In the winter of the same year his long-cherished dream was realized: he
bought himself an estate. It was in the province of Moscow, near the hamlet
of Melihovo. As an estate it had nothing to recommend it but an old, badly
laid out homestead, wastes of land, and a forest that had been felled. It
had been bought on the spur of the moment, simply because it had happened
to turn up. Chekhov had never been to the place before he bought it, and
only visited it when all the formalities had been completed. One could
hardly turn round near the house for the mass of hurdles and fences.
Moreover the Chekhovs moved into it in the winter when it was under snow,
and all boundaries being obliterated, it was impossible to tell what was
theirs and what was not. But in spite of all that, Chekhov's first
impression was favourable, and he never showed a sign of being
disappointed. He was delighted by the approach of spring and the fresh
surprises that were continually being revealed by the melting snow.
Suddenly it would appear that a whole haystack belonged to him which he had
supposed to be a neighbour's, then an avenue of lime-trees came to light
which they had not distinguished before under the snow. Everything that was
amiss in the place, everything he did not like, was at once abolished or
altered. But in spite of all the defects of the house and its surroundings,
and the appalling road from the station (nearly nine miles) and the lack of
rooms, so many visitors came that there was nowhere to put them, and beds
had sometimes to be made up in the passages. Chekhov's household at this
time consisted of his father and mother, his sister, and his younger
brother Mihail. These were all permanent inmates of Melihovo.

As soon as the snow had disappeared the various duties in the house and on
the land were assigned: Chekhov's sister undertook the flower-beds and the
kitchen garden, his younger brother undertook the field work. Chekhov
himself planted the trees and looked after them. His father worked from
morning till night weeding the paths in the garden and making new ones.