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Levin still kept between the young peasant and the old man. The

old man, who had put on his short sheepskin jacket, was just as

good-humored, jocose, and free in his movements. Among the trees

they were continually cutting with their scythes the so-called

"birch mushrooms," swollen fat in the succulent grass. But the

old man bent down every time he came across a mushroom, picked it

up and put it in his bosom. "Another present for my old woman,"

he said as he did so.