21. Правда, соседняя деревня оказалась далеко, и только к вечеру они довезли Ивана Кузьмича до его деревни.
21. In truth, the neighbouring village turned out to be far (away), and they only got Ivan Kuzmich to (as far as) his village by the evening.
21. Please offer an alternative translation of this sentence.
In English, the position of "only" in a sentence can be rather haphazard, but in Russian, the только is placed immediately before the word/phrase that it directly relates to -- in this case, к вечеру. Thus, the Russian sentence specifically means "[they reached it] only towards the evening", rather than "[they managed to drive] only as far as such-and-such a village." (If the latter meaning were intended, you'd say только до деревни.)

So, I would suggest a translation like:
In truth, the neighbouring village turned out to be far away, and it was only towards evening that [or: "it was nearly evening by the time that...", or "it was not until evening...", etc.] they got Ivan Kuzmich all the way to his village.