A FEW GLIMPSES INTO RUSSIA 



247 



eases spread every summer. This priest 

 decided to find a way for the people re- 

 siding there to get good water. He knew 

 the country well, having lived there all 

 his life ; he knew of small streams and 

 hrooks around the town, and he had an 

 idea of connecting the various streams 

 and brooks into one large stream and of 

 finding means of establishing something 

 like a primitive pipe-line to bring' pure 

 water to the town. 



So he and his man-servant started to 

 work. They were digging ditches and 

 working on the scheme every day for five 

 years. Then, finally, they succeeded in 

 connecting some of these streams and 

 rivers and establishing a pond of very 

 clear and fine water. The priest went 

 here and there trying to get the rich peo- 

 ple to build pipes. 



In the meantime he procured and stud- 

 ied books on hydraulics and was able to 

 draw up quite an elaborate plan of sew- 

 age disposal for the town. He struggled 

 eight years more. Nobody would listen 

 to him. The rich were not interested be- 

 cause they could send their horses and 

 have their water brought to them in bar- 

 rels from a stream ten miles away. Only 

 the poor people suffered. Finally, after 

 persisting for eighteen years, this priest 

 found means of getting a few thousand 

 dollars and bringing water to the town. 



All the children of this priest went to 

 the city. His older son w r as a doctor in 

 Petrograd ; his eldest daughter studied 

 medicine in the University of Moscow ; 

 one of his daughters was in the Univer- 

 sity of Lausanne, Switzerland, and the 

 voungest in the high school in the town. 

 The father had written two books on re- 

 ligion. 



an erudite; shoemaker 



There was another man in the town, a 

 shoemaker, who lived in a suburb on the 

 other side of the river. Once this man 

 came to our house and announced that 

 he was a shoemaker ; perhaps we would 

 have some work for him. Yes, work was 

 given him ; but he would not go away, 

 and everybody saw that he wanted to tell 

 something, which he either did not know 

 how to tell or did not dare to tell. 



Finally he said : "I heard you have 



many books." "Yes, what about it?" He 

 said: "It is so nice to have many books." 

 "Yes." "I am very fond of books." And 

 after a pause he said : "Do you have 

 books on astronomy?" We were all sur- 

 prised. We asked him why particularly 

 on astronomy, and he said : "Because 

 that's what I am especially interested 

 in." He was taken to the library and a 

 popular pamphlet on astronomy was 

 given him. He looked at it and said: 

 "Oh, no ; that is for children." Another 

 book was given him — also a popular book. 

 "Oh, that I have read long ago." Still 

 another book was given to him, "The 

 Astronomical Evenings of Klein." "Oh, 

 yes ; that's a fine book, but I have read 

 it." 



Then he was asked to be seated, and 

 we questioned him : "But how is it that 

 you, a shoemaker, have such an interest 

 in astronomy, and where did you learn 

 even to read?" He said: "Until I was 

 seventeen I could not read or write. I 

 had no schooling; there was no school in 

 the village where I was born, but I al- 

 ways wanted to know things ; and ever 

 since I was a child I have wanted to 

 know about the skies and the stars, and 

 when I was small I decided that when I 

 grew up I would begin to learn to read 

 and to read something about the stars. 



A COBBEER ASTRONOMER 



"At the age of sixteen I came to this 

 town and there was a student who had 

 come from the city, the deacon's son. He 

 stayed all summer, and I told him : 'You 

 know so much and I know nothing,' and 

 he taught me to read, and it was so nice 

 to know how to read. It was like speak- 

 ing constantly to a clever man, and I 

 found that you can dispute with books as 

 with living persons. I would read a book 

 and then, nights I would dream about it, 

 and if there was something I could not 

 understand in the book and if something 

 puzzled me, and if I couldn't agree with 

 something written in the book, I would 

 dispute the whole night in my dreams 

 with the author, and I almost would hear 

 him talking to me. 



"I always tried to get the picture of the 

 author of every book I read so that I 

 might know his face, and his eves, and see 



