"It is deep, Akúlka, I am afraid."
"Never mind," she replied, "it will not be any deeper. Come straight toward me!" They came closer to each other. Akúlka said:
"Malásha, look out, and do not splash it up, but walk softly."
She had barely said that when Malásha plumped her foot into the water and bespattered Akúlka's bodice, and not only her bodice, but also her nose and eyes. When Akúlka saw the spots on her bodice, she grew angry at Malásha, and scolded her, and ran after her, and wanted to strike her. Malásha was frightened and, seeing what trouble she had caused, jumped out of the puddle and ran home.
Akúlka's mother passed by; she saw her daughter's bodice bespattered and her shirt soiled.
"Where, accursed one, did you get yourself so dirty?"
"Malásha has purposely splashed it on me."
Akúlka's mother grasped Malásha and gave her a knock on the nape of her neck. Malásha began to howl, and her mother ran out of the house.
"Why do you strike my daughter?" she began to scold her neighbour.
One word brought back another, and the women began to quarrel. The men, too, ran out, and a big crowd gathered in the street. All were crying, and nobody could hear his neighbour. They scolded and cursed each other; one man gave another man a push, and a fight had begun, when Akúlka's grandmother came out. She stepped in the midst of the peasants, and began to talk to them: