“All the same I am very sorry for the poor little boy.”
“Yes, indeed! they live under terrible conditions, but there are people who are still worse off. Are you ready?”
And they went off to Bigman’s Gardens, where dances had been arranged for the evening, and a military band was already playing. The next day Petka started for Moscow by the 7 a.m. train. Again he saw the green fields, grey with the night’s dew, only they did not now run in the same direction as before, but in the opposite. The second-hand school jacket enveloped his thin body, and from the opening at the neck stuck out the corner of a white paper collar. Petka did not turn to the window, indeed, he hardly looked at it, but sat so still and modest, with his little hands primly folded upon his knees. His eyes were sleepy and apathetic, and fine wrinkles, as in the case of an old man, gathered about his eyes and under his nose. Suddenly the pillars and the planks of the platform flashed before the window, and the train stopped.
They pressed through the hurrying crowd, and came out into the noisy street; and the great, greedy city callously swallowed up its little victim.
“Put away the fishing tackle for me,” said Petka, when his mother deposited him at the door of the barber’s shop.
