Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/272

Tales from Tolstoi I say, and broken her leg. The people came together. They washed and tidied her; they made a grave and buried her. They were all good people. The children remained all alone. What was to be done with them? I was the only woman of them all just then who had a suckling. My first dear little boy I had been nourishing for eight weeks. I took them to my own house in the meantime. The muzhiks came together; they thought and thought what to do with the children, and they said to me: 'You, Maria, keep the children for a time at your house, and give us time to think the matter over.' For a little time I nourished at my breast the hale and whole child only, but the one that had been trampled upon I did not nourish at all. I didn't expect her to live. But soon I thought to myself, 'How can you bear to see this little angel face pine away?' So I began to give it suck also. I fed my own and these two as well—three at my breast I fed. I was young and strong, and of good food I had no lack. God gave me abundance of milk. I used to feed two at a time, while the third waited—then I would remove one and feed the third. But God helped me to nourish all three, and in the second year I buried my own child. And God gave me no more children, but I began to increase in wealth. We live now at the mill with the merchant; our wage is high, our life is pleasant. But we have no children. And how could I bear to live alone, if it were not for these children? And how dear are they not to me! They are to me what wax is to a candle."

The woman pressed close to her side with one hand 222