ere 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
poor innocent suffer? I pitied her, and began to feed her. And so I fed
my own boy and these two--the three of them--at my own breast. I was
young and strong, and had good food, and God gave me so much milk that
at times it even overflowed. I used sometimes to feed two at a time,
while the third was waiting. When one had enough I nursed the third. And
God so ordered it that these grew up, while my own was buried before he
was two years old. And I had no more children, though we prospered.
Now my husband is working for the corn merchant at the mill. The pay
is good, and we are well off. But I have no children of my own, and how
lonely I should be without these little girls! How can I help loving
them! They are the joy of my life!"

She pressed the lame little girl to her with one hand, while with the
other she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

And Matryona sighed, and said: "The proverb is true that says, 'One may
live without father or mother, but one cannot live without God.'"

So they talked together, when suddenly the whole hut was lighted up as
though by summer lightning f