Select the correct text in the passage.
Which sentence in the
excerpt best supports the theme of harmonious living?
A Spark Neglected Burns the House
by Leo Tolstoy (adapted excerpt)
There once lived in a village a peasant named tván Stcherbakóf. He was comfortably off, in the prime of life, the best worker in the village, and
had three sons all able to work. The eldest was married, the second about to marry. and the third was a big lad who could mind the horses and
was already beginning to plough. Iván's wife was an able and thrifty woman, and they were fortunate in having a quiet. hard-working daughter-
in-law. There was nothing to prevent Ivän and his family from living happily. They had only one idle mouth to feed: that was Iván's old father.
who suffered from asthma and had been lying ill for seven years. Iván had all he needed: three horses and a colt, a cow with a calf, and fifteen
sheep. The women made all the clothing for the family, besides helping in the fields, and the men tilled the land. They always had grain enough
of their own to last over beyond the next harvest and sold enough oats to pay the taxes and meet their other needs. So tván and his children
might have lived quite comfortably had it not been for a feud between him and his next-door neighbor. Limping Gabriel, the son of Gordéy
Ivänof.
As long as old Gordéy was alive and Iván's father was still able to manage the household, the peasants lived as neighbors should. if the women
of either house happened to want a sieve or a tub, or the men required a sack, or if a cart-wheel got broken and could not be mended at once,
they used to send to the other house, and helped each other in neighborly fashion. When a calf strayed into the neighbor's thrashing-ground,
they would just drive it out, and only say. "Don't let it get in again: our grain is lying there." And such things as locking up the barns and
outhouses, hiding things from one another, or backbiting were never thought of in those days.
That was in the fathers* time. When the sons came to be at the head of the familles, everything changed.