"You must take at least two shares and a half.

If you cannot manage it yourself, you can get some one to help you." "How can that be?
Where am I to get the money to pay a labourer ?" asks the woman, with much wailing and a flood of tears.

"Have pity, ye orthodox, on the poor orphans! God will reward you!" and so on, and so on.
I need not worry the reader with a further description of these scenes, which are always very long and sometimes violent.

All present are deeply interested, for the allotment of the land is by far the most important event in Russian peasant life, and the arrangement cannot be made without endless talking and discussion.

After the number of shares for each family has been decided, the distribution of the lots gives rise to new difficulties.