Their life is a hard one, just like ours."
The mother listening to her stories laughed, and regarded her
affectionately. Tall and dry, Sofya strode along the road lightly
and firmly, at an even gait. In her walk, her words, and the very
sound of her voice--although a bit dull, it was yet bold--in all her
straight and stolid figure, there was much of robust strength,
jovial daring, and thirst for space and freedom. Her eyes looked at
everything with a youthful glance. She constantly spied something
that gladdened her heart with childlike joy.
"See what a splendid pine!" she exclaimed, pointing out a tree
to the mother.
The mother looked and stopped. It was a pine neither higher nor
thicker than others.
"Ye-es, ye-es, a good tree," she said, smiling.
"Do you hear? A lark!" Sofya raised her head, and looked into
the blue expanse of the sky for the merry songster. Her gray eyes
flashed with a fond glance, and her body seemed to rise from the
ground to meet the music ringing from an unseen source in the
far-distant height. At times bending over, she plucked a field
flower, and with light touches of her slender, agile fingers, she
fondly stroked the quivering petals and hummed quietly and prettily.
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