the images were saluted, at the beginning and end of meals, with the sign of the cross and a murmured prayer.  The case contained the sacred picture wherewith the young couple were blessed by their parents on their marriage, and any others which they might have acquired, with possibly a branch of their Palm Sunday pussy willows.  A narrow room, monopolizing one of the windows, opened from the living-room, beyond the oven, and served as pantry and kitchen.  A wooden trough, like a chopping-tray, was the washtub.  The ironing or mangling apparatus consisted of a rolling-pin, round which the article of clothing was wrapped, and a curved paddle of hard wood, its under-surface carved in pretty geometrical designs, with which it was smoothed.  This paddle served also to beat the clothes upon the stones, when the washing was done in the river, in warm weather.  A few wooden bowls and spoons and earthen pots, including the variety which keeps milk cool without either ice or running water, completed the household utensils.  Add a loom for weaving crash, the blue linen for the men’s trousers and the women’s scant sarafans, and the white for their aprons and chemises, and the cloth for coats, and the furnishing was done.

The village granaries, with wattled walls and thatched roofs, are placed apart, to lessen the danger from fire, near the large gates which give admission to the village, through the wattled fence encircling it.  These gates, closed at night, are guarded by peasants who are unfitted, through age or infirmities, for field labor.  They employ themselves, in their tiny wattled lean-tos, in plaiting the low shoes of linden bark, used by both men and women, in making carts, or in some other simple occupation.  An axe—­a whole armory of tools to the Russian peasant—­ and an iron bolt are their sole implements.

We were cut off from intercourse with one of the neighboring estates by the appearance there of the Siberian cattle plague, and were told that, should it spread, arrivals from that quarter would be admitted to the village only after passing through the disinfecting fumes of dung fires burning at the gate.

Incendiaries and horse-thieves are the scourges of village life in Russia.  Such men can be banished to Siberia, by a vote of the Commune of peasant householders.  But as the Commune must bear the expense, and people are afraid that the evil-doer will revenge himself by setting the village on fire, if he discovers their plan, this privilege is exercised with comparative rarity.  The man who steals the peasant’s horse condemns him to starvation and ruin.  Such a man there had been in our friends’ village, and for long years they had borne with him patiently.  He was crafty and had “influence” in some mysterious fashion, which made him a dangerous customer to deal with.  But at last he was sent off.  Now, during our visit, the village was trembling over a rumor that he was on his way back to wreak vengeance on his former neighbors.  I presume they were obliged to have him banished again, by administrative order from the Minister of the Interior,—­the only remedy when one of this class of exiles has served out his term,—­before they could sleep tranquilly.