lding and settling down, Pahom was pleased
with it all, but when he got used to it he began to think that even here
he had not enough land. The first year, he sowed wheat on his share of
the Communal land, and had a good crop. He wanted to go on sowing
wheat, but had not enough Communal land for the purpose, and what he had
already used was not available; for in those parts wheat is only sown on
virgin soil or on fallow land. It is sown for one or two years, and
then the land lies fallow till it is again overgrown with prairie grass.
There were many who wanted such land, and there was not enough for all;
so that people quarrelled about it. Those who were better off, wanted it
for growing wheat, and those who were poor, wanted it to let to dealers,
so that they might raise money to pay their taxes. Pahom wanted to sow
more wheat; so he rented land from a dealer for a year. He sowed
much wheat and had a fine crop, but the land was too far from the
village--the wheat had to be carted more than ten miles. After a time
Pahom noticed that some peasant-dealers were living on separate farms,
and were growing wealthy; and he thought:

"If I were to buy some freehold land, and have a homestead on it, it
would be a different thing, altogether. Then it would all be nice and
compact."

The question of buying freehold land recurred to him again and again.

He went on in the same way for three years; renting land and sowing
wheat. The seasons turned out well and the crops were good, so that he
began to lay money by. He might have gone on living contentedly, but he
grew tired of having to rent other people's land every year, and having
to scramble for it. Wherever there was good land to be had, the peasants
would rush for it and it was taken up at once, so that unless you were
sharp about it you got none. It happened in the third year that he and
a dealer together rented a piece of pasture land from some peasants; and
they had already ploughed it up, when there was some dispute, and the
peasants went to law about it, and things fell out so that the labor
was all lost. "If it were my own land," thought Pahom, "I should be
independent, and there would not be all this unpleasantness."

So Pahom began looking out for land which he could buy; and he came
across a peasant who had bought thirteen hundred acres, but having got
into difficulties was willing to sell again cheap. Pahom bargained and
haggled with him, and at last they settled t