“Hey, will you stop it finally?!” Minaydar raised his head. “I say enough... Why do you waste your breath?!”

“Slander! As I have something to say, it is slander all the time...” wife muttered, overpowering herself.

As Marzhankul barely died down, Minaydar also lost his anger. He was silent for some time and then soothingly said:

“You listen to anyone, that's why I'm angry. There is nothing to quarrel about. I'm not alone, everybody goes there.”

Minaydar finally calmed down after these words. Sensing this, and Marzhankul noticeably softened. Habitually pulling a tuft of wool, she became lay out everything that was on her soul.

“That is right, everyone goes there. And I have nothing against it... But it makes me angry that you gather in the house of Mother Sarah. If there is no other house in aul... All my innards burn when I think about it. Andit turns out, that she, Mother Sarah, said: “My dead husband was of the Hozhalyk. And according to the custom of amenger, I will marry only his neighbor. I do not want to look even on the other chipped.” And at the same time she eats you with eyes, nothing less. She Settled up and stares... That's why I cannot find a place for myself...

Minaydar, lying on his side, laughed out loud, showing his chipped teeth.

“Oh she is a damn woman! I just told that yesterday: “Where are you going, toothless old man?” And today you sing in other way...

“So what, if she said that? Yesterday I went to the father-in law for a piece of coal, and they were sitting and talking there. So I prick up mine ears. I was thinking about what they were talking about... And brother-in-law, yeller, said so slyly: “Minaydar’s teeth are falling out. It is the time for him to learn.” I blushed when I heard that...

Now and Marzhankul laughed.

The couple have forgotten about the recent skirmish and talked as if nothing had happened. They talked, among other things, about the household: that their only horse is really tired, on which they worked all summer, and now it’s worthless; that the gimmer’s meat ended, which they bartered for a single calf. Besides Marzhankul reported that the flour ended and that today she threw the last pinch of tea to the teapot. Then Minaydar decided to take a trip to the city tomorrow.

“How about your study?”

“Oybay-oy, really! How to be now?” Minaydar looked puzzled on his wife.

“While you will be in the city, I will study learn instead of you”, Marzhankul smiled.

“It will not work.”

“Why?”

“Because women are taught separately.”

“And why are women always separated? We will not eat anyone, if will study together! We always infringed...” Marzhankul protested.

Minaydar began to laugh again.

“Did you remember about “slaboda”? Slaboda is differ, my dear. Slaboda does not mean to let the women get out of control.”

“Does studying – mean to get out of control? Then you should not study too!”

“You said so! We are men.”

“And what is the fault of the woman?”

“In the fact that she is a woman. The god humiliated her from creation. And strive to be equal with a man - it is a great sin for her.”

“Oh, come on, my dear! It is all tales. Or you forget that the bespectacled spokesman said in the last election?”

“And what did he say?”

“He said that women and men have equal rights. We can work as you do.”

“Oh, work as we do?.. Do you remember, when I mowed hay with scythe in summer, you hardly had time to rake after me?”

“Do not boast of your strength. We know that men are stronger... Bespectacled then said that women could be even aulnay equal to men.”

“Don't you wish you may get it! I would look how you manage the aul Council...”

“And what? Do you think that I'm worse than a stupid Nesipbay? He can't string several words together, but he is aulnay!”

“Alright! At the next election I will choose you to aulnay. Until then make a tea please.”

Minaydar gladly stretched out, resting his head on the wall. Marzhankul took away the yarn and went to the stove with boiler. She stirred up the ashes with long iron tongs, took out a smoldering firebrand, planted chips and began to inflate the fire. The ash cloud rose to the ceiling.

Minaydar stretched out his hand to the window and took the book in grays cover from the windowsill. It was a textbook for first-class. Recently teacher arrived from the region and organized school in the aul for eradication of illiteracy. Minaydar signed up too. He is thirty four now. Recently his two front teeth fall out, and now because of chipped spot his tongue became visible at the conversation. When Minaydar went to the educational program, his peers were laughing:

 “High time. You will conquer the letter until all of your teeth fall out.”

Minaydar, however, paid little attention to their taunts. Little by little he overcame the resistance of his wife. All his thoughts came down to one: learn to read and to be able to sign.

“Well... I have to blame father. If he taught me in childhood – I could read and write not worse than others now. I would sit now and look at papers”, not once he said wistfully.

He opened the first page and stared in a book. The letters are large and bold. He knows them all separately, but to put them together is very difficult. But stumbling, stammering, with great difficulty, he mastered the first page. Now he went back to re-read it. At first he engaged in individual letters and then began to read the syllables. At full length, he read aloud, "little", and then Marzhankul, who was melting the stove, turned to him and asked puzzled:

“What a little? Wood chips?”

“Oh, gorblimy!” Minaydar grinned and turned to the other side.

Minaydar habitually pick up a book in gray cover every evening after the dinner. Winking and smiling he began to read, moving closer the lamp to himself. Education continued the third month in the campaign against illiteracy. Long ago he mastered the large letters and put them together quite tolerably, but still confused in the fine print.

Marzhankul, removing the dishes and the samovar, was attached as usual with her husband. He put the notebook on the book and grabbed with clumsy, calloused fingers, accustomed to the shovel, pencil and began awkwardly output the gnarled, large letters.

“What is it? Did you scrabble your name again?”

“Here, look: so – “Minaydar Dosakaev”, Minaydar smiled happy.

“And which of them is the name of father in law?”

“This is, bottom...”

Marzhankul stared at the letter for a long time and suddenly asked:

“Write my name.”

Minaydar, heavy snoring, scribbled the name of his wife. It took almost half of the page.

“Give me a pencil. I will try, maybe it will work out...” She lay down on her stomach and began to draw diligently letters.

“Oh, you made too large stick in the letter «М». Not a stick, even the whole squiggle...”

“Sakes alive!, Marzhankul slightly flushed. “You have the same.”

Their heads were in contact. Minaydar suddenly turned and kissed his wife on the cheek.

“There you go...”, Marzhankul muttered feigned and smiled. “You could not bootlick when I'm doing business.”

... The dead night come. The lights went out in all houses, the aul was sleeping. And only in the house of Minaydar the purblind lamp was burning. The couple were learning literacy with enthusiasm, letter by letter, alternately took a textbook in a gray cover. Large printed letters in the tattered little book fun smiled and winked like they were happy that in the Kazakh steppe two such diligent students were found.

1928