Kostuilin wrote home again, and was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the money, and lost his spirits. Whole days at a time, he sat in the barn, and counted the days till his money should arrive, or else he slept.
But Zhilin had no expectation that his letter would reach its destination, and he did not write another.
"Where," he asked himself,—"where would my mother get the money for my ransom? And besides, she lived for the most part on what I used to send her. If she made out to raise five hundred rubles, she would be in want till the end of her days. If God wills it, I may escape."
And all the time he kept his eyes open, and made plans to elude his captors.
He walked about the aul; he amused himself by whistling; or else he sat down and fashioned things, either modelling dolls out of clay or plaiting baskets of osiers, for Zhilin was a master at all sorts of handiwork.
One time he had made a doll with nose, and hands and feet, and dressed in a Tatar shirt, and he set the doll on the roof. The Tatar women were going for water. Dina, the master's daughter, caught sight of the doll. She called the Tatar girls. They set down their jugs, and looked and laughed.
Zhilin took the doll, and offered it to them. They keep laughing, but don't dare to take it.
He left the doll, went to the barn, and watched what would take place.
Dina ran up to the doll, looked around, seized the doll, and fled.
The next morning at dawn he sees Dina come out on the doorstep with the doll. And she has already dressed it up in red rags, and was rocking it like a little child, and singing a lullaby in her own language.