They knew:
With January, mid-winter time,
Starts the year its frosty prime,
Blows wild the wind e'er yet'tis still,
Crackles the ice in the frozen rill;
Epiphany betimes is past,
Approaches now the Lenten Fast.
In February there's a breath of heat,
Summer and winter at Candlemas meet.
In April the year grows moist and warm the air,
The old folks' lives without their doors bids fair;
The woodcock then comes flying from the sea,
Brings back the Spring from its captivity.
Under a showery sky,
Bloom wide the fields of rye,
Ever blue and chill
May will the granaries fill.
It was necessary to work stubbornly, sternly, in harmony with the
earth, to fight hand-to-hand with the forest, the axe, the plough and
the scythe. They had learnt to keep their eyes wide open, for each
had to hold his own against the wood-spirit, the rumbling forest,
famine, and the marshes. They had learnt to know their Mother-Earth
by the birds, sky, wind, and stars, like those men of whom Yonov the
One-Eyed told them--those who of old wended their way to Chuvsh
tribes and the Murman Forest.
All the Kononovs were built alike, strong, rugged, with short legs
and broad, heavy feet like juniper-roots, long backs, arms that hung
down to their knees, shoulder-blades protruding as though made for
harness, mossy green eyes that gazed with a slow stubborn look, and
noses like earthen whistles.
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