Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/245

Rh Different natures are so sharply expressed that we used to try the experiment of having the scholars guess who wrote such and such a composition, and in the first class they rarely made a mistake in their selection.

lack of space we must omit the description of the teaching of language and other subjects and the extracts from the teachers' diaries; but here we will cite specimens of the compositions of two of the pupils in the first class, making no change in spelling or punctuation.

B, a very poor scholar, but a lad of keen and original mind, wrote compositions about Tula, and about his studies. The one about his studies had a great success among the scholars. B was eleven years old, and had been at school at Yasnaya Polyana three winters; but he had studied before.

"The other Sunday I went to Tula again. When we got there Vladimir Aleksandrovitch told me and Vaska Zhdanof to go to Sunday-school. We went and we went and we went, and at last, after a great deal of trouble, we found it. We went in and found all the scholars sitting down; and I saw our teacher in botany. And so I said, 'How do you do sir?' and he said, 'How do you do.' Then I went into the class, stood near the table, and I felt so confused that I took and went out into Tula. I went and I went and I saw a woman baking cakes. I began to take my money out of my pocket, when I had got it out, I bought the cakes.