Ilya looked for his uncle with troubled eyes. In front of their cart and behind it stood many waggons; on one, wooden tubs full of milk, on another great baskets of poultry, cucumbers, or onions, bark baskets full of berries, sacks of potatoes. On the waggons and round about them sat or stood peasants and peasant women, and they were people of a strange kind. They spoke loudly with clear intonations and were not dressed in blue linen, but in clothes of gay-coloured calico and bright red cotton. Nearly all of them wore boots, and when a man with a sword at his side, a police officer or sergeant, went up and down past them, they were not in the least disturbed, and did not once salute him, and that seemed very strange to Ilya; he sat on the cart, staring at the lively scene, steeped in bright sunshine, and dreamed of the time when he too should wear boots and a shirt of red cotton. Far off, in the midst of the peasants, uncle Terenti came, as it were, to the surface. He advanced across the deep sand with big, confident strides, and held his head high; his face wore an expression of gaiety, and he smiled at Ilya from a long way off, and stretched out his hand to show him something. "The Lord is good to us, Ilya! Don't be frightened any more! I've found uncle Petrusha straight off. There--catch--get your teeth into that!" and he held out a cake to Ilya. The boy took it almost reverently, put it inside his shirt, and asked anxiously: "Won't they let us into the town?" "They'll let us in this very minute.... The ferry-boats will come and then we'll get over the river." "They'll take us too?" "Of course, we can't stay here." "Oh! and I thought they'd never let us in--and where shall we live over there?" "I don't know yet. The Lord will show us the way." "Perhaps we'll live in the big house there with the red----" "Oh! you silly boy; that's the barracks where the soldiers live." "In that one then--there--that one?" "Hardly, it's a bit too high up for us." "That doesn't matter," said Ilya, in a tone of conviction. "We'll manage to crawl up to it." "Oh you----!" sighed uncle Terenti, and disappeared again somewhere.