us fire
had broken out in the neighborhood, and was rapidly consuming the
close-set wooden village, as such fires generally do without remedy. As
the fire had been started by the lightning, on St. Ilya's Day (St.
Elijah's), no earthly power could quench it but the milk from a
jet-black cow, which no one chanced to have on hand. Seeing the flames
approach, my old woman, Domna Nikolaevna T., seized the holy image, ran
out, and held it facing the conflagration, uttering the proper prayer
the while. Immediately a strong wind arose and drove the flames off in a
safe direction, and the village was rescued. She had a thanksgiving
service celebrated in the church, and placed I know not how many candles
to the Virgin's honor, as did the other villagers. Thus they had learned
that there was divine power in this _ikona_, although it was not,
strictly speaking, "wonder-working," since it had not been officially
recognized as such by the ecclesiastical authorities.

These people seemed happy and contented with their lot. Not one of them
could read or write much, the old woman not at all. They cultivated
berries for market as well as carried on the milk business; and when we
rose to go, they entreated us to come out on their plot of land and see
whether some could not be found. To their grief, only a few small
cherries were to be discovered,--it was September,--and these they
forced upon us. As we had hurt their feelings by leaving money on the
table to pay for the cream, we accepted the cherries by way of
compromise. The old woman chatted freely in her garden. She had been a
serf, and, in her opinion, things were not much changed for the better,
except in one respect. All the people in this village had been crown
serfs, it seemed. The lot of the crown serfs was easier in every way
than that of the ordinary private serfs, so that the emancipation only
put a definite name to the practical freedom which they already enjoyed,
and added a few minor privileges, with the ownership of a somewhat
larger allotment of land than the serfs of the nobility received. I knew
this: she was hardly capable of giving me so complete a summary of their
condition. But--it was the usual _but_, I found--they had to work
much harder now than before, in order to live. The only real improvement
which she could think of, on the inspiration of the moment, was, that a
certain irascible crown official, who had had charge of them in the
olden days, and whose name s