ll the poetry that I know. The colonel had a daughter, who
was a little child when I went there; but when she grew old enough, she
became a girl of great sense, and she liked poetry, and used to come and
read to me, out of the books she had. I always tried to get at some work
which would let me listen to her, during the hour that she would come to
me in the afternoon. She read better than my little Axinia. I used to wish
I was a poet, so that I could hear her read some of my songs."

"But, Nicolai Petrovitch," cried Martin, his eyes fairly sparkling with a
discovery he had made, "do you know that I believe that that fool of a
boy you lived with was the poet who wrote the songs and the poetry that
you like best--that he wrote the 'Dushenka,' which Axinia Nicolaievna is
reading to you?"

"What!" said the old gardener, laying down his knife and the piece of wood
he was cutting.

"I mean what I say," said Martin. "Wasn't his name Bogdanovitch?"

[Illustration: A STORM ON THE STEPPES.]

"Bog-dan-ovitch!" repeated Nicolai, his eyes wide open in surprise.
"Yes--that was his name. How did you know him? It was nearly fifty years
ago since I lived with him."

"Oh yes!" said Martin, still laughing, "it must have been that long ago. I
read his life only a short time since, in the edition of 'Dushenka' which
we have. It was surely Bogdanovitch whom you lived with. Why, Nicolai
Petrovitch, you ought to be proud of having had such a master! He was one
of our great poets. He wrote the song of the shepherdess, and he wrote the
'Dushenka.' He might have acted very simply when he was young, but he
certainly became a great poet."

"So he wrote the shepherdess song, did he?" said Nicolai.

"Yes, he wrote that, and many other good things, and he became quite a
famous man. Queen Catharine thought a great deal of him, and the people at
court paid him many honors. They did not consider him a fool, as you did.
If you would like to know all about what happened to this young boy who
was such a simpleton, I will lend you the book with his life in it, and
Axinia Nicolaievna can read it to you."

"My little Martin Ivanovitch," said the old man, picking up his knife and
the yet unfinished rake, "I do not believe that I ever could have become a
poet, even if I had known how to read and write. It would have been
impossible for me to have gone to a fire in my night-clothes!"

[Illustration]

THE PROFESSOR.

BY CLARENCE COOK.

The