All the time they are in the country the peasants’ summer work goes on around them and beside them, of the intensity of which, however much we may have heard or read or witnessed it, we can form no conception unless we try it ourselves.
And the members of the family, some ten people, live just as they did in town or worse if possible than in town, for here in the country it is considered that the family are resting
(from doing nothing), and so they have no longer any semblance of work or any excuse for their idleness.
During the Petrov fast1-the strict fast, when the peasants’ food is kvas, rye-bread, and onions-mowing begins. The gentlefolk living in the country see this work, to some extent they give orders for it, to some extent admire it, are pleased by the odour of the wilting hay, the sound of the women’s songs, the clanging of the scythes, and the sight of the rows of mowers and the women raking the hay.
They see this near the house, and then the young people and children, having done nothing all day, have to be driven half a verst for their bathe.
The work done at hay-making is one of the most important undertakings in the world. Almost every year, from lack of labourers and time, the meadows may be drenched with rain before the mowing is completed, and the greater or lesser intensity of the work decides whether twenty or more per cent. of hay shall be added to the peoples’ wealth or shall rot and perish on its roots. If more hay is gathered there will be more meat for the old men and more milk for the children. So it is in general; but for each of the mowers in particular the question of bread and of milk for himself and his children for the winter is here being decided. Each of the men and women knows this and even the children know that this work is important and that one must work to the limit of one’s strength, carrying the jug of kvas to father in the field and, changing the heavy jug from hand to hand, running barefoot as fast as possible a mile and a half from the village to be in time for his dinner and that daddy may not scold. Everyone knows that from hay-time till harvest there will be no break in the work and no time for resting.
It is not the hay-making alone; everyone has work to do besides the mowing: there is land to turn up and harrow, the women have to bleach the linen and attend to the bread and the washing, and the men have to drive to the mill and to town, look after the village communal affairs, attend the law courts, see the rural police-officer, and do the carting, and at night feed the horses; and all-old, young, and sick-work to the limit of their strength. The peasants work so that always, before the end of each turn of work the weak, the striplings, and the old men, tottering, hardly manage to do the last rows, and can scarcely rise again after the pause; and so do the women work, though they are often pregnant or nursing.
The work is intense and ceaseless. All work with their utmost strength and during this work eats up not only all their scanty supplies of food but also any reserves they may have had: never too stout, they grow leaner by the end of the harvest work.
Here is a small group engaged on mowing: three peasants-one an old man, another his nephew (a young married lad), and a boot-maker, a sinewy fellow who has been a domestic serf-this hay-harvest decides their fate for the coming winter for them all: whether they can keep a cow and pay the taxes. They have already worked unceasingly and continuously for two weeks. Rain has hindered the work. After the rain, when the wind has dried the grass, they decide to finish the work, and to get on more quickly they decide each to bring two women to it. With the old man comes his wife, a woman of fifty worn out by hard work and eleven childbirths, and deaf but still a good worker, and his
1 The fast of St. Peter and St. Paul, from the ninth week after Easter till the 29th June, old style.-A. M.
thirteen-year-old daughter, a small girl but strong and quick. With the nephew comes his wife, a woman as strong and tall as a man, and his sister-in-law the pregnant wife of a soldier. With the boot maker comes his wife, a good worker, and her mother, an old woman finishing her eighth decade and who usually goes out begging. They all line up, and work from morning till evening in the sweltering blaze of the June sun. It is steaming and the rain threatens. Every hour of work is precious. They grudge the time to fetch water or kvas.
A tiny boy, the old woman’s grandson, fetches some water for them. The old woman, evidently only anxious not to be driven away from the work, does not let the rake out of her hands, though she can hardly, with effort, move along. The lad, all bent up and taking short steps with his bare little feet, brings along the jug of water which is heavier than himself, changing it from hand to hand.
The girl shoulders a load of hay which is also heavier than she; she takes a few steps, stops, and throws it down unable to carry it farther. The old woman of fifty rakes unceasingly and, with her kerchief brushed to one side, drags the hay along, breathing heavily and tottering in her walk; the woman of eighty does nothing but rake, but even that is beyond her strength: she slowly drags her feet in their bark shoes, and with wrinkled brows looks sombrely before her like one who is seriously ill or is dying. The old man purposely sends her farther away from the others to rake near the hay-cocks so that she should not have to keep up with them, but without pause and with the same death-like sombre face she works on as long as the others do.
The sun is already setting behind the woods and the hay-cocks are not yet all cleared away and much remains to be done.
All feel it is time to knock off. but no one speaks waiting for the others to do so. At last the boot maker, feeling that he has no strength left, proposes to the old man to leave the cocks till tomorrow and the old man agrees, and the women at once run for their clothes, for the jugs, for the hay-forks, and the old woman sits down immediately where she stands, and then lies down still looking straight before her with the same deathlike face. But the women are going, and she gets up groaning and drags herself away after them.
But here is the proprietor’s house. That same evening when from the village is heard the clang of the whetstones of the exhausted hay-makers returning from the fields, the sounds of the hammers straightening out the dents in the scythe blades, the shouts of women and girls who, having just had time to put down their rakes are already running to drive in the cattle-from the proprietor’s house other sounds are heard; drin, drin, drin! goes the piano, and an Hungarian song rings out, and amid those songs occasionally comes the sound of the knock of croquet-mallets on the balls. Near the stable stands a carriage to which four well-fed horses are harnessed. It is a smart hired carriage.
Guests have arrived who have paid ten rubles to be driven ten miles. The horses harnessed to the carriage are making their bells tinkle. There is hay in their trough and they trample it underfoot-the very hay that there in the hay field is collected with such effort. At the proprietor s house there is movement-a healthy well-fed lad in a pink shirt (given him for his services as yard porter is calling the coachmen to harness and saddle some horses. Two peasants who live here as coachmen come out of the coachmen’s room and go leisurely to saddle the horses for the gentlefolk. .
Still nearer to the proprietor’s house one hears the sounds of another piano. This is a young lady student of the Conservatoire, who lives here to teach the children and is practicing Schumann. The sounds of the one piano break in on those of the other. Close to the house two nurses are passing: one of them is young, the other old. They are taking and carrying children-of the same age as those who had run from the village with the jugs-to put them to bed. One of the nurses is English and cannot speak Russian. She was imported from England not for any known qualities, but only because she could not talk Russian. Farther off a peasant and two peasant women are watering flowers near the house, while another is cleaning a
