but straw sprinkled with flour. But Chekhov and his family did not lose
heart. Always affectionate, gay and plucky, he cheered the others, work
went ahead, and in less than three months everything in the place was
changed: the house was furnished with crockery; there was the ring of
carpenters' axes; six horses were bought, and all the field work for the
spring had been completed in good time and in accordance with the rules of
agricultural science. They had no experience at all, but bought masses of
books on the management of the land, and every question, however small, was
debated in common.

Their first successes delighted Chekhov. He had thirty acres under rye,
thirty under oats, and fully thirty under hay. Marvels were being done in
the kitchen garden: tomatoes and artichokes did well in the open air. A dry
spring and summer ruined the oats and the rye; the peasants cut the hay in
return for half the crop, and Chekhov's half seemed a small stack; only in
the kitchen garden things went well.

The position of Melihovo on the highroad and the news that Chekhov the
author had settled there inevitably led to new acquaintances. Doctors and
members of the local Zemstvos began visiting Chekhov; acquaintance was made
with the officials of the district, and Chekhov was elected a member of the
Serpuhov Sanitary Council.

At that time cholera was raging in the South of Russia. Every day it came
nearer and nearer to the province of Moscow, and everywhere it found
favourable conditions among the population weakened by the famine of autumn
and winter. It was essential to take immediate measures for meeting the
cholera, and the Zemstvo of Serpuhov worked its hardest. Chekhov as a
doctor and a member of the Sanitary Council was asked to take charge of a
section. He immediately gave his services for nothing. He had to drive