The children were not allowed to go even to the edge of the ravine, and this inspired in them a fear of it.

In winter, from tea time to dinner, they played in the house when it was very cold outside, or went out in the yard to slide down the big ice hill.
They had dinner at noon, "in Russian style," as Mayakin said.

At first a big bowl of fat, sour cabbage soup was served with rye biscuits in, but without meat, then the same soup was eaten with meat cut into small pieces; then they ate roast meat--pork, goose, veal or rennet, with gruel--then again a bowl of soup with vermicelli, and all this was usually followed by dessert.

They drank kvass made of red bilberries, juniper-berries, or of bread--Antonina Ivanovna always carried a stock of different kinds of kvass.

They ate in silence, only now and then uttering a sigh of fatigue; the children each ate out of a separate bowl, the adults eating out of one bowl.