Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/187

Rh "Oh, ho! young man! he says that, eh? So he spits out threats, eh? He won't kill, though, his arms are not long enough for that! Very well, Vassy, we'll reckon up with thee presently! Well, and that Tishka, what of him? He's a dog, too, I know!"

"Yes, they all speak evil. "

Michal Semenovich was delighted, he even laughed.

"We'll see to this. Who came out with it first? Who was it? Tishka?"

"Well, not one of them has a good word to say, they all murmur, they all curse."

"Well, and Petrushka Mikhaev? What does he say? He's a sneak; I know he cursed, too; now didn't he?"

"No, Michal Semenovich, Petr did not curse."

"Well, what did he do?"

"He was the only one of the muzhiks who said nothing. And he is a strange man. I don't know what to make of Petr Mikhaev."

"How so?"

"I mean the way he goes about things. All the muzhiks are puzzled about him."

"What way, then, does he go about things?"

"Well, I don't know how; but he is a strange man. I went up to him. He was ploughing the top acre on the tongue of land near Tarkin. I was going up to him, I say, I heard him singing something or other in a small, soft voice, and in the middle of the plough-shaft something was burning."

"Well?" 137