“Peter Petrovitch Gorekin, a soldier of the Czar!” Peter’s father would say. “A soldier against the people, a soldier to bind our chains the tighter! Oh, Peter Petrovitch! The day will come when your eye will see and understand!”
Which was a surprising thing for Peter’s father to say, for Peter could see well enough with his eyes, except when the smoke from the fire-pit blew down the stone chimney and got into his eyes while he was reading from the almanac and learning new words.
Peter’s father was most anxious for Peter to learn to read as well as the priest—yes, even as well as Michael Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff, the Colonel Governor. Peter could have made many kopecks in the evenings, helping to skin sheep for the butcher, but Peter’s father insisted upon lessons with the almanac by the fire.
“The labor of a man’s hands can be forced to do the will of a master,” his father would say gravely, “but the labor of a man’s head is his own, and no man can control it.”
Peter could not understand that, because it was impossible to drive pegs with one’s head—it could only be done with hands and the hammer. And his father worked with his hands, too, and never did a thing with his head, or so Peter supposed.
It was not long after the column of unfortunates and Cossacks had disappeared into the taiga that Peter saw two black spots rise on the little hill across the Ingoda River, and drop again out of sight.
“Ee-yah!” cried Peter joyfully. “The mail comes!”
His father lifted his head and looked up from his stitching-frame to listen.
“I hear nothing but the music of the samovar,” he said.
“They have crossed the bend to the river,” insisted Peter. “I heard the bells and I saw the sledges! The horses are coming fast!”