What Men Live By | Page 8

the street.
Simon was surprised. Michael never used to look out into the street, but
now he pressed against the window, staring at something. Simon also
looked out, and saw that a well-dressed woman was really coming to

his hut, leading by the hand two little girls in fur coats and woolen
shawls. The girls could hardly be told one from the other, except that
one of them was crippled in her left leg and walked with a limp.
The woman stepped into the porch and entered the passage. Feeling
about for the entrance she found the latch, which she lifted, and opened
the door. She let the two girls go in first, and followed them into the
hut.
"Good day, good folk!"
"Pray come in," said Simon. "What can we do for you?"
The woman sat down by the table. The two little girls pressed close to
her knees, afraid of the people in the hut.
"I want leather shoes made for these two little girls for spring."
"We can do that. We never have made such small shoes, but we can
make them; either welted or turnover shoes, linen lined. My man,
Michael, is a master at the work."
Simon glanced at Michael and saw that he had left his work and was
sitting with his eyes fixed on the little girls. Simon was surprised. It
was true the girls were pretty, with black eyes, plump, and
rosy-cheeked, and they wore nice kerchiefs and fur coats, but still
Simon could not understand why Michael should look at them like
that--just as if he had known them before. He was puzzled, but went on
talking with the woman, and arranging the price. Having fixed it, he
prepared the measure. The woman lifted the lame girl on to her lap and
said: "Take two measures from this little girl. Make one shoe for the
lame foot and three for the sound one. They both have the same size
feet. They are twins."
Simon took the measure and, speaking of the lame girl, said: "How did
it happen to her? She is such a pretty girl. Was she born so?"
"No, her mother crushed her leg."

Then Matryona joined in. She wondered who this woman was, and
whose the children were, so she said: "Are not you their mother then?"
"No, my good woman; I am neither their mother nor any relation to
them. They were quite strangers to me, but I adopted them."
"They are not your children and yet you are so fond of them?"
"How can I help being fond of them? I fed them both at my own breasts.
I had a child of my own, but God took him. I was not so fond of him as
I now am of them."
"Then whose children are they?"
IX
The woman, having begun talking, told them the whole story.
"It is about six years since their parents died, both in one week: their
father was buried on the Tuesday, and their mother died on the Friday.
These orphans were born three days after their father's death, and their
mother did not live another day. My husband and I were then living as
peasants in the village. We were neighbors of theirs, our yard being
next to theirs. Their father was a lonely man; a wood-cutter in the forest.
When felling trees one day, they let one fall on him. It fell across his
body and crushed his bowels out. They hardly got him home before his
soul went to God; and that same week his wife gave birth to
twins--these little girls. She was poor and alone; she had no one, young
or old, with her. Alone she gave them birth, and alone she met her
death."
"The next morning I went to see her, but when I entered the hut, she,
poor thing, was already stark and cold. In dying she had rolled on to
this child and crushed her leg. The village folk came to the hut, washed
the body, laid her out, made a coffin, and buried her. They were good
folk. The babies were left alone. What was to be done with them? I was
the only woman there who had a baby at the time. I was nursing my
first-born--eight weeks old. So I took them for a time. The peasants

came together, and thought and thought what to do with them; and at
last they said to me: "For the present, Mary, you had better keep the
girls, and later on we will arrange what to do for them." So I nursed the
sound one at my breast, but at first I did not feed this crippled one. I did
not suppose she would live. But then I thought to myself, why should
the