telegraph wires, scream like the baby, and try to wake them.

"Hush-a-bye, my baby wee, and I will sing a song to thee," murmurs
Varka, and now she sees herself in a dark stuffy hut.

Her dead father, Yefim Stepanov, is tossing from side to side on
the floor. She does not see him, but she hears him moaning and
rolling on the floor from pain. "His guts have burst," as he says;
the pain is so violent that he cannot utter a single word, and can
only draw in his breath and clack his teeth like the rattling of a
drum:

"Boo--boo--boo--boo. . . ."

Her mother, Pelageya, has run to the master's house to say that
Yefim is dying. She has been gone a long time, and ought to be back.
Varka lies awake on the stove, and hears her father's "boo--boo--boo."
And then she hears someone has driven up to the hut. It is a young
doctor from the town, who has been sent from the big house where
he is staying on a visit. The doctor comes into the hut; he cannot
be seen in the darkness, but he can be heard coughing and rattling
the door.

"Light a candle," he says.

"Boo--boo--boo," answers Yefim.

Pelageya rushes to the stove and begins looking for the broken pot
with the matches. A minute passes in silence. The doctor, feeling
in his pocket, lights a match.