" Soon after the boy
would sit down near the table in the morning and, fingering the
Slavonic alphabet, repeat after his aunt:
"Az, Buky, Vedy."
When they reached "bra, vra, gra, dra" for a long time the boy
could not read these syllables without laughter. Foma succeeded
easily in gaining knowledge, almost without any effort, and soon
he was reading the first psalm of the first section of the
psalter: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of
the ungodly."
"That's it, my darling! So, Fomushka, that's right!" chimed in
his aunt with emotion, enraptured by his progress.
"You're a fine fellow, Foma!" Ignat would approvingly say when
informed of his son's progress. "We'll go to Astrakhan for fish
in the spring, and toward autumn I'll send you to school!"
The boy's life rolled onward, like a ball downhill. Being his
teacher, his aunt was his playmate as well. Luba Mayakin used to
come, and when with them, the old woman readily became one of them.
They played at "hide and seek and "blind man's buff;" the
children were pleased and amused at seeing Anfisa, her eyes
covered with a handkerchief, her arms outstretched, walking about
the room carefully, and yet striking against chairs and tables,
or looking for them in each and every commodious corner, saying:
"Eh, little rascals.
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