You made a large hole in it, and did not buy me another." "You have our scale-beam," cried another woman, "and must give it back to me;" whereupon she seized the scale-beam and tried to remove it from the shoulders of Ivan's wife.
In the melee which followed they upset the pails of water.

They tore the covering from each other's head, and a general fight ensued.
Gavryl's wife had by this time joined in the fracas, and he, crossing the field and seeing the trouble, came to her rescue.
Ivan and his son, seeing that their womenfolk were being badly used, jumped into the midst of the fray, and a fearful fight followed.
Ivan was the most powerful peasant in all the country round, and it did not take him long to disperse the crowd, for they flew in all directions.

During the progress of the fight Ivan tore out a large quantity of Gavryl's beard.
By this time a large crowd of peasants had collected, and it was with the greatest difficulty that they persuaded the two families to stop quarrelling.
This was the beginning.
Gavryl took the portion of his beard which Ivan had torn out, and, wrapping it in a paper, went to the volostnoye (moujiks' court) and entered a complaint against Ivan.
Holding up the hair, he said, "I did not grow this for that bear Ivan to tear out!" Gavryl's wife went round among the neighbors, telling them that they must not repeat what she told them, but that she and her husband were going to get the best of Ivan, and that he was to be sent to Siberia.
And so the quarrelling went on.
The poor old grandfather, sick with asthma and lying on the brick oven all the time, tried from the first to dissuade them from quarrelling, and begged of them to live in peace; but they would not listen to his good advice.

He said to them: "You children are making a great fuss and much trouble about nothing.

I beg of you to stop and think of what a little thing has caused all this trouble.