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Show RU5SI1 PEASANTS AMUSE AMERICANS Habits and Customs Are Sources of Unceasing Wonder to Yanks. "VvTTH THE AMERICAN TROOPS' IX NORTH RUSSIA, March 1 (Correspondence (Correspond-ence of the Associated Press.) The habits and customs of the North Russian peasant peas-ant are sources of unceasing wonder to the American soldier. The peasants arc primitive and are content to reside where the average American housewife would roll up her sleeves and spend many days in scrubbing before she would live. In these wooden or log huts hundreds of Yankee infantrymen and engineers are billeted this winter. The Americans, generally speaking, occupy oc-cupy one-half of 'the house and the family fam-ily "the other. The Americans' half is as clean as constant "policing" can make it. But as for the other half, there are chickens, "husky" dogs of the arctic type and from two to four generations of peas- ! ants wandering more or less miscellaneously miscellane-ously about their one or two rooms. "Dut they keep the chickens cooped up part of the day," one Detroit, .Mich., private pri-vate told the Associated Press correspondent. corre-spondent. "You see." he added, ''they only let them out in the morning to 'police' 'po-lice' the kitchen. That's easier than 1 sweeping out." The Russian family's side of all these houses is airtight. U is bitterly cold up here in the forests during the six months' winter, and the peasant doesn't believe in wasting heat. His windows arc sealed up titdit and never, neer opened. He doesn't mind the resultant odor. ?ut thfl x American does, and opens the windows in his side ot tha house, and tne peasant shakes bis head gravely and worries wor-ries for. four his strange khaki-clad guests wiil catch cold. But the American doesn't catch cold, and neither does the peasant, for that matter, in his airtight rooms. Roth systems sys-tems seem to work equally wp!1. since t lie cold weather has really set in, the soldier and civihan populations have both been surpri simply healthy. One ptasnnt hahit Much the American makes countless jokrjs about is as time-honored time-honored and unswervuhie among the Russians Rus-sians as it is strange to the Americans. That is sleeping on the stove. The Russian Rus-sian village stoves aru built of brick or lay or porcelain. They are about as large as an ordinary American bathroom and flat on lop, except where the brick chimney chim-ney pokes through. ,6ne stoUs them once or twice a day. until all the wood ie burned out. and then, closes them up. letting the heated bricks radiate their warmth. Tha flat tops of these stoves arc bed spaces for the eldest or most honored of the families. American officers have surprised many peasant hosts by declining invitations to use these choicest of all beds.- |