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135 A Day in a Famine-Stricken Village.
covered with a battered sheepskin cloak. A little girl, about
ten years old, sits at the side, nursing a small child.
" Where is your husband? " I ask, after greeting.
"On the.oven, little father. He will come down
by-and-by."
"And who is that lying sick on the bench over there."
" It is a young girl. She has been ill a long time—it does
not matter; perhaps God will take her away. We dare not
trouble you with her. But that my husband is lying sick—
what shall we do without him? " The woman burst into sobs,
wiping her eyes with her apron.
At the same time the sick man comes scrambling down from
the oven, moaning as he totters with great difficulty to the
bench, and by the aid of his wife sits down by the table, resting
his head on both his hands so that he almost lies across it. His
swollen and pallid face shows extreme weakness. I ask about his
illness. " Sick—all—through," he says, pausing between each
word. "First my limbs ached—my gums pained me—my
whole body began to swell."
Here is a bad case of scorbutus. I approach the sick girl on
the bench to look at her legs. Blue spots on the calves, under
the knees, and on the soles of the feet—here, too, scorbutus.
" How about the little ones, are they well ? "
"Yes, pretty well; they only complain of pain in the gums,
which bleed. I have a bigger boy, who is out begging; he is
well."
" How have you got into such a bad plight? What do you
eat ? Do you get anything from the committee ? "
" We get something, little father, but it is not enough. It
was too little from the first. Then we borrowed. When we
got more from the committee we had first to pay back what we
had borrowed, so that there remained still less than before.
The first week of the month we have enough to still our hunger,
but the other weeks we have to starve. My husband is counted
among the " rabotniki,"* and for the little ones they give
nothing. What have we not eaten ! We dug clay, which we
* " Labourers "—i.e., such as were considered able to work, and did not get
help from tho Governirent.
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