FROST-BITTEN TOES
There was a great shouting and hurrahing in the court, for the moujiks
had found the sheep and were driving them home. The little boy ran
out to see them come in. They were trembling with cold and looked
very weak, for they had had nothing to eat for two days. They had
been buried under the snow, and it had taken all that time to find
them. They were glad to go into their pen, and the little boy was glad
when his father gave him a pail with food in it and let him help the
moujiks feed them.
The cow-herd woman came to watch. "You should not have come out in
bare feet," she said to the little boy. "Where are your bachmaki?"
"Your feet are bare," replied the little boy.
"I am old and am used to it," said the cow-herd woman. "You will
freeze your toes."
When the sheep were all fed the little boy's toes began to ache, and
he ran into the house. "Keep away from the fire," said his eldest
sister, who was weaving at the loom in the corner. "If you go near
the fire your toes will sting."
The little boy's toes were stinging already, and he began to cry.
"Run away to grandmother," said the eldest sister. "She will warm
your toes with her hands."
The grandmother heard the little boy crying and she came to the door
to see what was the matter, for it makes a grandmother's heart ache
to hear a child's cries. When she saw the bare toes, white with cold,
she gathered the little boy up in her arms and carried him to her
room. There she sat down, far away from the fire, took the cold feet
in her hands and rubbed them to make them warm. Then the little boy
stopped crying.
"They are warm now," he said. "But I don't want to get down. It is
nice in your lap."
"You may sit here while I tell you a story," said the
grandmother. "Then you must get down, for I haven't finished my stint
of spinning."
"I will," said the little boy; and the grandmother told him the
story of
THE MAN, THE HARE, THE FOX, AND THE BEAR
Not far from a Hare's form a Bear once had her den, and Master Lampe
often gave himself the treat of visiting the den in Petz's absence
and teasing the little Petzes.
"You dear little birds," he would say, "do let me hear your enchanting
songs!" And he would spit at them, and make all manner of game of
them into the bargain.
Whenever Mrs. Petz came home the young ones would bitterly complain
how a little Hare had been there making game of them. At this old
Petz waxed very angry, and growled, "Just wait once, wait, Master
Lampe! I'll catch you yet and fling you into a hole."
So Mrs. Petz hid herself in the back of the den, and sure enough
along came Master Lampe and began to tease the young bears. No
sooner did Mrs. Petz hear him than she sprang upon him from her
hiding-place. But, quick as lightning, Lampe was off in the woods,
with Mrs. Petz after him. Lampe fled through bush and brier, Petz
always close upon his heels.
At last Lampe sprang through a cloven tree and Petz followed
him. Unluckily she stuck fast in the narrow cleft and, do what she
would, she could not escape from her prison.
Presently a Man came along, and Mrs. Petz implored him thus:
"Ah, Man, do set me free! I know where there is a hollow tree full
of honey in the forest; you could bring a great cask and fill it as
full as you like."
"Are you telling the honest truth?" asked the Man.
"The honest truth," replied Mrs. Petz. "I can make you rich in honey,
and all I have to say is to give you this warning: Never, if you love
your own life, do you tell a living soul how a miserable little Hare
made a fool of a strong She-bear."
The Man promised her, trust and true, and lifting his axe he struck
a blow at the cloven tree. The tree fell apart, Petz was again free,
and she at once led the Man to the honey-tree. The Man returned home,
yoked up his oxen, put a cask in the cart, and went to the wood for
the honey. When he had filled the cask he returned home.
Meantime it had grown dark, and Petz crept noiselessly behind the
cart and crouched down under the peasant's window, saying to herself,
"Just wait, you fellow, till I listen a little!"
The Man brought the cask of honey into the house, and the children,
seeing the prize, crowded around the father with questions. "O little
father, where did you get that honey?"
"I found it in the forest, dear children."
Then the wife put in her word. "Tell me, father, how did you come by
so much honey?"
And the Man replied, "Oh, don't bother me! It was an old trotter
of a Bear that was chasing a little Hare and got stuck fast in the
cleft of a tree. Then I came along and helped her out of the scrape,
and for thanks she showed me the hollow tree where the honey was. So
I brought it home. But it served her right, the lazy old fat tramper;
what business had she chasing a Hare?"
Mrs. Petz did not lose a word of all this, and she growled to herself,
"Just wait once, wait! I'll be even with you with a vengeance for
jeering at me."
She went away home, and presently the Man, wife, and children all
went to bed. Early next morning the Man got up and went out to till
his field. He yoked his oxen, filled a sack with grain, put it and
a plough into the cart, and with a "Gee-up, you oxen!" set out for
his field, which lay on the edge of the forest. He was just about to
begin ploughing when Mrs. Petz came along.
"Oho, cousin, so there you are! Didn't you promise me, trust and true,
not to say a word to mortal soul of what had happened to me, and didn't
you go home and tell the whole story to your wife and children? Hey?"
But the Man replied, "Friend, what an idea! I haven't said a word to
any one."
"Silence!" interrupted the Bear. "I was listening under your window."
Then the Man thought to himself, "Well, the cat is out of the bag,
sure enough. She knows the whole story."
"And now," said Mrs. Petz, "it is all up with you."
Now little Master Reinecke was listening to all this, and he rustled
in the bushes with his tail, and cried:
Man, Man!
Wit in the head
And a club in the hand!
For, in fact, the moujik had a mighty ox-goad in his hand, and he stood
there quaking with fear of the enraged She-bear, and trying to contrive
how he should get out of the scrape. Reinecke never stopped crying:
Man, Man!
Wit in the head
And a club in the hand!
At this a bright thought struck the Man, and he resolved to try his
luck. So he poured the grain from his sack upon the ground and said
to Petz:
"I am a pious Christian and have not yet prepared for death, either
by confession or penance. So do you, Mrs. Petz, step into this sack,
and as penance for all my sins I will carry you around the field,
heavy as you are. When I have gone around the field two or three
times with you on my back, you may do with me what you like."
"Gracious Heaven," cried Mrs. Petz, "how high I shall hold my head
when people say that a man carried me around upon his shoulders!" But
scarcely had she crawled into the sack when the Man tied it up tight
and belabored her head with his ox-goad until she gave up the ghost.
Then Reinecke stepped up to the Man and asked, "And what am I to get,
Man, for the good counsel I gave you?"
"What shall I give you?" asked the Man. "Will you have geese?"
"No."
"Ducks?"
"No."
"Hens?"
"No."
"Then what the mischief do you want?"
"I want to bite off your nose."
At this the man thought to himself, "What the dickens! How should I
look going around without a nose?"
Cold sweat broke out all over him, and he cried aloud in
agony. Reinecke heard him, and said, "Oho, what does this mean?"
The Man gave a second and a third cry; it startled the Master, and
he asked, "Now what's all this about?"
"Oh, nothing," replied the Man; "only last evening I fed nine
hunting-dogs, and they are trying with all their might to get out!"
But Reinecke interrupted him: "The cuckoo take your nose and all the
rest of you, only don't let your hunting-dogs come out here until I
have put my hide in safety!" And away he went, across lots and out
of sight.
So the Man saved his nose, and full of joy he went home that night,
carrying Petz with him.
"Master Reinecke wasn't so clever that time," said the little boy.
"He is not always clever," said the grandmother. "But he was very
clever when he took revenge on Isegrim."
"Oh, tell me that, tell me that!" cried the little boy.
"Not now," said the grandmother. "Did I not tell you that I had not
done my stint of spinning? Come this evening after supper and I will
tell you. Now run away home."