The barn in which we were going to live was filled with rubbish, and had never been cleaned. I applied myself industriously to making it habitable. It was not an easy task, but I finally succeeded. We received a gift of one hundred roubles from Yasha’s parents, and decided to establish a butcher’s shop of our own. We got some lumber and built a small shop. Then Yasha bought three cows and the two of us led them to the slaughter-house, where I learned how to butcher. Yasha ran the shop. I was the first woman butcher in that neighbourhood.
One summer day, while walking in the street, I saw some boys peddling ice-cream. I had learned how to make ice-cream during my apprenticeship with Nastasia Leontievna. It occurred to me that I could make ice-cream and sell it. Finding out from the boys how much they paid for it, I offered them better cream at a lower price and asked them to come for it the next day. I immediately returned home and bought milk from Yasha’s mother, who offered to give it to me without payment upon learning the purpose for which it was intended. The ice-cream I prepared was, happily, very good, and it sold quickly. During the summer I earned two or three roubles daily by this means.
I led a life of peaceful industry with Yasha for about three years. Every morning I would get up at six o’clock and go with him to the slaughter-house. Then all day I would spend at home. There were always many poor people, mostly women and children, stranded in our town, which was the junction of a railway and river route. They would wander about the streets, begging for bread and shelter. The greater number of them would land in our barn-home. At times they would fill it completely, sleeping in rows on the floor. Frequently they were ill. I fed them, washed them, and looked after their children.
Yasha would often remonstrate with me for working so incessantly and so hard. But I had my reward in the gratitude and blessings these women bestowed upon me. There was joy in being able to serve. In addition, I sent regularly to my mother ten roubles (about £1 1s.) a month. Yasha taught me in leisure moments how to read.
My name became a household word in the neighbourhood. Wherever I went I was blessed. “There goes Buk-Botchkareva!” people would point at me, whispering. Yasha’s parents also grew very attached to me.
It all ended one evening in May, 1912. There was a peculiar knock at the door, and Yasha went out to admit a man of about thirty, well dressed, with a beard and pince-nez, of distinguished appearance. He was pale and showed signs of agitation. He stood with Yasha in the passage-way for ten minutes, talking in a whisper. He was then introduced to me as an old friend of Yasha’s. He had escaped from prison and it was our task to hide him, as his capture would mean his death. The unexpected guest was no less a person than the revolutionary who was responsible for the death of a notorious Governor of Siberia.
Yasha proceeded to remove our bed from its corner. He next removed a board in the lower part of the wall, revealing, to my great astonishment, a deep cavity in the ground underneath. Our visitor was invited to make himself comfortable there. The board was replaced and the bed restored to its former position. Yasha and I went to bed.
We had barely put out the light when there was heard a thumping of many feet around the house, followed by loud knocks at the door. It was the police! My heart was in my mouth, but I feigned sleep while Yasha opened the door. He had previously given me his revolver to hide and I concealed it in my bosom. The search continued for nearly two hours. I was dragged out of bed, and everything in the house was turned upside down.
We denied any knowledge of a political fugitive, but the sheriff took Yasha along with him. However, he was released a couple of hours later. Upon his return Yasha let the man out of the secret hole, supplied him with peasant clothes and food, harnessed our horse and drove away with him before dawn, instructing me to answer to all inquiries by saying that he had gone to buy cattle.
On the outskirts of the town a policeman, emerging from some drinking den in a semi-drunken condition, observed Yasha driving by. He attached little significance to the fact at the time, but when he reported for duty in the morning and learned of the fugitive, he said that he had seen Yasha leave the town with a stranger. I was doing some washing when the house was again surrounded by police.