Up to the autumn of 1903 Ivan worked in the fields, bare-headed and blue-bloused, beside his father. The girls worked, too, for the father was lame and needed all the help he could get. He had leaned upon Ivan more and more as the years went by and his son grew from boyhood to sturdy young manhood. Every evening the family knelt before the crucifix on the wall of the living-room, and prayed for themselves, their country, and their "Little Father," the Czar, who spent all his time in far-off St. Petersburg, they were sure, in thinking of his "children," the people of the great Empire, and loving them and planning for their good. In return they almost worshipped him, as they did the figure on the crucifix. "Soon you will have to serve as a soldier, Ivan," said his father one day. The older man had a great tawny beard and mane of hair like a lion's; Ivan resembled him more and more. "That is true, my father." "You are nearly of age." "True, my father." "But," put in his mother anxiously, "surely our boy will not have to fight?" "Nay, Matouschka," said Ivan tenderly but manfully, "if the Czar commands, my life is his!" Two months later he reported at the barracks at Moscow, and was duly enrolled in the 11th Regiment of Infantry, Third Division, First Reserves, of the Imperial Army. At first the novelty was amusing, and Ivan enjoyed the companionship of his comrades in the ranks, the smart uniform and big fur cap, the music of the band, when they paraded in the great square and the crowds gathered to see. But the drill, drill, drill became tedious, and it was with rather a sense of relief that in the latter part of the following January he heard that the regiment was to leave Moscow for the Far East. There was no time to say good-bye to his parents, nor could he have paid his fare to and from the village had permission been given. So Ivan took out his little brass cross, his "ikon," which, like every other Russian soldier, he carried in his bosom, and murmured a prayer for father and sisters and the little mother. Then he buckled on his belt, adjusted his clumsy cap, shouldered his musket and was ready. "Where are we going, comrade?" he asked of his next neighbour in the ranks, as they marched to the railway station. "I do not know. They say there is to be war." "War--against whom?" "The Japanese." "Japanese? Who are they? Are they savages or white like us?" "I can't tell you, Ivan. We shall know when we see them." "Why do we fight against them? Where do they live?" But his comrade could only shrug his shoulders. He had not the least idea of the answer to either question; nor had any man in the company, only a half-dozen of whom could read or write. "It is the Czar's command."