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10 life as a raftsman on the Volga, in the course of a short time he became a man of substance, started a dyeing factory at his native place, Nijni-Novgorod, was elected Starshina, or Chief of the Traders' Guild there, and was generally looked up to by everyone but his wretched daughter, whom he made more wretched still when she threw herself away—or so he accounted it—on such a poor non-descript as Maksim Pyeshkov.

The earlier years of Aleksyei Pyeshkov were as uneventful as are the years of most children. In 1873, however, when he was only four years old, he met with his first misfortune: his rolling stone of a father died of cholera at Astrakhan. His mother re-married shortly afterwards, and transferred him to the care of his grandfather, who seems to have been kind to the little lad—cruel fathers are very often indulgent grandfathers—and taught him to read with the aid of the Psalter and other liturgical books, by way of preparing him for school, whither he was presently sent. But his regular schooling lasted no longer than five months, for about this time his mother died of consumption, and almost simultaneously his last natural prop gave way, his grandfather suddenly ruining himself utterly by overspeculation. Little Aleksyei, therefore, was obliged to exchange his schoolroom for the shop of a cobbler to whom he was apprenticed; but after serving his master for two months, he burnt one hand so severely