His living-rooms, the kitchen, the shop, and the granary, where formerly his liquor-trade had been carried on, constituted a single mass under one iron roof. On three sides the straw-thatched sheds of the cattle-yard were closely connected with it, and a pleasing quadrangle was thus obtained. The porch and all the windows faced the south. But the view was cut off by the grain-sheds, which stood opposite the windows and across the road. To the right was the railway station, to the left the highway. Beyond the highway was a small grove of birches. And when Tikhon Ilitch felt out of sorts, he went out on the highway. It ran southward in a white winding ribbon from hillock to hillock, ever following the fields in their declivities and rising again toward the horizon from the faraway watchtower, where the railway, coming from the southeast, intersected it. And if anyone of the Durnovka peasants chanced to be driving to Ulianovka—one of the more energetic and clever, that is, such as Yakoff, whom everyone called Yakoff Mikititch because he was greedy, and held fast to his little store of grain a second year, and owned three excellent horses—Tikhon Ilitch stopped him.
“You might buy yourself a cheap little cap with a visor, at least!” he shouted to Yakoff, with a grin.
Yakoff, in a peakless cap, hemp-crash shirt, and trousers of heavy striped linen, was sitting barefoot on the side-rail of his springless cart.
“ ’Morning, Tikhon Ilitch,” he said, staidly.
“ ’Morning! I tell you, ’tis time you sacrificed your round cap for a jackdaw’s nest!”
Yakoff, grinning shrewdly earthwards, shook his head.