The previous evening the children had arranged to go strawberry-picking, and Taráska had promised to call his sisters and little brother as soon as he came back with the horses. He had kept his promise. In the night, sitting under a bush, he had felt extremely sleepy, but now he was wide awake, and decided not to lie down at all, but to go strawberry-picking with the girls. His mother gave him a mug of milk and cut him a chunk of bread, and he sat down on the high bench by the table to eat his breakfast. Then, dressed only in a pair of trousers and a shirt, he hurried along the road, leaving the prints of his bare feet in the dust⁠—which already bore a number of smaller and larger footprints, distinctly showing the imprint of the little toes. Far ahead he could see the girls, like red and white specks against the dark green of the forest. In the evening they had prepared a little jug and a mug to put the berries in; and this morning, after crossing themselves once or twice before the icon, they had run out without breakfast, and without even taking a bit of bread with them. Taráska caught them up near the big forest, just as they turned off the road.