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More Tales from Tolstoi cook came to the stove, and pulled out the tulup  from beneath his legs.

"Don't be angry, Nastasia," muttered the sick man, "but I beg of you to let me have your corner."

"All right, all right! Of course! what does it matter!" growled Nastasia, "but tell me, uncle, where does it hurt you?"

"All my inside is queer. God knows what's the matter."

"Never mind! Does your throat hurt you when you cough?"

"I ache all over. I'm going to die, that's what it is; oh, oh, oh!" groaned the sick man.

"Cover up your feet, that's what you've got to do," said Nastasia, coming down from the stove and spreading the yarmak over him on her way down.

During the night the night-lamp faintly lit the room. Nastasia and ten of the drivers slept on the floor or on benches, snoring loudly. Only the sick man feebly moaned, coughed, and turned from side to side upon the stove. By the morning he was quite still.

"I had such an odd dream last night," said the cook, stretching herself in the dim half-light of dawn, next morning; "it seemed to me as if I saw Uncle Khveder come down from the stove and go out to chop wood. 'How can I help you, Nassy?' says he, and I said to him, 'Why don't you go out and chop wood?' So he takes up the chopper and begins to chop wood, chopping it so quickly that the splinters flew about in every direction. 'Why, how's this?'