played on his accordeon.
After a while the sun went down and the air grew cold. Peter said he wanted his sheepskin coat, but it had been left behind. Then he insisted on returning and made Katrinka's progress difficult by tugging at her skirts and beseeching her to go back.
Too tired to remonstrate with the child, with back aching and hands stiff and sore from holding the pack, she went stubbornly on, and just as darkness fell her perseverance was rewarded. She saw in the distance the lights of the village of Tosna.
TAKING heart Katrinka struggled forward, pointing to the lights and telling Peter that presently his stomach would be filled with good things. She began to sing again, choosing Peter's favorite songs. Her voice was sweet and true, although it quavered now and then and sank away for want of breath.
Suddenly there was a great pounding of hoofs behind the children. Turning her head Katrinka saw almost upon them a carriage drawn by three black horses, their skins glistening, the chains on their harness clinking and the bell in the wooden arch above the middle horse ringing merrily.
Frightened, Katrinka drew Peter to the side of the road. As she did so she accidentally let go of the corner of the sheet which held the samovar. It slipped from her shoulder. The samovar rolled almost under the horses' hoofs. With a cry Katrinka sprang forward to save it, while the driver pulled up his horses so suddenly that, for a moment, they were almost on their haunches, their forefeet waving wildly in the air.
"What is it?" cried a child's shrill voice, just as Katrinka dragged her pack safely to the side of the road, and a man jumped from the carriage and stood looking down at her. In one terrified glance Katrinka recognized him. He was the officer who had carried away the tin box. Thrusting Peter behind her, she faced him defiantly, sure that this time he would demand the samovar and perhaps her little brother as well.
The man looked at Katrinka, scowled darkly, and muttering something under his breath, turned towards the carriage. Katrinka was uncertain whether or not he had recognized her.
"Are the little ones hurt? Did the horses strike them?" asked somebody in the carriage. Katrinka looked beyond the man towards the speaker.
In the half darkness she saw a little girl with a sparkling, rosy face, framed in fair, curling hair on which was jauntily perched a full, black velvet Tam o' Shanter. Her coat was also of black velvet and was finished at the neck with a wide, lace collar. Her hands were encased in gloves and her feet in shining, black shoes. Katrinka looked at her and smiled shyly. The child smiled back. Then she turned to a woman sitting beside her, said something, and when the woman nodded, leaned from the carriage.
"Did the horses strike you?" she asked.
Katrinka shook her head. "No, and the samovar is safe."
"Your samovar?" inquired the woman who sat beside the child. "What are you doing out here in the road with a samovar?"
"I am taking it to the bazaar," replied Katrinka, once more throwing the pack over her shoulder.
As she almost doubled under its weight, the child spoke to her again.
"It is heavy–have you walked far with it?"
"From our house in the village of Vachok."
"But that is a long way from here!" cried the woman, who spoke strangely and very slowly, as if she were trying to think of the right words.
"It is nine miles from Tosna," replied Katrinka.
"And you have carried the samovar all the way. How tired you must be! We will drive you the rest of your journey. There is plenty of room. Fraülein will hold the little boy. We drive through Tosna on our way to Tsarskoe Seloe." As the little girl in black velvet finished speaking, she turned to the lady beside her, who shrugged her shoulders as if annoyed, and said something in a language that Katrinka could not understand. Whatever it was, it made no difference to the child's plans. She leaned forward, asked the driver to take Katrinka's pack, then motioned to the dark man in the handsome uniform to help the children.
He bowed politely to the child, muttered something under his breath and the next moment had tossed little Peter into the carriage. Poor Katrinka, very much frightened at this sudden turn in events, and still fearful that the dark man wanted to get possession of the samovar and of Peter as well, hesitated, then clambered into the carriage and sat down beside the little girl with the velvet coat..
A fur-lined rug was thrown over them, a signal given to the driver and the carriage whirled away, the bell over the middle horse ringing, the chains on the harness clashing musically. The air against Katrinka's face was cold, but exhilarating.
She turned and smiled at the girl in the velvet Tam o' Shanter. As the girl smiled back, Katrinka noticed a roguish expression in her eyes. She did not seem a bit afraid of the big, dark man.
Katrinka pointed to him. "Is the officer your father?" she asked.
The child laughed. "No, indeed," she said. Then she laughed again and spoke in a strange language to the woman on the other side of her.
"My name is Tatiana Nicholovna," she said, turning towards Katrinka. "Have you never heard of me?"
Katrinka shook her head. "I live far from here," she explained apologetically. "I know only the villagers in Vachok."
Again the girl laughed, and just then the horses drew up before the bazaar. The shopkeepers were beginning to close their booths, but as the carriage approached, they stopped, faced about and stood with uncovered heads. The next moment Katrinka was lifted to the ground and Peter was standing beside her. In her hands was the sheet in which rested the samovar.
Tatiana called a merry good-by, the lady beside her nodded and smiled slightly, the officer raised his hat without glancing at the children. Then the horses thundered away.
Katrinka gazed wistfully after the departing carriage, wondering if she should ever again see the little girl called Tatiana Nicholovna.
Her thoughts were rudely interrupted by several shopkeepers who crowded about her, gesticulating excitedly and asking questions about the Grand Duchess Tatiana and Tsarskoe Seloe.
It was with some difficulty that Katrinka explained to them that she had something to sell, opened the sheet and displayed the samovar. Then began a whispered consultation accompanied by many gestures. The men looked at the samovar, passing it back and forth among them. Finally a thin little man with shrewd eyes detached himself from the others, and approaching Katrinka, asked if she would accept a rouble 13 for the machine.
Before the child had time to reply one of the other men told her he would give two roubles. This seemed to Katrinka a great deal of money, and she was about to say that it was too much, when the first man said he would give three roubles. Somebody grasped his arm and there was another consultation. Then the man who had offered three roubles again approached Katrinka.
"Will you take two roubles for the samovar?" he said.
Katrinka looked at him, surprised that he should now offer but two roubles, when a minute before he had said that he would give three. For a moment she stood looking helplessly from one to another of the men. Then she nodded her head.
"It is very kind of you to say you will give me two roubles," she said.
The man placed two roubles in her palm. As her fingers closed on the coins she felt very rich, indeed. She took Peter's hand and was starting towards the street, when she noticed a woman in one of the booths who was putting away a string of dried fish. Going to her she held out the money she had just received.
"Will you please let me have some fish and tell me where I can buy some milk and black bread for my little brother?"
The woman smiled kindly at the children. "You little ones who drive with Grand Duchesses, what do you want with black bread?" she asked, shaking her head.
"We are hungry," replied Katrinka simply.
"Then come home with me. I will give you food and send you back to your mother with full stomachs."
Katrinka's lips quivered. "My mother and father are far away, but they are not in chains."
The woman laid her hand on the child's head. "Do you come from far?" she asked kindly.
"Yes, from Vachok."
"Did the Grand Duchess bring you all the way from there in her carriage?"
"Oh, no. We could see the lights of Tosna when the carriage overtook us. I was frightened and dropped the samovar. The horses almost crushed it with their forefeet, but I sprang in front of them and rescued it. Then suddenly the carriage stopped and the little girl asked if I was hurt. Was the lady with the strange way of speaking, the Grand Duchess?"
The woman looked at Katrinka in surprise.
"No, indeed! The child–the little girl–was the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nicholovna."
"She told me that was her name, but she did not say that she was a Grand Duchess."
"Why, child, she is the second daughter of the Czar of Russia. She passes the bazaar often." The woman's voice had sunk to a whisper.
"Oh," cried Katrinka, "if I had known that I should have told her about my poor father and mother. When she learned how lonely Peter and I have been without them, and how hungry, she would have spoken to her father and he would have sent for them to come home. If you will tell me where she lives, I will leave Peter with you and go at once to find her."
The woman laughed and patted Katrinka's shoulder.
"It is a long way to the Little Palace in Tsarskoe Seloe, where the Czar and his family live. You could not walk the distance in less than three days."
The woman pulled the canvas flap over the front of her little booth, and reached out a hand for each of the children to grasp.
"I live only a few doors farther on. My sister, who lives with me, will have a hot supper ready by the time we arrive. Come, my little ones."
Peter would have preferred remaining to look at all of the wonderful shops. He was especially fascinated by one where parrots and green and yellow canaries were sold.
He hung back, his sleepy gaze fixed on the big cages filled with birds, until suddenly the proprietor came out of the booth and dropped the canvas curtain. Then Peter fixed his attention on a stand where cheeses were sold, and Katrinka, noticing the droop at the corners of his mouth, slipped her fingers from the hand of her new-found friend, and ran to the booth. Opening her small fist, in which she still held the money she had received for the samovar, she asked the man in charge of the booth to give her a cheese, and to take the pay for it from the two roubles in her hand. The man took a rouble, and was giving her a few kopecks 14 in change, when the woman who had befriended the children, and who had hurried after Katrinka, spoke up sharply. Then followed five minutes of haggling over the price of the cheese, and a great many kopecks were poured finally into Katrinka's hand, instead of a few. The purchase concluded, the market woman took the cheese, and together the trio started down the road, the woman talking cheerily about the good things that the children would have for supper.
IT turned out that the woman lived in a very comfortable-looking house. It was made of stucco and rubble stone and was painted yellow, while the gable and window sashes were a vivid blue.
To Katrinka's eyes, accustomed to the rough, log izbas which they had in her native village, the house seemed both beautiful and luxurious, and when the door was opened and her eyes beheld a wonderful, tiled oven set in the wall so that it could heat two rooms at a time, finished at the bottom with a shelf wide enough to accommodate a large family, she gasped in delight, while even the tired and hungry little Peter smiled.
The room was delightfully warm and was filled with the odor of good things. A table, laid with a white cloth, stood by the window and on it a samovar bubbled merrily. A woman in a full, brown skirt and a white apron was just taking a hot loaf from the oven, as the door opened. She called out a cheery greeting without looking around. When she had placed the loaf on a snowy piece of linen, she turned and a wave of surprise swept her stolid face as she saw the children.
"Sister Elizabeth, I have brought two little pilgrims home with me," cried the market woman, lifting Peter from the floor. "They are hungry, having walked all the way from the village of Vachok. I have asked them to spend the night with us. In the morning they can resume their journey to St. Petersburg."
"But what will two such mites do in that great city?" demanded Sister Elizabeth in a deep but pleasant voice.
"Our father's friend, Stefan Norvitch lives there," explained Katrinka. "Our father wishes us to go to him."
"You do not tell me that you have a father and that he has permitted you to set out alone on such a journey!" exclaimed Sister Elizabeth, looking sharply at Katrinka. "You are sure that you are not running away?"
Katrinka's face crimsoned. "Oh, yes, Matuska," she said, using the pet name, meaning "little mother," "our father wrote us to take the tin box from the cupboard and to go at once to St. Petersburg to Stefan Norvitch. I gave the letter to the priest and then an officer, who said he had been sent by a Grand Duke, came to our house driving a beautiful troika 15 and carried away the box."
"What was in the box, child?" asked the market woman, her smile vanishing.
"I do not know. Father said that Stefan Norvitch should do what he chose with it. He wished Peter to go to the university."
The woman near the stove frowned, but the market woman placed an arm around Katrinka and drew her towards the table.
"When you have eaten you shall tell us more," she said kindly.
She put two large lumps of sugar into a cup, took a little Majolica teapot from the top of the samovar, poured some syrupy tea upon the sugar and then filled the cup with hot water from the samovar.
She set the cup in front of Katrinka and filled another for Peter. Then she served each little one with a small, raw herring with vinegar poured over it. Afterwards she brought honey to the table, cutting a large piece of the comb for each of the children.
The woman who had baked the bread broke the loaf, which was very hot, spread it with butter and laid some of the steaming pieces on plates before them. Then the cheese that Katrinka had bought was produced and cut into slices. Katrinka breathed a great sigh of contentment and looked at Peter, who had been placed on a stool made high enough by the addition of a block of wood and a cushion stuffed with feathers.
The little boy sat with his head hanging down, his hands folded listlessly in his lap. He seemed to have lost interest in the things about him. Katrinka leaned over and held a spoonful of tea to his lips, but he shook his head. His cheeks were red and his eyes dark and heavy-lidded.
"The child is ill," said the market woman, lifting Peter from the stool into her lap. "How long has it been since he has eaten?"
"He had a chicken leg for his dinner about noon."
"That could do him no harm," cried Sister Elizabeth. "Perhaps he is only tired."
"His skin is very hot. He has a fever. What else has he eaten, child?" demanded the market woman.
"Only mushrooms and a few green berries."
"Ah!" exclaimed the market woman. "Do you know good mushrooms from bad ones?"
"Oh, yes, mother taught me."
"But the green berries–how many of those did he eat?"
"Only a few, there were not many."
Sister Elizabeth brushed back Peter's stiff, black hair, then laid her palm against his forehead.
"Eat, my child," she said to Katrinka. "I will look after your brother."
She took Peter from her sister and carried him to the stove, where she undressed him and wrapped him in a warm blanket. Then she made a bed on the shelf in front of the oven. Still holding him in her arms, she offered him hot milk, but he shook his head, pushing the cup away. So she laid him on the shelf and prepared for him a fragrant, hot drink from herbs brought from her storeroom. He took several teaspoonfuls of this, then began to cry softly, whispering that he wanted his mother. But after a while he went to sleep, and the woman with the deep voice joined Katrinka and the market woman at the table.
"Now, my child," said the market woman, when Katrinka, her hunger satisfied for the first time in many days, laid down her knife and fork, "tell us your story."
Katrinka looked thoughtfully at the two friendly faces turned towards her. Then, speaking gently in order not to disturb Peter's sleep, she told the story of the disappearance of her father and mother and of the stranger who had stopped at the church on Easter morning. While she talked the women nodded their heads wisely, and when she had finished the market woman spoke.
"You were lucky, little one, that the men who carried away your father and mother did not burn your house to the ground with you and Peter in it."
The woman seemed to have forgotten that little Peter slept. Her voice rang out. Her sister raised a warning finger. But the market woman went on.
"Things have come to a pretty pass when a peaceful peasant and his wife are torn from their children, because a printing press is found in their possession."
She brought her hand down upon the table with so much force that the dishes rattled. Katrinka glanced at the door. She half expected to see it open to let in a band of Cossacks, or the dark officer who had carried away the tin box. She drew her feet up under her skirts, her eyes wandering from the door to the window, which was much larger than the windows in the izbas at home.
"You are frightening the child," exclaimed Sister Elizabeth, who then rose, and crossing the big, clean kitchen, laid her hand on Peter's head so gently that she did not disturb him.
Presently she returned to where Katrinka and the market woman were sitting. "The little boy is better. His skin is moist. We will all go to bed now and forget our troubles."
They prepared a bed for Katrinka on the shelf beneath the window, and then taking a candle, went into the other room, leaving the door open. Katrinka saw that instead of a shelf they had a bed that stood on four legs. It looked very strange. She had heard of beds of this kind before, but this was the first one she had ever seen.
"HAVE you ever been to school?" Sister Elizabeth asked Katrinka the following morning after breakfast.
"No, there was no school in our village. Father had the children come to our house after the harvest, to learn to read. But the village policeman came one day and said he had received orders to close the classes, so the children could come no more. They had not yet learned to read."
The woman shook her head. "That was a great pity. But, child, if you would like to, you shall go with me to a real school this morning. It has sixty pupils. In our village every child ten years old knows how to read."
Katrinka glanced at Peter, who sat in the market woman's lap, resting his head against her broad breast, while he sipped hot milk from a cup.
Sister Elizabeth caught the glance. "Peter is better, but he is not yet well enough to continue the journey to St. Petersburg. Remain here with us for a day or two. You have many miles to travel and you have not been properly nourished for a long time."
Katrinka breathed a sigh of relief. Her back ached and her feet were sore. She was glad indeed to rest in the house of these kind women.
"The school is but two doors away," said the market woman, rising from the table and carrying Peter to a chair by the window. "I pass it on my way to market, and if you would like to visit it, I will take you with me and leave you there in charge of the master."
Katrinka was torn between a desire to see a real school and the feeling that she ought to remain with Peter. The women saw the troubled expression on her face.
"Do not worry about your brother," said Sister Elizabeth. "I am at home all day long, making cakes and bread for my sister to sell at the bazaar. I will take care of him. He is weak and will be content to lie in the big chair until noon, I am sure. He will sleep and will not miss you."
"You are so good," cried Katrinka happily. Her heart felt light and she longed to dance over the smooth kitchen floor, but her feet were sore and she was still a little shy in the presence of the two large women, who seemed so different from the village women she had known.
She took a clean kerchief from her bundle, tied it on her head, smoothed down the plaits of her full skirt and slipped on her dark sandals. Then with a smile at Peter, who smiled back wanly, making no objection to her preparations for leaving him, she joined the market woman, who, with a basket on her arm, stood ready to go.
It was only a few steps to the school, a low, white-washed building with a green roof and white walls, edged with what looked to Katrinka like wooden lace. When Katrinka and the market woman reached it the children were already gathered in the school yard. Some of the girls wore leather shoes and woolen stockings, while others wore sandals of braided bark with wooden soles, like Katrinka's own. Nearly all of the boys and a few of the girls were barefooted.
Katrinka pulled shyly back as she saw the groups of strange children, but the market woman urged her to make haste as the pupils would be called in presently. Even as she spoke a man with a small beard, and a black coat buttoned over a crossed kerchief, came to the door and rang a bell. All of the children stopped playing and ran towards the school. Immediately Katrinka and the market woman found themselves in a crush of boys and girls.
A moment later Katrinka looked around at the inside of the first real schoolhouse she had ever seen. The market woman and the schoolmaster exchanged a few words and then the master assigned Katrinka to a bench at the back of the room. The market woman nodded to her cheerily, shook hands with the master and disappeared.
The school began with the prayers which the master read. Then there was singing in which Katrinka joined, and after that the classes were called upon to recite, one after another. Each class stood in a little circle around the master.
It was in the middle of the morning that Katrinka felt a shiver run over her, and turning her eyes from the master, who was busy with the history class, looked towards the door, started up, then shrank back, cowering, into her seat. Her heart seemed suddenly to jump into her throat. In the doorway, his hard, black eyes fixed on the back of the schoolmaster, was an officer in a blue uniform. He stood motionless, his arms folded, listening.
The history lesson went on, and if the master knew of his strange visitor, he made no sign. Presently, one of the children asked a question.
"Who takes care of a country that hasn't any Czar?"
Before the question could be answered, the officer entered the room, and striding to the side of the schoolmaster, grasped his shoulder roughly. The master looked up, making an effort to jerk his shoulder from the stranger's clutch. As he did so the officer struck him on the cheek as if he had been a child. Then he snatched the book from which the master was teaching the children, ran over its pages with his thumb, thrust it into his pocket and announced in a loud voice that the master was under arrest for teaching treason to Russian children.
Thrusting the master before him, he then marched him from the room. Immediately two other officers entered the schoolroom, dismissed the pupils, gathered up all of the books they could find, and went out, locking the door behind them.
Katrinka, relieved that the dark man had gone without noticing her, joined the children in the yard. Some of them danced about, glad that the school had been closed, but others stood about in groups with serious faces, talking in low voices of what had happened to their master. None of them seemed to know why the school had been closed, but one of the older girls thought it was because mention had been made of the French Revolution during the reading lesson.
Katrinka remained with the children for a little while, listening to their talk, then looking fearfully behind her at every step, hurried back to the market woman's house where she had left Peter. She found Sister Elizabeth stirring up a yellow batter in a big, wooden bowl. To beat the batter she used twigs of white birch instead of a spoon. They were tied together to form a stiff brush. At the sight of Katrinka's white face she paused in her work.
"What is the matter, little one?" she asked. "What brings you back so soon?"
"The school is closed."
"I thought it still had a month to run."
"The police have closed it."
As Katrinka spoke the woman dropped the birch brush, handle and all, into the batter and whirled around. The blood flushed her cheeks, her eyes flashed angrily.
"The police are going too far. It is time somebody reported them to the Czar."
"Why don't you write him a letter?" asked Katrinka.
"What good
