Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/183

Rh from the same village, and especially the little ones—for there is more comradeship among them—are always together.

As soon as one of them decides to sit in a certain corner, all his playmates, pushing and diving under the benches, manage to get to the same place, sit in a row, and as they glance around they show such an expression of perfect bliss and satisfaction in their faces, as if nothing in all the rest of their lives could ever give them so much happiness as to sit in those places.

The moment they come into the room, the big arm-chair presents itself as an object of envy for the more independent personalities—for the little house-girl and others. As soon as one makes a motion to occupy the arm-chair, another recognizes by the expression of his face that such a plan is developing, and the two make for it, race for it.

One gets it away from the other, and, having ensconced himself in it, stretches himself out with his head much below the back of the chair; but he reads like all the rest, wholly carried away by his work.

During class time I have never seen any whispering, any pinching, any giggling, any uncouth sounds, any bearing of tales to the teacher. When a pupil educated by a church official, or at the district school, goes with any such complaint, he will be asked:—

"Are you sure that you did not pinch yourself?"

two smaller classes are put by themselves in one room; the older scholars are in another. When the teacher goes to the first class, all gather around him at the blackboard, or on the benches, or they climb on the table, or sit down around him or one of those that are reading.