colt and sell it; then I will buy a house and start a garden; I will have a garden and raise cucumbers; but [ won't let them be stolen, I will keep a strict watch. I will hire watchmen, and will station them among the cucumbers, and often I, myself, will come unexpectedly among them, and I will shout, 'Hollo, there! keep a closer watch.'"
As these words came into his head he shouted them at the top of his voice. The guards heard him, ran out, and belabored him with their sticks.
CHAPTER V
THE FIRE
It was harvest-time, and the men and women[1] had gone out to work.
Only the very old and the very young stayed in the village.
A grandmother and three of her grandchildren were left in one cottage.[2] The grandmother kindled a fire in the oven, and lay down for a nap. The flies lighted on her and annoyed her with their biting. She covered up her head with a towel and went to sleep.
One of the grandchildren, Masha,—she was three years old, opened the oven, shoveled out some of the coals into a dish, and ran out into the entry. Now in the entry lay some sheaves.[3] The women had been preparing these sheaves for bands.
Masha brought the coals, emptied them under the sheaves, and began to blow. When the straw took fire, she was delighted; she ran into the sitting-room, and seized her little brother, Kiriushka,—he was eighteen months old, and was only just beginning to walk, and she said, "Look, Kiliuska! see what a nice fire I have started!"
