lowed Peter about the room with a
contemptuous, unfriendly expression. It seemed to me that he despised
him for being so simple and docile.

Presently Pavel began to talk to Mr. Shimerda, scarcely above a whisper.
He was telling a long story, and as he went on, Antonia took my hand
under the table and held it tight. She leaned forward and strained her
ears to hear him. He grew more and more excited, and kept pointing all
around his bed, as if there were things there and he wanted Mr. Shimerda
to see them.

'It's wolves, Jimmy,' Antonia whispered. 'It's awful, what he says!'

The sick man raged and shook his fist. He seemed to be cursing people
who had wronged him. Mr. Shimerda caught him by the shoulders, but could
hardly hold him in bed. At last he was shut off by a coughing fit which
fairly choked him. He pulled a cloth from under his pillow and held it
to his mouth. Quickly it was covered with bright red spots--I thought I
had never seen any blood so bright. When he lay down and turned his face
to the wall, all the rage had gone out of him. He lay patiently fighting
for breath, like a child with croup. Antonia's father uncovered one of
his long bony legs and rubbed it rhythmically. From our bench we could
see what a hollow case his body was. His spine and shoulder-blades stood
out like the bones under the hide of a dead steer left in the fields.
That sharp backbone must have hurt him when he lay on it.

Gradually, relief came to all of us. Whatever it was, the worst was
over. Mr. Shimerda signed to us that Pavel was asleep. Without a word
Peter got up and lit his lantern. He was going out to get his team to
drive us home. Mr. Shimerda went with him. We sat and watched the long
bowed back under the blue sheet, scarcely daring to breathe.

On the way home, when we were lying in the straw, under the jolting and
rattling Antonia told me as much of the story as she could. What she
did not tell me then, she told later; we talked of nothing else for days
afterward.

When Pavel and Peter were young men, living at home in Russia, they were
asked to be groomsmen for a friend who was to marry the belle of another
village. It was in the dead of winter and the groom's party went over to
the wedding in sledges. Peter and Pavel drove in the groom's sledge, and
six sledges followed with all his relatives and friends.

After the ceremony at the church, the party went to a dinner given
by the parents of the bride. The dinne