More Tales from Tolstoi
large group in the street. All of them jabbered together, not one of them would listen to the others. They cursed and swore, then one of them hit his neighbour, and there was a general scrummage till an old woman, Akul'ka's grandmother, intervened. She went into the midst of the muzhiks and began to speak soothingly to them:
"What is this, my kinsmen? Is this the way to spend your days? We ought to rejoice, and you sin like this?"
But they did not listen to the old woman, and all but knocked her off her legs. Nor would the old woman have pacified them but for Akul'ka and Malashika. While the women were squabbling, Akul'ka had dried her little sarafan and came out again to the puddle in the lane. She picked up a little stone and began to fill up the puddle with earth in order to make the water flow over into the street. Whilst she was digging Malashka also came out and began to help her to dig a channel with a little chip of wood. The muzhiks still kept on wrangling, and all the time the water was' running into the street through the channel made by the little girls, running right to the very place where the old woman was trying to bring the muzhiks to reason. The little girls began running one on one side and the other on the other side of the little rivulet they had made.
"Stop it, Malashka! stop it!" shrieked Akul'ka. Malashka, too, wanted to say something, but could not utter a word for sheer laughter.
So the little girls ran along, laughing at the chip
156
