Page:Leo Tolstoi - Life Is Worth Living and Other Stories - tr. Adolphus Norraikow (1892).djvu/98

 Rh hundred versts through Little Russia, their trip much brightened by the hospitality of the people. Passing through another province, they reached a point where the soil was less fertile and the people very poor. While the travellers were given a night's lodging free of charge, they were unable to provide themselves with food, even when they offered to pay for it. They were obliged to listen to many tales concerning the failure of the previous year's crops and the number of rich men who had been ruined and compelled to sell all they possessed, while those of moderate means were left quite destitute. The very poor had been compelled to leave the country altogether, many of them becoming beggars on the roads. In the winter they had nothing to eat but husks of corn and pigweed.

On reaching the next town the old men succeeded in buying fifteen pounds of bread. Rising before daylight in the morning, they proceeded on their way, in an effort to cover as