Scenes From Common life, Leo Tolstoy

Scenes From Common life

Chapter I

WILLOW

ONE Easter a peasant went to see whether the frost was out of the ground.
He went to his vegetable garden and poked into the ground with a stake. The soil was soft.

The peasant went into the forest. In the woods the catkins on a young willow were already beginning to swell. And the peasant said to himself :
“ Let me plant young willows around my garden; they will grow and make a hedge.”

He took his ax, cut down a dozen young sprouts, trimmed down the butts into points, and planted them in the ground.
All the willow sticks put forth sprouts and green foliage above; and below, underground, they sent out similar sprouts in place of roots, and some of them took hold of the earth and strengthened themselves; but others did not take hold of the earth with their roots, and these died and toppled over.

When autumn came, the peasant was delighted with his willows; six of them had taken root. The next spring some sheep girdled four of them, and thus only two were left.
The following spring, sheep girdled these also. One died away entirely, but the other took new lease of life, sent down deeper roots, and became a tree. Every spring the bees hummed on in the branches. Oftentimes they would swarm there, and the peasants would gather them into hives.

Peasants and their wives often came to lunch and nap under the tree, and their children climbed up its trunk and broke off its twigs.
. The peasant the one who had set out the slip had died long ago, and still the willow grew.
His eldest son twice trimmed off its branches and used them for fuel.

And still the willow grew. They cut the branches all round and made a cone of it, and when spring came, it still again put forth new branches, though they were small, but twice as many as before, like the mane of a colt.

And the eldest son ceased to be master of the house, and the village was removed to another place, but still the willow grew in the bare field.
Other peasants came and cut it down, and still it grew. The lightning struck the tree; it sent out fresh branches from the sides, and still it grew and bloomed.
One peasant wanted to cut it down to a block, and actually felled it; but it was badly rotted. The tree fell over and held only by one side, but still it kept growing, and every year the bees flew to it to gather pollen from its flowers.

Once, early in the spring, the children gathered to-gether to tend the horses under the tree.
They thought that it was rather cold, and they began to make a fire, and they collected stubble, mugwort, and twigs. One boy climbed the willow and broke off branches. They piled all their tinder in the hollow of the willow and set it on fire.

The willow began to hiss; the sap in its wood boiled, the smoke poured forth, and then it began to blaze; all the inside turned black. The young sprouts crumpled up; the blossoms wilted.
The children drove their horses home. The burned willow remained alone in the field. A black crow flew up to it, perched on it, and cried :
“ So the old poker is dead; it was time long ago ! “

Chapter II

GRAY HARE

A GRAY hare lived during the winter near a village. When night came, he would prick up one ear and listen, then he would prick up the other, jerk his whiskers, snuff, and sit up on his hind legs.

Then he would give one leap, two leaps, through the deep snow, and sit up again, on his hind legs and look all around.
On all sides nothing was to be seen except snow. The snow lay in billows and glittered white as sugar. Above the hare was frosty vapor, and through this vapor glis-tened the big bright stars.

The hare was obliged to make a long circuit across the highway to reach his favorite granary. On the highway he could hear the creaking of sledges, the whinnying of horses, the groaning of the seats in the sledges.

Once more the hare paused near the road. The peas-ants were walking alongside of their sledges, with their kaftan collars turned up. Their faces were scarcely visible. Their beards, their mustaches, their eyebrows, were white. Steam came from their mouths and noses.

Their horses were covered with sweat, and the sweat grew white with hoar-frost. The horses strained on their collars, plunged into the hollows and came up out of them again. The peasants urged them along and lashed them with their knouts. Two old men were walking side by side, and one was telling the other how a horse had been stolen from him.

As soon as the teams had passed, the hare crossed the road, and leaped unconcernedly toward the threshing-floor. A little dog belonging to the teams caught sight of the hare. He began to bark, and darted after him.

The hare made for the threshing-floor, across the snowdrifts; but the depth of the snow impeded the hare, and even the dog, after a dozen leaps, sank deep in the snow and gave up the chase.

The hare also stopped, sat up on his hind legs, and then proceeded at his leisure toward the threshing-floor.
On the way across the field he fell in with two other hares. They were nibbling and playing. The gray hare joined his mates, helped them clear away the icy snow, ate a few seeds of winter wheat, and then went on his way.

In the village it was all quiet; the fires were out; the only sound on the street was an infant crying in a cottage, and the framework of the houses creaking under the frost.
The hare hastened to the threshing-floor, and there he found some of his mates. He played with them on the well-swept floor, ate some oats from the tub on which they had already begun, mounted the snow-covered roof into the granary, and then went through the hedge back to his hole.

In the east the dawn was already beginning to redden, the stars dwindled, and the frosty vapor grew thicker over the face of the earth. In the neighboring village the women woke up and went out after water; the peas-ants began carrying fodder from the granaries; children were shouting and crying; along the highway more and more teams passed by, and the peasants talked in louder tones.

The hare leaped across the road, went to his old hole, selected a place a little higher up, dug away the snow, curled up in the depths of his new hole, stretched his ears along his back, and went to sleep with eyes wide open.

Chapter III

FOUNDLING

A POOR woman had a daughter, Masha. Masha one morning, in going after water, saw something lying on the door-step, wrapped up in rags.
Masha set down her pail and undid the rags. When she had opened the bundle, there came forth a cry from out the rags, ua! ua! ua !
Masha bent over and saw that it was a pretty little baby. He was crying lustily, ua! ua! ua! Masha took him up in her arms and carried him into the house, and tried to give him some milk with a spoon.

The mother said :
“ What have you brought in ? “
Masha said :
“ A baby; I found it at our door.”
The mother said :
“ We are so poor, how can we get food for another child ? I am going to the police and tell them to take it away.”
Masha wept, and said :
“ Matushka, he will not eat much; do keep him ! Just see what pretty little dimpled hands and fingers he has.”
The mother looked, and she had compassion on the child. She decided to keep him. Masha fed him and swaddled him, and she sang cradle songs to him when she put him to sleep.

Chapter IV

PEASANT AND THE CUCUMBERS

ONCE upon a time a peasant went to steal some cu-cumbers of a gardener. He crept down among the cucumbers, and said to himself :
“ Let me just get away with a bag of cucumbers; then I will sell them. With the money I will buy me a hen. The hen will lay some eggs, and will hatch them out, and I shall have a lot of chickens. I will feed up the chickens, and sell them, and buy a shoat a nice little pig.

In time she will farrow, and I shall have a litter of pigs. I will sell the little pigs and buy a mare; the mare will foal, and I shall have a colt. I will raise the colt and sell it; then I will buy a house and start a garden; I will have a garden and raise cucumbers; but [ won’t let them be stolen, I will keep a strict watch. I will hire watchmen, and will station them among the cucumbers, and often I, myself, will come unexpectedly among them, and I will shout, ‘ Hollo, there! keep a closer watch.’ “
As these words came into his head he shouted them at the top of his voice. The guards heard him, ran out, and belabored him with their sticks.

Chapter V

FIRE

IT was harvest-time, and the men and women 1 had gone out to work.
Only the very old and the very young stayed in the village.
A grandmother and three of her grandchildren were left in one cottage. 2 The grandmother kindled a fire in the oven,