The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-10-04

sienment to Barracks-Learning MiI-
 itary Tactics.
 Away on the western slopes of the Ural mountains, near the Vialka river, buried among pine woods. lies the little village of Olkhovka. There Vania Qvan) was born; and there he passed the first twenty-one years of his life.
 He worked with his father in sum mer in the fields, in winter in the woods, and he thought of blue eyed Nataeha, the only daughter of Sidor the Rich. And he was a fine, hand some, upstanding young fellow. Nata- cha thought of him, and they used to meet of an evening in the pine woods near the village and talk of marriage. But one day in autumn Yemelan Ser goviteh, the village bailiff, brought a paper from the distant town, which or dered Vania and four other boys from the village to report themselves to the military chief of the district.
 See him then outside the military de- pot sitting on the ground eating sum- flower seeds, With him are some hundreds of young men from the vil- lages for many miles around, writes tho St. Petersburg correspondent of the London Daily Mail. All are sad and restess ooking loooing. For the Czar that day reaps his harvest of the young manhood of the district The hours go by. Village after village is called, At last Olkhovka is called, and Vania finds himself in a large hall. He is ordered to draw a lot from an urn. He is pushed on further and or dered~ts stsip. A gentleman In spec ataefes pounds his chest and back and says: An, he Is not man; he is an OK for strength" ."'
 Later on he is taken to the church, and the priest makes him swear to be good soldier to obey all orders to fight the internal and external enemy, and to die, if necessary, for the Czar and Holy Russia. With the great mild eyes of some wild creature from his native woods Vania sees all, under stands nothing; one thing only is clear --he has a fortnight at home before joining. As he tramps in the starlight the twenty versts to the village it gfadually breaks in on him that for four years he must go away; perhaps lose Natacha-his little dove Nata. The night wind gently signing in the pine trees has a melancholy sound.
 For almost the whole fortnight he drinks and sings with the two other boys of the oillage wo have been taken Troshka, the odd soldier, tells them many stories; he tells how he, Troshka, went against the Turk, and how their Father the Czar Alexander Nicolaie witch came to the hospital after Plcv ma bent over his bed and pinned the St. Georges Cross on his shirt, ealing him Brave feluw;" and how the whole hospital, and he, Troshka, shouted, "FIooray! Glad to strive for your Im- perial Majesty" Natacha was fearful that in his absence her father would order her to marry another; ~but she would wait; her great tresses and her bright eyes were for Vania alone; but alas! her father was a severe man. So Vania drank and sang the more. Of an evening you would see him about the village, playing his accordion and shouting with the other boys.
 Along the street the large one goes,
 The young blacksmith goes,
 And hO goes, he goes, he goes
 And he goes, he goes, he goes.
 And he goes, he goes, he goes.
 When the time came to leave Vania lmelt down before his father and asked forgiveness for all his heavy sins and was blessed by Holy St. Nicholas the Miraculous and his mother kissed him and signed him with the sign of the Cross, saying: May the Holy Virgin of Kazan protect you! Do not forget your old parents: it is heavy sin; mind 1t, Vanyoosha." And she put a little holy image around his neck to keep away the evil. Meanwhile his sis ters packed his box and put in it shirts and towels and loaves of bread for the journey. Then they all sat down for the jaSt tima under the holy images, and Vania wept.
 At the district town he and some tif ty other picked recruits were placed in railway wagons and sent off to Peters, burg in charge of an escort. For a whole week they travelled on and on. through forests and across immense plains, over great rivers and through towns and villages. Oh, my little Fathers. but the world was very Eig At ast Petersburg. Vania is by no means cear as to what happenel dur in. the next few days; he saw vast crowds and innumerabe carriages and great gentamen and ladies house: inn ynensely bigger than churches, and there was a ceaseless roar of traffic. Vanias head ached and reeled; it was not a world, it was hell UT some dreadful nightmare.
 In the receiving barracks were men speaking al! laanguages--l a Jars, Jews, Poles, Burt2tz and Russians with best boots and red shirts, A. night, in the dark, Vania lay awake and cried. He cried for his home, for the great pine woods, for Nata; and he thought of his fathers sick COW; and won dered how they would do without him at home. He longed, too, for his moth- CT. And this fair haired young giant cried himself to sleep.
 After dinner on the fourth day Vania and some forty other recruits were or dered to take their boxes and go down to the barrack square. There were many soldiers there, in beautiful uni forms, with high red collars. There was a band. An officer came and shouted, Good health, my children!" The soldiers shouted reply. Then an order WIS given, the band played, the T