o be but two
surnames, at most three, in the whole village. One new but unfinished
house seemed to have been built from the ridgepole downward, instead of
in the usual order. There were no doorways or stairs or apertures for
communication between the stories, which were two in number. It was an
architectural riddle.

As a stroll to the village had consumed an unexpected amount of time, we
found ourselves, at the breakfast hour, miles away from our hotel. We
instituted a search for milk, and were directed at random, it seemed,
until a withered little old peasant, who was evidently given to
tippling, enlisted himself as our guide. He took us to the house of a
woman who carried milk and cream to town twice a week, and introduced us
with a comical flourish.

The family consisted of an old woman, as dried and colorless as a
Russian codfish from Arkhangel, but very clean and active; her son, a
big, fresh-colored fellow, with a mop of dark brown curls, well set off
by his scarlet cotton blouse; his wife, a slender, red-cheeked brunette,
with delicate, pretty features; and their baby girl. They treated us
like friends come to make a call; refused to accept money for their
cream; begged us to allow them to prepare the _samovar_, as a favor to
them, and send for white rolls, as they were sure we could not eat their
sour black bread; and expressed deep regret that their berries were all
gone, as the season was past. They showed us over their house in the
prettiest, simplest way, and introduced us to the dark storeroom where
their spare clothing and stores of food for the winter, such as salted
cucumbers in casks, and other property, were packed away; to a narrow
slip of a room on the front, where the meals for the family were
prepared with remarkably few pots and no pans; to the living-room, with
its whitewashed stone-and-mud oven in one corner, for both cooking and
heating, a bench running round the walls on three sides, and a clean
pine table in the corner of honor, where hung the holy images. They had
a fine collection of these images, which were a sign of prosperity as
well as of devotion. The existence of another tiny room also bore
witness to easy circumstances. In this room they slept; and the baby,
who was taking her noonday nap, was exhibited to us by the proud papa.
Her cradle consisted of a splint market basket suspended from the
ceiling by a stout wire spring, like the spring of a bird-cage, and
rocked gently. The ba