Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/246

232 After I had bought them I went on. And I saw a man walking up and down on a tower, and looking to see if there was a fire anywhere. And I have finished about Tula."

"When I was eight years old, I was sent to Gruma to the cattle woman. There I learned a good deal. But afterward I got tired of it, and began to cry. And the woman took a stick and began to beat me. But I cried louder than ever. And after a few days I ran off home, and told them all about it. And they took me from there and sent me to Dunka's mother. And there I studied well, and I was never beaten there, and there I learned the whole alphabet. Then I was sent to Foka Demidovitch. He used to beat me very cruelly. Once I ran away from him, and he ordered them to find me. When they found me and carried me to him, he took me and laid me over the footstool, took a bundle of rods, and began to beat me. And I screamed with all my might; and when he lifted me up he made me read. And as he listened to me he would say, 'You son of a dog! how abominably you read! oh, what a pig you are!"

Here are two examples of Fedka's composition; the one on the subject "Corn" given to him, the other chosen by himself, about a visit to Tula. This was Fedka's third winter at school. He was ten years old.

"Corn grows in the ground. At first it is generally green. But when it is full grown then the ears of corn grow out of it and the women reap it. There is another kind of corn just like grass, and the cattle eat it well."

That was all there was of it. He was conscious that it was not good, and was sorry for it. About Tula he wrote as follows without correction:—