You'll study during the winter and in spring I'll take you along with me on the Volga." "Will I go to school ?" asked Foma, timidly.
"First you'll study at home with auntie." Soon after the boy would sit down near the table in the morning and, fingering the Slavonic alphabet, repeat after his aunt: "Az, Buky, Vedy." When they reached "bra, vra, gra, dra" for a long time the boy could not read these syllables without laughter.

Foma succeeded easily in gaining knowledge, almost without any effort, and soon he was reading the first psalm of the first section of the psalter: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly." "That's it, my darling! So, Fomushka, that's right!" chimed in his aunt with emotion, enraptured by his progress.
"You're a fine fellow, Foma!" Ignat would approvingly say when informed of his son's progress.

"We'll go to Astrakhan for fish in the spring, and toward autumn I'll send you to school!" The boy's life rolled onward, like a ball downhill.

Being his teacher, his aunt was his playmate as well.

Luba Mayakin used to come, and when with them, the old woman readily became one of them.
They played at "hide and seek" and "blind man's buff;" the children were pleased and amused at seeing Anfisa, her eyes covered with a handkerchief, her arms outstretched, walking about the room carefully, and yet striking against chairs and tables, or looking for them in each and every commodious corner, saying: "Eh, little rascals.