Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories Part 69

"I am a different devil," he said. "My brother was here before. I was with your brother s.e.m.e.n."

"I do not care who you are," he replied, "you will catch it, too."

He wanted to strike him against the ground, but the devil began to beg him:

"Let me go, and I will not do it again, and I will do for you anything you please."

"What can you do?"

"I can make soldiers for you from anything."

"What good are they?"

"You can turn them to any use you please: they will do anything."

"Can they play music?"

"They can."

"All right, make them for me!"

And the devil said:

"Take a sheaf of rye, strike the lower end against the ground, and say: 'By my master's command not a sheaf shall you stand, but as many straws as there are so many soldiers there be.'"

Ivan took the sheaf, shook it against the ground, and spoke as the devil told him to. And the sheaf fell to pieces, and the straws were changed into soldiers, and in front a drummer was drumming, and a trumpeter blowing the trumpet. Ivan laughed.

"I declare," he said, "it is clever. This is nice to amuse the girls with."

"Let me go now," said the devil.

"No," he said, "I will do that with threshed straw, and I will not let full ears waste for nothing. I will thresh them first."

So the devil said:

"Say, 'As many soldiers, so many straws there be! With my master's command again a sheaf it shall stand.'"

Ivan said this, and the sheaf was as before. And the devil begged him again:

"Let me go now!"

"All right!" Ivan caught him on the cart-hurdle, held him down with his hand, and pulled him off the fork. "G.o.d be with you!" he said.

The moment he said, "G.o.d be with you," the devil bolted through the earth, as a stone plumps into the water, and only a hole was left.

Ivan went home, and there he found his second brother. Taras and his wife were sitting and eating supper. Taras the Paunch had not calculated right, and so he ran away from his debts and came to his father's. When he saw Ivan, he said:

"Ivan, feed me and my wife until I go back to trading!"

"All right," he said, "stay with us!"

Ivan took off his caftan, and seated himself at the table.

But the merchant's wife said:

"I cannot eat with a fool. He stinks of sweat."

So Taras the Paunch said:

"Ivan, you do not smell right, so go and eat in the vestibule!"

"All right," he said, and, taking bread, he went out. "It is just right," he said, "for it is time for me to go and pasture the mare for the night."

V.

That night Taras's devil got through with his job, and he went by agreement to help out his comrades,--to get the best of Ivan the Fool.

He came to the field and tried to find his comrades, but all he saw was a hole in the ground; he went to the meadows, and found a tail in the swamp, and in the rye stubbles he found another hole.

"Well," he thought, "evidently some misfortune has befallen my comrades; I must take their place, and go for the fool."

The devil went forth to find Ivan. But Ivan was through with the field, and was chopping wood in the forest.

The brothers were not comfortable living together, and they had ordered the fool to cut timber with which to build them new huts.

The devil ran to the woods, climbed into the branches, and did not let Ivan fell the trees. Ivan chopped the tree in the right way, so that it might fall in a clear place; he tried to make it fall, but it came down the wrong way, and fell where it had no business to fall, and got caught in the branches. Ivan made himself a lever with his axe, began to turn the tree, and barely brought it down. Ivan went to chop a second tree, and the same thing happened. He worked and worked at it, and brought it down. He started on a third tree, and again the same happened.

Ivan had expected to cut half a hundred trunks, and before he had chopped ten it was getting dark. Ivan was worn out. Vapours rose from him as though a mist were going through the woods, but he would not give up. He chopped down another tree, and his back began to ache so much that he could not work: he stuck the axe in the wood, and sat down to rest himself.

The devil saw that Ivan had stopped, and was glad:

"Well," he thought, "he has worn himself out, and he will stop soon. I will myself take a rest," and he sat astride a bough, and was happy.

But Ivan got up, pulled out his axe, swung with all his might, and hit the tree so hard from the other side that it cracked and came down with a crash. The devil had not expected it and had no time to straighten out his legs. The bough broke and caught the devil's hand. Ivan began to trim, and behold, there was a live devil. Ivan was surprised.

"I declare," he said, "you are a nasty thing! Are you here again?"

"I am not the same," he said. "I was with your brother Taras."

"I do not care who you are,--you will fare the same way." Ivan swung his axe, and wanted to crush him with the back of the axe.

The devil began to beg him:

"Do not kill me,--I will do anything you please for you."

"What can you do?"

"I can make as much money for you as you wish."