Once his regiment was in the first line; for a whole week the firing was kept up constantly on both sides: the Russian line on this side of the hollow and the Turkish lines just across, and from morning till night the firing was going on. Semen’s officer was also in the front lines, and three times a day, from the regiment kitchens in the hollow, Semen carried the hot samovár and the food. Semen walked through the open space while the bullets whistled over his head and cracked the stones. Semen was afraid, but he went on--wept, and went on. The officers were very much satisfied with Semen’s services: the officers always had their hot tea. Semen returned from the war without a wound, but with a rheumatic pain in his legs and arms. And he had suffered a good deal of sorrow since that time. His old father died soon after his return, then his little son--a boy of four--also died from some throat trouble; and Semen was left alone in the world with his wife. Their work on the little piece of land allotted to them also proved unsuccessful, it being too hard for a man to till the soil with swollen arms and legs. And so they could not get along in their native village, and decided to go into new places in search of better luck. Semen lived with his wife on the Done for some time, and in the Government of Cherson; but they somehow could not get along very well anywhere. At last his wife went into service, and Semen continued his roving life as heretofore. Once he happened to go by rail, and on one station he noticed the station-master, who seemed rather familiar to him. Semen looked at him intently, and the station-master also peered into Semen’s face. They recognized each other: it was an officer of his regiment. “Is it you, Ivanov?” said the man. “Yes, your honor, my very self.” “How did you get here?” And so Semen told him: such and such were the circumstances. “Well, where are you going now?” “I can not say, your honor.” “How is that, you fool, you can not say?” “Just so, your honor, because I have nowhere to go to. I must look for some kind of employment, your honor.” And the station-master looked at him for a moment and fell to thinking, then he said to him: “Well, brother, stay here on the station in the mean time. But it seems to me that you are a married man? Where is your wife?” “Yes, sir, I am married; my wife is serving at the house of a merchant at Kursk.” “Well, then, write to your wife to come here. I shall get a free ticket for her. We will soon have a vacant watch-house here, and I will ask the division-master to give you the place.” “Many thanks, your honor,” replied Semen. And so he remained on the station, helping in the station-master’s kitchen, cutting wood, sweeping the courtyard and the railway platform. In two weeks his wife arrived, and Semen went on a hand-car to his new home.