Fortunately the countess came to my rescue with a recital of her
former attempts to clothe hypothetical little girls in yards of
material cut from a train and other superfluous parts of her best
gown until she had been driven to a firm stand which she advised
me to take at once. But neither Countess Tolstoy nor any other
friend was on hand to help me out of my predicament later, when I
was asked who "fed" me, and how did I obtain "shelter"? Upon my
reply that a farm a hundred miles from Chicago supplied me with
the necessities of life, I fairly anticipated the next scathing
question: "So you are an absentee landlord? Do you think you
will help the people more by adding yourself to the crowded city
than you would by tilling your own soil?" This new sense of
discomfort over a failure to till my own soil was increased when
Tolstoy's second daughter appeared at the five-o'clock tea table
set under the trees, coming straight from the harvest field where
she had been working with a group of peasants since five o'clock
in the morning, not pretending to work but really taking the
place of a peasant woman who had hurt her foot. She was plainly
much exhausted, but neither expected nor received sympathy from
the members of a family who were quite accustomed to see each
other carry out their convictions in spite of discomfort and
fatigue.
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