North Russian village life.

The villages are composed of the houses of the small farmers who till
the surrounding land, together with church, school, store, and grain and
flax barns. Except for a few new villages along the railways, all are to
be found along some watercourse navigable at least for small barges. For
the waterways are the first, and for a long time the only avenues of
communication and trade. In the winter they make the very best roadways
for sleds. Wherever there was a great deal of open farm land along a
river several of these village farm centers grew up in close proximity.
The villages in such a group often combine for convenience, in local
government, trading, and support of churches and schools. The majority
of the villagers belong to a few large family groups which have grown in
that community for generations and give it an enviable permanence and
stability.

Family groups are represented in the councils of the community by their
recognized heads, usually active old men. In these later troublous
times, when so many of the men have disappeared in the maelstrom of the
European war or are engaged in the present civil strife, women are quite
naturally the acting heads of many families; and the result has led some
observers to conclude that the women have better heads for business and
better muscles for farming than have the men. It is certain that in some
communities the women outshine in those respects the men who still
remain. The same council of family heads which guides the local affairs
of each village, or group of villages, also attends through a committee
to the affairs of the local cooperative store society which exists for
trading purposes and acts in conjunction with the central society of
Archangel. Each little local store has a vigilant keeper now frequently
some capable young widow, who has no children old enough to help her to
till some of the strips of land.

The election and the duties of the headman have been dealt with
heretofore. His word is law and the soldiers came to know that the
proper way to get things was to go through the starosta. In every
village is a teacher, more or less trained. Each child is compelled to
attend three years. If desirous he may go to high schools of liberal
arts and science and technical scope, seminaries and monastic schools.

Of course, some children escape school, but not many, and the number of
absolute illiterates under middle age who have been