"We are miserable for ever. Our poor little sister is lost. We looked
for her everywhere. We heard the wolves howling. They must have eaten
her."
The old mother and father cried like rivers in springtime, because
they loved the little pretty one, who was called Little Stupid because
she was so good.
But before their tears were dry the bad ones began to ask for the
silver saucer and the transparent apple.
"No, no," says the old man; "I shall keep them for ever, in memory of
my poor little daughter whom God has taken away."
So the bad ones did not gain by killing their little sister.
"That is one good thing," said Vanya.
"But is that all, grandfather?" said Maroosia.
"Wait a bit, little pigeons. Too much haste set his shoes on fire. You
listen, and you will hear what happened," said old Peter. He took a
pinch of snuff from a little wooden box, and then he went on with his
tale.
Time did not stop with the death of the little girl. Winter came, and
the snow with it. Everything was all white, just as it is now. And the
wolves came to the doors of the huts, even into the villages, and no
one stirred farther than he need. And then the snow melted, and the
buds broke on the trees, and the birds began singing, and the sun
shone warmer every dry. The old people had almost forgotten the little
pretty one who lay dead in the forest. The bad ones had not forgotten,
because now they had to do the work, and they did not like that at
all.
And then one day some lambs strayed away into the forest, and a young
shepherd went after them to bring them safely back to their mothers.
And as he wandered this way and that through the forest, following
their light tracks, he came to a little birch tree, bright with new
leaves, waving over a little mound of earth. And there was a reed
growing in the mound, and that, you know as well as I, is a strange
thing, one reed all by itself under a birch tree in the forest. But it
was no stranger than the flowers, for there were flowers round it,
some red as the sun at dawn and others blue as the summer sky.
Well, the shepherd looks at the reed, and he looks at those flowers,
and he thinks, "I've never seen anything like that before. I'll make a
whistle-pipe of that reed, and keep it for a memory till I grow old."
So he did. He cut the reed, and sat himself down on the mound, and
carved away at the reed with his knife, and got the pith out of it by
pushing a twig through it, and beating it gently till the bark
swelled, made holes in it, and there was his whistle-pipe. And then he
put it to his lips to see what sort of music he could make on it. But
that he never knew, for before his lips touched it the whistle-pipe
began playing by itself and reciting in a girl's sweet voice. This is
what it sang:--
"Play, play, whistle-pipe. Bring happiness to my dear father and to my
little mother. I was killed--yes, my life was taken from me in the
deep forest for the sake of a silver saucer, for the sake of a
transparent apple."
When he heard that the shepherd went back quickly to the village to
show it to the people. And all the way the whistle-pipe went on
playing and reciting, singing its little song. And everyone who heard
it said, "What a strange song! But who is it who was killed?"
"I know nothing about it," says the shepherd, and he tells them about
the mound and the reed and the flowers, and how he cut the reed and
made the whistle-pipe, and how the whistle-pipe does its playing by
itself.
And as he was going through the village, with all the people crowding
about him, the old merchant, that one who was the father of the two
bad ones and of the little pretty one, came along and listened with
the rest. And when he heard the words about the silver saucer and the
transparent apple, he snatched the whistle-pipe from the shepherd boy.
And still it sang:--
"Play, play, whistle-pipe! Bring happiness to my dear father and to my
little mother. I was killed--yes, my life was taken from me in the
deep forest for the sake of a silver saucer, for the sake of a
transparent apple."
And the old merchant remembered the little good one, and his tears
trickled over his cheeks and down his old beard. Old men love little
pigeons, you know. And he said to the shepherd,--
"Take me at once to the mound, where you say you cut the reed."
The shepherd led the way, and the old man walked beside him, crying,
while the whistle-pipe in his hand went on singing and reciting its
little song over and over again.
They came to the mound under the birch tree, and there were the
flowers, shining red and blue, and there in the middle of the mound
was the Stump of the reed which the shepherd had cut.
The whistle-pipe sang on and on.
Well, there and then they dug up the mound, and there was the little
girl lying under the dark earth as if she were asleep.
"O God of mine," says the old merchant, "this is my daughter, my
little pretty one, whom we called Little Stupid." He began to weep
loudly and wring his hands; but the whistle-pipe, playing and
reciting, changed its song. This is what it sang:--
"My sisters took me into the forest to look for the red berries. In
the deep forest they killed poor me for the sake of a silver saucer,
for the sake of a transparent apple. Wake me, dear father, from a
bitter dream, by fetching water from the well of the Tzar."
How the people scowled at the two sisters! They scowled, they cursed
them for the bad ones they were. And the bad ones, the two sisters,
wept, and fell on their knees, and confessed everything. They were
taken, and their hands were tied, and they were shut up in prison.
"Do not kill them," begged the old merchant, "for then I should have
no daughters at all, and when there are no fish in the river we make
shift with crays. Besides, let me go to the Tzar and beg water from
his well. Perhaps my little daughter will wake up, as the
whistle-pipe tells us."